The Body And the Screen ─ Theories of Internet Spectatorship

Internet and computer users are often represented onscreen as active andempowered--as in AOL's striding yellow figure and the interface hand that appears to manipulatesoftware and hypertext links. In The Body and the Screen Michele White suggests that users can moreproperly be understood as spectators rendered and regulated by technologies and representations, forwhom looking and the mediation of the screen are significant aspects of engagement. Drawing onapparatus and feminist psychoanalytic film theories, art history, gender studies, queer theory,critical race and postcolonial studies, and other theories of cultural production, Whiteconceptualizes Internet and computer spectatorship and provides theoretical models that can beemployed in other analyses. She offers case studies and close visual and textual analysis of theconstruction of spectatorship in different settings.White shows that despite the onscreen promise ofempowerment and coherence (through depictions of materiality that structure the experience),fragmentation and confusion are constant aspects of Internet spectatorship. She analyzesspectatorship in multi-user object-oriented settings (MOOs) by examining the textual process oflooking and gazing, contrasts the experiences of the women's webcam spectator and operator,describes intentional technological failures in net art, and considers ways in which traditionalconceptions of artistry, authorship, and production techniques persist in Internet and computersettings (as seen in the creation of virtual environment avatars and in digital imaging art).Finally, she analyzes the physical and psychic pain described by male programmers in Internet forumsas another counternarrative to the common tale of the empowered user. Spectatorship, White argues,not only affects the way specific interfaces are understood but also helps shape larger conceptionsof self and society.

Michele White is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Tulane University.