SOCIAL DIGITAL HERMENEUTICS OF CYBER-TEXTS

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SOCIAL DIGITAL HERMENEUTICS OF CYBER-TEXTS

Journal Title: Гуманітарний часопис - Year 2016, Vol 1, Issue 2

Abstract

Bataeva Katheryna SOCIAL DIGITAL HERMENEUTICS OF CYBER-TEXTS The paper presents analysis of main principles of explanation and understanding used in social digital hermeneutics that studies peculiarities of cyber-texts. Social digital hermeneutics is hermeneutics that specifies conditions for understanding social actions manifested in texts on-line. Since there are different modes of work in cyberspace divided into on-line and off-line modes each of which has its own characteristics, then we can talk about different kinds of hermeneutics studying conditions of understanding texts created online or off-line. In our study, we focus on hermeneutics that studies electronic texts on-line. Social digital hermeneutics cannot take into consideration the temporal distance because it does not exist with respect to cyber-texts: «after a while» cyber-text ceases to exist giving place to other cyber-texts. Thus, new conditions for understanding appear in the social digital hermeneutics. Since the electronic texts do not exist as a «ready intellectual product», they can be understood only in the case of being their co-author. In social hermeneutics on-line, the method of congenial intuition (proposed by F. Schleiermacher and W. Dilthey) cannot be used since there is no personalized Author in cyberspace, there are no real personality into internal world of which one could «get used into». As a result of simulation of cyber-communication whose members act using nicknames that experiment with their sexual, social, age, and image identity, it becomes essentially impossible to access the true identity hidden behind virtual masks and to intuitively understand its internal-psychological state. Interpretive practices that can be used in the social hermeneutics on-line can be divided into two groups: 1) those implementing the strategy of explanation and 2) those implementing the strategy of understanding. In the process of explaining the action-in-text, an interpreter can, first, conduct linguistic analysis of cyber-text using syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic approaches. Secondly, one can carry out discourse analysis of cyber-actor messages. Through discourse analysis, the interpreter can try to figure out how cyber-actors perform their discursive practices, what is the nature of their discursive activity, what influences it and, conversely, what impact it may have on other communicators. Discourse analysis is closely linked to a third explanatory model of cyber-text analysis – an analysis of social practices realized in cyberspace that can be studied by means, for example, ethnomethodological approach. One of the main tasks of ethnomethodology on-line is execution of decoding activities aimed at the detection of social and cultural codes/rules/norms governing behavior of cyber-actors. The interpretive practices of social hermeneutics on-line which can be used at the level of cyber-text understanding are described. According to P. Ricoeur, in a situation of understanding the sense intentions of a particular text, you can use three interpretive methods: psychoanalytic (studying «archeology of subject»); phenomenological (exploring «teleology of the subject») and eschatological (exploring trans-historical, religious subject existence). These methods of interpretation can be used in social hermeneutics on-line with certain limitations. The psychoanalytic interpretation of actions-in-text of cyber-actors can give only indirect imagination about their underlying motivations, because in cyberspace there are no real persons but there are their «virtual twins» who pose themselves under nicknames, with fictional life stories, with theatrical self-presentations. Meanwhile, it can be assumed that in social hermeneutics on-line it is possible to practice a new method of psychoanalytic work – psychoanalysis of fictional characters and fortunes. Indirectly, such analytical practice can reveal the content of the psychological characteristics of real persons hiding under nicknames: the choice of behavior line by cyber-actors, preferences they have to some way of theatrical self-presentation in the Internet space can tell a lot about their secret desires and hidden interests. The described interpretative practices of social hermeneutics on-line can be used either separately or in some combination. Of course, they do not exhaust all possible interpretative approaches to cyber-texts showing only a certain intentional vectors of analysis that allow detecting structural specificity of cyber-texts.

Authors and Affiliations

Катерина Батаєва

Keywords

Keywords: social digital hermeneutics strategy of understanding strategy of explanation temporal distance deconstruction. Ключові слова: соціальна диґітальна герменевтика стратегія розуміння стратегія пояснення часова дистанція деконструкція.

EP ID EP565866
DOI -
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