What is e-culture ?

Digital media and information technologies have not only changed our world, they have also changed the way we see the world, relashionship betwen poeple, the way we live -all this giving rise to new values defining e-culture.

e-culture can be defined as being a culture of "freedom". Anyone can express himself and can contribute to internet. This is based on the idea of "web 2.0" which defines a web in which poeple contributes to internet in the same way they use it. This freedom can give rise to the best (blogues for instance) or to the worst (pirates are the expresion of this ideal for they see themselves as defending internet from the constraints of political or economical institutions). This trend of Internet can sometime infringe on the privacy of poeple (hidden webcam access to informations of all sort and the like).

However, it seems quite clear that this primitive ideal of an absolute freedom is going to change for a society can tolerate an absolute freedom : regulation is the key word to define the institutions' will as regards Internet.

The second value of internet is the notion of "community". The freedom poeple can find on Internet leads them to work together. As a matter of fact : expressing one's self alone has no use.
Expression is grounded on communication and on the notion on community. If anyone is able to express his self it will definitly spawn groups of interest, communities of thoughts and of habits. This another very important concept for the built of the Web 2.0 is "group and community oriented". Here there is an important social and cultural catch : communitarism and the end of an open society.

An other part of e-culture which is related to this question is the issue of "free-riders". This concept created by the school of public's choice means that poeple will always prefer what is free to what costs money. Almoast since the beggining poeple exchage informations and gifts for free. It became a part of Internet. This value is not grounded on "robbery" but on "community" and on "freedom" : you can share with your community and friends what is yours in terms of information and softwares. Of course, here we have an important other problem : the necessity for the market to adapt itself to the free rider's spirit which can be dangerous for the economy.

This main ideas builds the trinity of the e-culture. They are at the bottom, the others idea or values are second to these one.