digital media theory

In reading Bailey’s article Virtual Skin in which he begins to theorize on racial bodies and the internet, I am reminded of the readings by Miller and company about the idea of gendering the internet body. If as Bailey argues, “the physical body remains as a referent. Cyberspace wouldn’t make sense without it” then the cyber body is both gendered and racialized is some fashion (339). It seems that even evoking an Descartesian meditation with his classic mind/body or in this case cyber/physical body split we cannot fully untangle this binary supposition. If we are not the set of limbs called the human body than are we not the sum of our online footprint in regards to our cyber body? I wonder what Descartes’ blog would say on the matter…

If you don’t buy Bailey’s thesis about cyberspace being a racialized domain, insert your choice of racist epitaphs into a Twitter search and see what comes up, or check out the discussions on virtual racial enclaves like “Black Planet” or “Asian Avenue.”  Mediums bring out the good, the bad, and the ugly, so there  should be no wonder that not racially identifying oneself (implicitly or explicitly) is the saferun protocol.  Ad hoc lambasts are the lingua franca of comment boards, so using a colored avatar or turning an ethnic phrase opens oneself up to prejudice and racial derision.  Of course, doing so can conceivably build bridges over the racial divide, but I think the former is more likely.  The problem that Bailey underlies is that the current state of critical race discourse  is not at a level where self-identification is a non-issue.  Instances of going racially incognito are perhaps more prevalent in the virtual world than in real life, but we should ask why this is the case if the virtual world is supposed to be a net utopia?

All this to say, had Will Smith played Neo, our internet matrix would be a very different place.

The readings discuss identities and online communities in terms of the internets’ ability to allow individuals to experience self in new ways, and to interact with groups differently. What I gathered from the readings was a sense that the internet allows the possibility to look into a persons “essence” more so than in face-to-face communication. It seems the there is a underlying belief that people are different depending on who they interact with – you talk to grandma differently than you talk to your “sister-girl”. I wonder if that concept is just another generalization. I talk to my grandmother the same way I talk to my best friend, the same way I talk to my husband or my kids. Am I odd or in denial?? Suppose, just suppose, that everyone doesn’t experience the internet the same way (maybe some of us have more imagination than others), making generalizations void. An example is that I love Red Velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. I can’t imagine having a conversation with someone online about eating this cake that could come close to giving me the same satisfaction/sensation as actually eating it. That’s when I began to suspect that there is a spiritual aspect to communication that transcends the media.

Lister discusses having experiences with other parts of ourselves, avatar based interactions. In the example of the proliferation of the online game Liniage in South Korea, Lister discusses how passions in this game are aroused for real world pain to be inflicted. This speaks to the possibility of an actual cyber rape discussed in the article “A Rape in Cyberspace”. It started with a violation of the communal environment – the trust that existed “spiritually” as well as visually. The problem progressed when participants found themselves violating their own personal boundaries in the virtual space. What the article doesn’t articulate is the separation from the “spirit” or sense of self that these individuals experienced prior to crossing their comfort boundaries.

The article written by Laura Miller gives me insight how we consider women’s role in this society.

The traditional concept of women’s mind in terms of gender difference, regards women’s mind as weak, fragile, and unsuited to the rough and tumble of public discourse. Also the thought women are physically weaker than men has been flowed until today. She argued that women’s role in the society should be considered as a task of describing real human beings. I fully agree with her. We need that kind of understanding instead of petty mind when we look at the gender difference. Even it is more important for women to define themselves than men since the strong confidence for them can change men’s mind-set. Especially in the cyber space, I think women can speak out with confidential identity more than real world. It might be a first space that women and men have equality.

It was very interesting to read two very different perspectives of online identity and anonymity in Steve Silberman’s “We’re Teen, We’re Queer, and We’ve Got E-mail” and Julian Dibbell’s “A Rape in Cyberspace”. In both pieces, the role of anonymity cannot be understated. In Silberman’s article, the online anonymity allows many of these teens to finally ask questions and discuss the difficulties they face without subjecting themselves to the ridicule of their peers. In this process, anonymity takes a potentially lifesaving role. Teens are getting the education that they need regarding safe sex (VERY few high schools address any LGBT issues in sex ed classes) and they are also provided a forum to talk about their problems which may result in lessening the suicide rate in a population that is typically higher.
In Dibbell’s ‘A Rape in Cyberspace’, however, anonymity lends itself to an abominable role. When asked why he would commit a virtual reality rape, Mr. Bungle answers,“I engaged in a bit of a psychological device that is called thought-polarization, the fact that this is not RL simply added to heighten the affect of the device. It was purely a sequence of events with no consequence on my RL existence.” The offender seems to rationalize his actions by saying that he can do whatever he wants here because there will be no consequences in his real life. It is not the new media that ensures him impunity; it is his anonymity.
I found our class comments on the “A Rape in Cyberspace” very interesting. I think it’s a very complicated issue. While I do not think that this ‘virtual rape’ is as grave as an actual rape (I find the comparison of the two to be denigrating to the former) I do see the similarities and I also admit that this is solely my opinion, having never had to deal with this sort of online violation.
Do I think it’s a big deal? Yes, absolutely. The people who engage in this type of virtual reality dedicate a good portion of their time and energy (as mentioned by the author) to creating their virtual character and their virtual lives. And this was undoubtedly a huge violation. I don’t think that the people behind the characters should have just shut their computers down and forgotten about it because if we acknowledge that there was a violation here, they are the victims and saying that they should be or should have been doing something differently, is on the simplest level, blaming the victim.
Another point addressed was the separateness of our real life identities with our online identities. I don’t think they are separate. If you are giving your real name and the ‘real life you’ is associated with your facebook page, you are absolutely held accountable for what you post. I can’t make incendiary remarks on my page or act in a way that’s inconsistent with my ‘real life me’ without suffering the consequences. Online anonymity is what allows us to get away with doing things we’d never dream of doing in person….not new media.

In the selection we read from Sherry Turkle, she theorizes about the post-modern split of the self that takes place online and with user generated computer content.  I agree that there is a break down between the “in real life” and life online (facebook and youtube, not just role playing games), but my question is whether we had an undivided self to begin with.  Technology and the post-modern only facilitate the ability to think of the “self” as multifaceted and performatory.  I am simultaneously a student and a teacher, someone who loves Harry Potter and Shakespeare, shy and assertive, etc.  Of course I act differently when I’m with my grandparents than with my best friend. Shifts in identity or self construction aren’t merely property of virtual worlds, and for that matter, there are plenty of people who (mis)represent themselves in the real world.  There are also plenty of people who mediate themselves in the real world  (alcohol or drug use to ease social situations) as well. While I am undoubtedly influenced by my post-modernist leanings, I don’t think it’s bad to have multiple selves.

Another question related to this online/IRL discussion by Turkle, is why do people prefer online to real life in the first place? Is it possible that we are no longer connecting to other in traditional communal patterns as a result of the industrialized/post-industrialized society we live in, and therefore have to create online social substitutes to what our ancestors had in real life?   Perhaps alienation?  Has specialization turned us into the machine, just as Marx theorized?

For those interested in technobodies:

“ But here I argue that it is computer screens where we project ourselves into our dramas, dramas in which we are producer, director, and star… Computer screens are the new location for our fantasies, both erotic and intellectual”. Turkle captured the essence of digital media today, even though she noted this in the mid 190’s, she captured the essence of what digital media represent now, Twitter and other social media technology have allowed anyone who wants to share their stories or lack of stories with us. I was confronted with an array of emotions; I disagreed and then agreed, then was unsure of the different point of views as I read this week’s articles. In the end it became apparent to me that digital media has totally changed the way we interact with each other for good. In “A rape in Cyberspace” I couldn’t relate to the notion that such barbaric act (rape) could occur in Cyberspace”, my thought was rape had to be physical, the offender and the victim must have physical contact… In Silberman’s “We’re Teen, We’re Queer and We’ve Got E-mail and Turkle’s “Introduction” it suddenly dawn on me that it was about technology (computer) and the user’s relationship. The computer in these 2 articles serve as safe haven for its users… the computer permeates their identities and affords them a way out. In Silberman’s article, teen boys express of a sense of release and camaraderie… a place where it is okay for them to be who they want to be; it is a sense of empowerment that their parents or anyone in real life didn’t give them. It is this sense of affirmation by users like these teen boys that serve as a moment of enlightenment for me… rape may occur in cyberspace if the user uses computer as a simulation rather than as a calculator. Digital media opened up gateway for many to build a sense of self that they couldn’t build in real life, while I cant relate to all these emotions the users feel, I can empathize with them.

I really appreciated Miller’s discussion of the implications of reading the internet as a frontier and all that implies, but I think she is ignoring the ways in which gendered dynamics are reproduced online. Acknowledging this is not saying that biology is destiny and we’re all going to reproduce the exact same gender issues that we deal with in the offline world, but there is a chance of going so far as to ignore how women who identify themselves as women on the internet can be subject to both obvious and subtle sexism. Many prominent female bloggers learn how to deal with trolls threatening them with rape. The idea that “there are no girls on the internet” has become an internet meme at this point. And Google “mansplaining” sometime for examples of how, even in situations where it seems that there is civil, equal discourse, gendered hierarchies can still exist.

Miller discusses the fact that women don’t need to be protected from the world, and that women are often aggressive and bombastic. As an aggressive and bombastic woman, I’ve chosen to have an extremely tailored internet experience, where I’m pretty sure that I can get into a ridiculous flame war if I want, and still not have to worry about someone throwing out something misogynist, racist, or homophobic in the middle of it, because the communities I frequent frown on it and ostracize or ban people who transgress those values. Miller seems a little too tied into the idea of the internet as free from the constraints of inequalities based on physical identities. But those identities are based on cultural factors and performance of behaviors, and only tangentially tied to physical realities, so I think it’s kind of inevitable that they’ll be reproduced in an environment that lacks the physical.

When digital media first poked its way through into academia, a lot of important ethnographic, anthropological studies emerged. Yet in spite of this growing wealth of information, works probing into the deep impressions a digitized arc can stamp on the human psyche have been curiously scant and not particularly focused upon. Sherry Turkle, in her seminal book, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, fills this gap by centering her research on the complex, psychological implications from carving out an identit(ies)y on the Internet: “The Internet has become a significant social laboratory for experimenting  with the constructions and reconstructions of self that characterize postmodern life. In its virtual reality, we self-fashion and self-create. What kinds of personae do we make?” (180). Because digital technology like the cell phone or computer is widely used as a new and alternative medium of expression (as opposed to traditional modes such as painting), Turkle explains that it is inevitable that people project themselves onto the screen. The computer turns from a sterile mechanism into an organic self-representation, but it can also become a person’s best friend and confidant. Transferences such as these is best exemplified – albeit a lot dated -  in MUDs, or multi-user dungeons, where users not only practiced anonymity but, as a result of that, were allowed to explore aspects of oneself heternormativity (or authority, the mainstream) in everyday “real” life wouldn’t allow: “MUDs imply difference, multiplicity, heterogeneity, and fragmentation…When each player can create many characters and participate in many games, the self is not only decentered but multiplied without limit” (185). It is through these moments of personal identification with the machine that Turkle ultimately finds an opportunity, though sometimes discursive, to define the self in an age of vast technology, and while I don’t disagree her, I don’t find myself readily agreeing with either. When I was younger, I tried on many kinds of identities online I’d never dare try in my physical life because it was fun and titillating and a little rebellious, but I never lost sight of who I really was – in other words, I never felt totally decentered. If anything, having multiple identities online further emphasized everything I was not.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35784458/ns/technology_and_science-washington_post/

This article just blows me away.  I don’t even know what to say.

Instead of understand and re-engineer teaching methods, universities and professors are banning laptops from their class rooms.  I wholeheartedly understands the distractions and ability to cheat from technology such as laptops but I don’t see the benefit from a total ban.  Most than likely that these law students will utilize laptops when they are professionals.  To think otherwise is just foolish.

Personally, I would be turned off if a professor require such a harsh demand.