A geography of 'Notopia’

The expansion of information and telecommunication technologies has resulted in the emergence of new urban virtual cultures, while the social, technological and economic impacts of these cyber‐cultures have already been felt. This study categorizes and gives the main characteristics of some urban cyber‐groups and cyber‐cultures (for instance, categories of hackers, hacktivists) and attempts to explore their activities as emerging urban social movements. These activities take place in a sub‐space of the Internet, which we may name 'Notopia’ (no + topos, in greek µη τóπoς), this being a space of unmapped, unidentifiable, nameless places. It is suggested that cyber‐groups/cyber‐cultures might be explained by the ideologies they often subscribe to, whilst the structural aspects of urban cyber‐cultures should be examined in more detail, so as to derive a better understanding of their social characteristics and thus, of our future digital cities.