Cyberspaces of Loneliness

Editie in limba engleza.

Targeted at a readership of undergraduate and graduate students in the fields related to arts, media, anthropology and sociology with regional focus, international or inter-cultural exchanges, economics and politics of mass entertainment, gender and masculinity studies in interdisciplinary approach as well as regular citizens searching for information on the dynamics of late-modern societies, the ideas outlined in this volume are the result of a three-year empiric-phenomenological fieldwork in the slippery domain of virtual inter-gender interactions as well as in-depth literature research on new media, masculinity studies and entertainment industry, which moved during the last three years from an international perspective towards a more specific focus on Japan.

Nowadays, it is an open secret that online interactions represent the main way for men and women to socialize, to get to know each other and, if circumstances allow it, to pursue some sort of romantic relationship. As it is described in great detail throughout the chapters, a constant trend from real-life inter-human interactions towards the cyberspaces which provide the illusion of safety through anonymity and disengagement is painfully observable in the last ten to fifteen years in all post-industrialized, service-based societies of late modernity - and consistently spreading worldwide.