Cities are an important symbol of our contemporary era. They are not just
places of commerce, but are emblems of the people who live within them. A
significant feature of cities are their meeting places; areas that have
either been designed or appropriated by the people. An example of this is
the café. Cafés hold a unique place in history, as sites that have witnessed
the growth of revolution, relationships great and small, between people and
ideas, and more recently, technology.
Computers are transcending their place in the private home or office and are
now finding their way into café culture. What I am suggesting is that this
is bringing about a new way of understanding how cafés foster community and
act as media for social interaction. To explore this idea further I will
look at the historical background of the café, particularly within Parisian
culture.
For W. Scott Haine, cities such as Paris have highly influential abilities.
As he points out "the Paris milieu determined the consciousness of workers
as much as their labor" (114). While specifically related to Paris, Haine is
highlighting an important aspect in the relationship between people and the
built environment. He suggests that buildings and streets are not just
inanimate objects, but structures that shape our habits and our beliefs.
Towards the middle of the nineteenth century, Paris was developing a new
cultural level, referred to as Bohemia. Derived from the French word for
Gypsy (Seigel 5) it was used to denote a class of people who in the eyes of
Honoré de Balzac were the talent of the future (Seigel 4). People who would
be diplomats, artists, journalists, soldiers, who at that moment existed in
a transient state with much social but little material wealth.
Emerging within this Bohemian identity were the bourgeois. They were
individuals who led a working class existence, they usually held property
but more importantly they helped provide the physical environment for
Bohemian culture to flourish. Bourgeois society had the money to patronize
Bohemian artists. As Seigel says "Bohemian and bourgeois were -- and are --
parts of a single field: they imply, require, and attract each other" (5).
Cafés were a site of symbiosis between these two groups. As Seigel points out
they were not so much established to create a Bohemian world away from the
reality of working life, but to provide a space were the predominantly
bourgeois clientèle could be entertained (216). These ideas of entertainment
saw the rise of the literary café, a venue not just for drinking and
socialization but where potential writers and orators could perform for an
audience.
Contemporary society has seen a strong decline in Bohemian culture, with the
(franchised) café being appropriated by the upper class as a site of lattes
and mud cake. Recent developments in Internet technology however have
prompted a change in this trend. Whereas in the past cafés had brought about
a symbiosis between the classes of Bohemian and bourgeois society they are
now becoming sites that foster relationships between the middle class and
computer technology.
Computers and the Internet have their origins within a privileged community,
of government departments, defence forces and universities. It is only in
the past three years that Internet technology has moved out of a realm of
expert knowledge to achieve a broad level of usage in the average household.
Certain barriers still exist though in terms of a person's ability to gain
access to this medium.
Just as Bohemian culture arose out of a population of educated people lacking
skills of manual labor and social status (Seigel 217), computers and Internet
culture offer a means for people to go beyond their social boundaries. Cafés
were sites for Bohemians to transcend the social, political, and economic
dictates that had shaped their lives. In a similar fashion the Internet
offers a means for people to explore beyond their physical world.
Internet cafés have been growing steadily around the world. What they
represent is a change in the concept of social interaction. As in the past
with the Paris café and the exchange of ideas, Internet cafés have become
places were people can interact not just on a face-to-face basis but also
through computer-mediated communication. What this points to is a broadening
in the idea of the café as a medium of social interaction. This is where the
latte and mud cake trend is beginning to break down.
By placing Internet technology within cafés, proprietors are inviting a far
greater section of the community within their walls. While these experiences
still attract a price tag they suggest a change in the idea that would have
seen both the café and the Internet as commodities of the élite. What this
is doing is re-invigorating the idea of the streets belonging to the middle
class and other sub-cultures, allowing people access to space so that
relationships and communities can be formed.
References
Haine, W. Scott. The World of the Paris Cafe: Sociability amongst the French
Working Class 1789 - 1914. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1996.
Seigel, Jerrold. Bohemian Paris: Culture, Politics and the Boundaries of
Bourgeois Life, 1830 - 1930. New York: Penguin Books, 1987.
Citation reference for this article
MLA style:
Joseph Crawfoot. "Cybercafé, Cybercommunity." M/C: A Journal of Media and
Culture 1.1 (1998). [your date of access]
<http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9807/cafe.php>.
Chicago style:
Joseph Crawfoot, "Cybercafé, Cybercommunity," M/C: A Journal of Media and
Culture 1, no. 1 (1998), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9807/cafe.php> ([your date of access]).
APA style:
Joseph Crawfoot. (1998) Cybercafé, cybercommunity. M/C: A Journal of Media
and Culture 1(1). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9807/cafe.php> ([your date of access]).
Cybercafé, Cybercommunity