Information, Medium & Society: Nineteenth International Conference on Publishing Studies

Abstract

This paper analyzes the paradoxes of women identifications with womanhood within the punk sub-culture by combining the study of contemporary media practices with popular culture and feminisms. Specifically, this project explores the (re)appearance of themes pertaining to race, gender, and sexuality in sub-cultural productions of hypertext. In doing so, I argue for the imperative role Do-It-Yourself (DIY) electronic zines (ezines) play in hypertext histories and emerging forms of creative publishing and documenting that blend human social interaction and algorithm-led language to impact makers’ techno-cognitive behaviors and vice versa. This study bridges the gap between the arguments of medium theorists like Ted Nelson and George Landow, who collectively look at the social and psychological impacts of new media, with feminist theorists like Uri McMillan and Sarah Ahmed, who consider the role of women of color in archival history. Drawing from Landlow’s Hypertext 3.0, this paper brings together literary theory and computer technology to explore the implications of giving readers instant access to a virtual library of sources as well as unprecedented control of what and how they read via hypertext. Then, I apply McMillan’s discussion in Embodied Avatars as a lens for reading racialized, gendered, and sexualized objecthood as a method whereby the risk-taking practices of Black women have historically “recalculated” the possibilities of liberatory alternatives. In sum, this project considers the role of networked publics in affecting the ways that contemporary coalitional feminisms make meaning as well as their effects on the broader digital culture.