The Cyborgology blog turns one today! [our first post]

We are thrilled with the blog’s success and the community that has grown around it. It has been exciting to see the increase in page views, high quality comments, and discussions on sites like Twitter and Facebook. The Faux-Vintage photo essay took on a life of its own and a recent post on Chomsky was rewritten for Salon.com (here). The blog has advanced a theoretical position we call “augmented reality,” positioned art as theoretically significant, focused on social justice issues and has played host to much audio and video from a range of events. The highlight was watching this community come to life at the Theorizing the Web conference that grew out of the blog.

We began Cyborgology to fill a void we observed in popular and academic discourse: conversations about technology often lacked theory, and theoretical debate often neglects technology.

Since we created the blog 365 days ago, there have been 289 posts on the intersection of technology and society.

And we did not do it alone.

Three regular contributors, David Banks, Jenny Davis, and Dave Strohecker have joined our team and made many wonderful contributions. We have received guest posts from many authors, including George Ritzer, Jessie Daniels, E. Cabell Hankinson Gathman, Marc Smith, Francesca Tanmizi, Dan Greene, Bonnie Stewart, William Yagatich, and Sarah Wanenchak,  as well as innumerable thoughtful comments from a range of readers including Patricia Hill Collins, Amber Case, Jeff Jarvis, Bruce Sterling, and Siva Vaidhyanathan. Posts have been spun off as content for venues including Salon.com, the Boston Globe, and NPR.

The posts receiving the most page views  October 2010 – 2011 were:

1. The Faux-Vintage Photo: Full Essay (Parts I, II and III)

2. Surveillance & Entertainment: A Panopticon in the Clouds

3. George Orwell and the “Like” Button

4. The Rise of the Internet (Anti)-Intellectual?

5. Recap: Social Media and Egypt’s Revolution

6. Facebook Narcissism?

7. Digital Dualism versus Augmented Reality

8. An Introduction to Body Modification: The New Cyborg Body

9. WikiLeaks and our Liquid Modernity

10. Audio from danah boyd’s TtW2011 Keynote

 

The most commented on posts from October 2010 – 2011 were:

1. The Faux-Vintage Photo: Full Essay (Parts I, II and III)

2. The Rise of the Internet (Anti)-Intellectual?

3. Digital Dualism versus Augmented Reality

4. Life Becomes Picturesque: Facebook and the Claude Glass

5. The Problem with Americans Elect 2012

6. Chat: Noam Chomsky Getting Social Media All Wrong

7. Rethinking Privacy and Publicity on Social Media: Part I

8. Jeff Jarvis and Multiple Identities: A Critique

9. Augmented Revolution

10. Recap: Social Media and Egypt’s Revolution

 

The most viewed posts by author from October 2010 – 2011 were:

David Banks: Surveillance & Entertainment: A Panopticon in the Clouds

Jenny Davis: Digital-Physical Embodiment & the Kiss Transmission Device

Nathan Jurgenson: The Faux-Vintage Photo: Full Essay (Parts I, II and III)

PJ Rey: Recap: Social Media and Egypt’s Revolution

Dave Strohecker: An Introduction to Body Modification: The New Cyborg Body

 

The posts receiving the most comments by author from October 2010 – 2011 were:

David Banks: The Problem with Americans Elect 2012

Jenny Davis: Active and Passive Cyborgs

Nathan Jurgenson: The Faux-Vintage Photo: Full Essay (Parts I, II and III)

PJ Rey: Recap: Social Media and Egypt’s Revolution

Dave Strohecker: New Technology and the Zombification of Higher Ed.

 

We would like to thank Jon Smajda for maintaining thesocietypages.org and helping us with all our technical needs. And, we are especially indebted to our designer, Ned Drummond, for donating her creative skills to creating the look and feel of Cyborgology.

Most importantly, we would like to thank everyone who reads this blog!

We have plenty in store for the next 12 months…