Week 8

Many writers have utilised cyberpunk as prefigurative social and political theory in the realms of urban studies, cultural theory and the sociology of the body. Below are some of the main, recurring themes.


Negative Impact of technology on humanity: In a cyberpunked near-future, technology runs rampant, and usually manipulates most societal interactions. Dystopian near futures are very common, but so are futures where the impacts of specific technologies are played out in a world only slightly different from the present. Sacred societal boundaries are often crossed with regularity. Often the earth is severely damaged. Crime and drug use are often key supporting themes.

Fusion of man and machine: In addition to cyborgs, sentient programs and robots, cyberpunk often blurs of what it means to be human. Traits we take for granted as representing humanity disappear via introspective looks brought on by the fusion of man and machine. This fusion also affects the control of perception - numerous storylines explore with influences to perception, usually involving some method of virtual reality environment to either mask or take the place of the “real world.”

Corporate control over society: Cyberpunk almost always has an ever powerful controlling entity that directs society. Most often this is represented as a corporation. Some times its simply an ever present singular government. A common theme for corporate control involves a futuristic dystopia, where the last traces of high civilization exist only in an enclosed and protected city, where civil liberties are removed under the guise of protecting humanity.

Uprising of the underground: Cyberpunk almost always focuses on the underground of society. While the story may lead to revolution and toppling the power structure, the perspective is always that of the oppressed or the punk, anti-hero of the oppressed.

Ubiquitous Access to information: Cyberpunk often deals with the continual spread and access to information. Hacker themes and ever-connecting internets are common. Additionally, the connection of humans to this omnipresent information stream leads to the blurring of the virtual with the real.


In this tutorial students should select one of these themes & complete some basic research on it (ideally finding a short fiction online that deals with the topic (there’s heaps of online cyberpunk fiction, so this shouldn’t be a problem). Once students have a basic understanding they should try and identify a current news story that reflects their chosen topic.

Once they have found a story they should attempt to re-write the news story as a persuasive piece about how their piece of cyberpunk fiction has forecast the particular story/event & how it will inevitably lead to the world becoming a post-industrial dystopia (like every cyberpunk story does/is).