Figures of Fantasy explores the popularization of the idea of the Internet as a «cyberspace» and considers the implications this has for discussions of gender and identity. The book analyzes the standard figures used to conceptualize and explain technology and gender, and traces the ways in which these concepts have served to create the figure of the Internet as a cyberspace – a manner of thinking that has come to dominate Internet research internationally, making visible its historicity, limitations, and implications. Figures of Fantasy offers an innovative theoretical approach to Internet research, and provides a highly original, systematic critique of the canonical works in the field.

The Author: Susanna Paasonen is Assistant Professor of Digital Culture at University of Jyväskylä, and Adjunct Professor of Media Culture at University of Tampere, Finland. She received her Ph.D. in media studies from the University of Turku, Finland. She has published on Internet research, popular culture, and feminist theory, and together with Mia Consalvo she is the editor of Women and Everyday Uses of the Internet: Agency & Identity (Lang, 2002).