While a great deal of research and media attention has been paid to
cyberbullying and cyber crime, very little has been paid to the ways
people are using the Internet to benefit the world. Dr. Klisanin has
suggested that individuals actively and conscientiously using the
Internet and digital technology to help other people, animals, and the
environment represent a new incarnation of the hero archetype, the
"cyberhero". She coined the term "cyberheroing" to reference on-line
activity that benefits others.
Cyberheroing involves acts of digital goodness particularly acts of digital altruism.
Dr.
Klisanin presented her theoretical research on digital altruism in
2009, and her research on the cyberhero archetype at the annual
convention of the American Psychological Association (APA) in August of
2010. Further research on the cyberhero archetype was conducted in
2011; the results were presented at the APA convention in August 2011
and published in Media Psychology Review in February of 2012.
The
21st century needs new archetypal forms in order to address global
challenges. The cyberhero archetype serves as a catalyst for positive
change through empowering people to recognize their ability to use
information and communication technologies to make a difference in the
world.
What are cyberheroes?
“As an ideal
form, or archetype, the cyberhero represents individuals motivated to
act on behalf of other people, animals, and the environment, using
digital technology in the peaceful service of achieving humanity’s
highest ideals and aspirations, i.e., world peace, social justice,
environmental protection and planetary stewardship. The archetype is a
transmodern synergy of two extant archetypes: the hero and the superhero
(Klisanin, 2012).
Why do we need the cyberhero?
“If
we lose the ability to imagine ourselves as heroes, and to understand
the meaning of true heroism, our society will be poorer for it. But if
we can reconnect with these ancient ideals, and make them fresh again,
we can create a connection with the hero in ourselves. It is this vital,
internal conduit between the modern work- a-day world and the mythic
world that can prepare an ordinary person to be an everyday hero” (Franco & Zimbardo, 2006).
How can we make ancient ideals of heroism fresh again?
“The cyberhero
is a 21st century archetype arising from an emergent “transmodern
heroism”. In the 21st century it isn’t enough to wait for life to
provide us with an opportunity to become a “hero” — Having inherited a
world of mass graves and mass extinctions, transmodern heroism is about
using the tools at hand, i.e., our digital technologies, to act NOW. It
is about having the courage and fortitude to use the power of our own
voices to speak on behalf of all living beings, particularly those with
little or no voices of their own. Digital technologies are the
“peace-sabers” of our century. They allow us to amplify our voices and
to connect with humanitarians and environmentalists active in the field,
enabling them to carry out their end of a common goal. Cyberheroing
means using Internet technologies to benefit others. Ultimately,
transmodern heroism has less to do with risking one’s life for another
and everything to do with the ability to exchange oneself with the
“other”; it is the death of selfishness and greed and the radical
embrace of empathy, compassion, and simplicity. It is, above all, an
archetype whose time has come.” (Klisanin, 2010).
Excerpted from "World Meet the Cyberhero"
by Benjamin Wach
We know the internet has changed the way we shop, socialize, and
schedule – but how is it changing our sense of human potential. When we
dream of who we might be in a networked world, what are we dreaming
about?
According to Dana Klisanin,
Executive Director of Evolutionary Guidance Media Research &
Design, society has focused on the negative stereotypes of internet
users … like “cyberbullies” or addicts … while a new conceptual
archetype demonstrating human potential has emerged and inspired
millions: the “Cyberhero.”
In her recently publication “The Hero and the Internet: Exploring the Emergence of the Cyberhero Archetype,” Klisanin (who earned her PhD in Psychology from Saybrook) writes:
“The cyberhero archetype appears to recognize global threats to
social and ecological wellbeing as personal threats. Rather than
requiring a personal confrontation with immediate danger, the cyberhero
archetype requires a personal and collective psychological confrontation
with current and/or impending species-wide dangers. Rather than setting
out on an epic adventure to far away lands and encountering
life-threatening dangers, as in the traditional heroic narrative
(Campbell, 1949/1972), the cyberhero, paradoxically, both stays at home
and sets off--into cyberspace with the goal of benefiting others.”
Studying this archetype, she notes, is very much in the humanistic
tradition – finding new ways that people can lead meaningful lives that
strive to be extraordinary rather than limiting itself to addressing
symptoms.
