My critical project would focus on how the democratization of the internet affects marginalized groups of society based on race, class, and gender.
Synopsis:
The internet has become a part of our lives, and especially for future generations, the internet may be the only medium of choice because people can use the web to watch movies, television, read news, etc. anytime and anywhere. The democratization of the internet allows for anyone with access to declare their ideas no matter who he or she is. However, as many theorists (in the future readings of Nakamura and Bailey) have said, it is the privileged (racial/sexual majorities & middle-to-upper class) who have access to this type of democratization.
Thesis:
The user of the internet has the ability easily perpetuate societal stereotypes of oppressed groups. The internet is an active activity, so the user can choose to avoid any arguments that would debunk these societal ideas. This project would most certainly address ideas of a lack of identity—because no one has any authority over anyone else, the user can choose to listen to only their own ideas if they refuse to be open to opposing ones. This project would also include issues of the digital divide, possibly globalization, and a conclusion discussing if there IS any way to hinder stereotypes if the internet is extremely democratic.
My project would have some small connections to totoros mushroom since it does refer to racial stereotypes, however, as a critical project, stereotypical ideas will be more abstract because they are taken into a larger context into the potential future of the internet.
I would love as much feedback as possible, since this is, of course, in its baby stages. However, I do have a question I need answered: Is this issue to broad, or does my focus specific enough for me to avoid repeating something that has already been theorized?
I really like this idea. I think you have some great starting ideas, and I would be really interested to see where you take this.
Something about stereotypes that came up for me in the 2nd Turkle reading ("Who Am We?") was just exactly HOW do people determine whether other MUD or online users are male or female?? Turkle writes about how for a man "to pass as a woman for any length of time [online] requires understanding how how gender inflects speech, manner, the interpretation of experience. Women attempting to pass as men face the same kind of challenge."
My question is, is this difficulty in passing for the opposite sex (and by the way, Turkle mentions nothing of non-straight individuals) all constructed on socially-built stereotypes of how a man vs. a woman would speak, act, behave?
greenPost-it, you propose that when constructing an online identity, no other user can influence your personal choices . . . but do each of us infuse the other person's identity with perceived stereotypes, and thus define the limits of their persona?
In addressing the first question, I would say yes, I would point out in my project that these characteristics and definitions of how men/women should behave are socially constructed. Though society in real life is strict in its gender roles, the visual representation of real life allows men and women slightly more freedom to still be men and women if they sometimes transcend gender roles. However, in the search for an identity in the world of new media, one has to stay within the limits of gender roles in order to make themselves believable; there are no other ways in which one can prove their gender. Thus, stereotypes must be enforced, and users bounce off of each other these perceived notions of gender. The same can be said of race and its cultural and ethnic stereotypes.
I know my answer is quite murky and a little all over the place...however, I am still trying to figure out my argument.
I do have a separate dilemma: What aspects of new media can I use to prove this theory, in how it is the internet that perpetuates stereotypes? What outlets of the internet can I look at as concrete evidence? At this point this is my biggest problem, as I will need it to serve as the base for my argument.
There's certainly a LOT to be done in this area -- and a lot of fascinating work that's already been done (you should of course use the Nakamura and Bailey essays, and you may want to look into Nakamura's other writing, as well as the work of critics like Michele White, whose book The Body and The Screen focuses a lot on the representations of gender and race online). What I'm a little concerned, though, that this topic does seem awfully huge. You might begin narrowing things down by selecting one primary OBJECT for your research -- for instance, is there a particular web-based community that you want to focus on? (A user-driven network like MySpace (though even that's too huge; you might want to focus on one particular group within MySpace)? Or a commercial networking site that's aimed at marginalized groups? I'm thinking about something like BlackPlanet.com or AsianAvenue.com, both of which are operated by the same company...) Once you've figured that out, then you need to specify more precisely the research question that you're going to focus on. What's the most nagging issue that you have when you look at the site you're interested in? I'll look forward to talking more with you about this...
You asked about any ways that we see stereotypes being enforced on the internet. I don't know if my following logic holds up, but it's a theory:
It seems to me that the factor that most effectively rids individuals of ism's is experience with the group in question. For example, if I had never met a woman, but I've heard bad things about them, I have no reason not to believe sexist stereotypes. When I meet a woman for the first time, however, I might realize that she's actually incredible nice, likable, and not fundamentally any different from myself. If I were blind to gender, however, then I would simply assume that anybody nice I meet is a man and anybody mean is a woman. In this way, blindness to gender enforces the stereotypes already in my brain (which are there in the first place due to popular culture, media portrayal, etc).
This hypothetical gender blindness clearly translates to the online world. If race, gender, etc. aren't specified, then people with internalized stereotypes will simply project them onto characters they meet online, assigning labels to these strangers so that they corrispond with the stereotypes.
It seems like maybe you'd want to focus on either the digital divide or the stereotypes; are you trying to establish a relationship between them? That the demographics who can access the internet display certain biases? Both issues are very much worth writing about and consequently might end up being a bit much to take on at once since there's a lot to say.
Another possible subject you could look at within the contet of the project is to ask how do these negative portrayals affect people in real life. You could examine the effects that online hate speech has on real interactions between people; though I guess that might be hard to do.
Also I think maybe you should look at how it affects marginalized groups regarding sexuality - there seems to be a lot of casual and much more serious homophobic stuff online - and I think the project might suffer if you don't discuss that (though maybe you already had that in mind).