“Now the World is Watching You!”

The previous chapters illuminated Cibervalle’s meaning from the perspective of the lifeworld context of its inhabitants before the communicative architecture that enables global togetherness in Cibervalle was scrutinized. The last chapter of the book now examines the genuine organizational structures of the Cibervalle Forum, a globally shared techno-social space the Cibervallers inhabit. This chapter also focuses on the public framing and potentially global and anonymous accessibility of the Forum activities that contrast paradoxically with the privacy of the relationships between users. On the one hand, all activities in the Cibervalle Forum are open to the global public ³³ because they can always be anonymously watched, by members as well as total strangers, from anywhere around the globe. On the other hand, Cibervallers relate to one another predominantly through their Forum contributions, reporting primarily on personal matters. But they do so knowing that they can be observed, even though they have no exact information as to who is watching their activities, or from where. Forum communication has a triadic structure in which not only the communicators, but also their imagined audience play a crucial role. In other words, the technological characteristics of the Forum communication, in combination with the social particularities of Cibervalle, tend to move private relations and everyday life into a potentially global sphere of observation.