virtual class

English

Noun

virtual class (plural virtual classes)

1. (object-oriented programming) A nested inner class whose functions and member variables can be overridden and redefined by subclasses of an outer class.

   Coordinate term: virtual method

2. (education) An online class.
3. (sociology, uncommon) A hypothesized new social and economic class exploiting and advocating digital technology; a digital elite.

   Coordinate terms: digerati, technorati, techno-utopians

   • 1994, Arthur Kroker, Michael A. Weinstein, Data Trash, St. Martin's Press, →ISBN, pages 6–7:

     The virtual class has driven to global power along the digital superhighway. Representing perfectly the expansionary interests of the recombinant commodity-form, the virtual class has seized the imagination of contemporary culture by conceiving a techno-utopian high-speed cybernetic grid for travelling across the electronic frontier.

   • 1995 September, Richard Barbrook, Andy Cameron, “The Californian Ideology”, in Mute‎^[1], volume 1, number 3, →ISSN:

     Lacking the free time of the hippies, work itself has become the main route to self-fulfilment for much of the ‘virtual class’.

   • 1996 February, Jean-Hugues Roy, quoting Arthur Kroker, “Way New Leftists”, in Wired‎^[2], →ISSN:

     But I also notice that many members of the virtual class have deep feelings of anxiety and ambivalence about projects they're involved in. Unlike Marx's bourgeoisie, the virtual class experiences huge contradictions. Just between the coders and the businessmen, there are conflicts.

Further reading

• virtual class on Wikipedia.Wikipedia