technoculture314-09

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Read danah boyd's blog entry about a recent study claiming that approx. 40% of tweets are "pointless babble".

http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2009/08/16/twitter_pointle.html

Luke mentioned that online social networks function as sites for "phatic communication." Phatic communication is interaction that has as its fundamental purpose that very interaction, as opposed to the actual purposeful exchange of information. Many people on Facebook and Myspace write messages to the peers in their immediate ‘offline’ friend circle more for the ‘act' of communication rather than for its actual content. There is an emphasis here on the 'exchange value' of communication rather than the 'use' value (actual content) of communication; exchange value in the form of 'social capital' (Putnam) - we write messages because they flaunt to others in our network that we are socially adept (subconsciously). This can explain why we ‘facebook’ friends arbitrary remarks we could just text them or exchange in person – to be 'seen’ communicating is more important than 'what' we are communicating. The whole makeup of Facebook and other social networks construct this – the ‘wall’ and the ‘news feed’ show us who is communicating and to whom. What people are saying in many cases becomes the second priority (Twitter is the epitome of this, majority of tweets having no real communication use-value e.g. what we are eating for breakfast). De Botton's theory of 'status anxiety' is also relevant to all this because news feeds and inter-profile browsing on social networks actively creates hierarchies of social capital we are encouraged to track and aspire to, which are then crystallized into ‘number of friends’ on Facebook, ‘profile views’ on Bebo, and ‘sexiness and personality ratings’ on Orkut. Callum

Sunday, August 30, 2009 by jayjay

We’ve all heard how television is the evil entity which has been slowly eating away the morals of society and for decades the medium has faced scrutiny from the discourse of anti-television.

Television has been used as a scapegoat for promoting sex and violence in the younger audience and has been blamed for turning kids’ brains into mush. I guess it’s only expected that in the age of convergence when all forms of media are being transformed by new technologies and people are spending more of their time online, that we are to see new directions for such attitudes as well.

If we recall what Luke said in class about the moral panic regarding social network sites it was mentioned that too much of this was supposedly going to “infantilize” our brains, reverberating some of the old evils that television was blamed for in the past. Although new arguments s have been added into the scope of things, like the proliferation of online bullying, funnily enough these new reasons to be wary of social network sites have been counter argued in similar ways to that over television being the scapegoat for such worries like increasing violence.

It seems like maybe social network sites have provided another outlet for the public to voice concerns over the perils of activities associated with the younger generation. Various media like TV and movies have always been closely related to ill on-goings of teens and young adults. So is facebook being added to this list as a promoter of social illnesses? And is there a new anti-media discourse being formed in light of new media?

While watching TV the other night I witnessed a particularly funny and intriguing episode of Two and a Half Men where on ‘Googling’ his name on the internet, Charlie (a hedonistic bachelor) discovers a website made about him entitled “Charlie Sucks”. His free-wheeling lifestyle comes back to haunt him in the form of a blog contributed to by his disgruntled previous lovers. These women highlight the negative experiences they have had with Charlie and his unflattering character traits. They also compare notes to discover his scripted and recycled methods of seduction. It is interesting to note that on his discovery Charlie is most alarmed by the fact that he can no longer attempt to influence others impression of himself in the context of seduction as everyone now knows his tricks of the trade - he has lost control of his impression management in terms of performing his identity.

Goffman’s ideas on identity explain the way in which one may engage in strategic activities to put across an impression to others which is in their interests to get across. His dramaturgical model suggests all the world is a stage and we are engaged at different levels of performance to try to construct peoples perceptions of ourselves. The profile construction that exists on social networking sites and blogs is a prime example of these impression management activities. A profile can be converted into a place where you can show off/exaggerate aspects about yourself to enhance your ‘impression’. It is a chance to present yourself as you really are, or as you would like to be. However, in Charlie’s case, we see the leakage that can occur between the front stage and the back stage, which is not a part of the intended performance. The website creates a discrepancy between virtual (suggestions of the kind of person we are and how we would like others to see us) and actual (individual characteristics that one can actively demonstrate) identity (M. Sullivan & C. Lane-West Newman, 2007). This discrepancy between virtual and actual identity is deeply discrediting for Charlie - it is what Goffman terms a stigma which has the potential to ruin Charlie’s social identity (Sullivan and Lane-West Newman, 2007). Charlie’s immediate reaction to this is to try to close the site down, only to find out only the person who created the site can delete it.

This resonates Kennedy’s (2006) argument that early cyber culture studies which emphasised the fluid and fragmented anonymous identities afforded by this new technology, defining it as a good thing in terms of identity play need to be revisited and questioned. Although we can choose which parts of our identity we want to highlight, there is a constant tension between the unavoidable perceptions people have of us and the choices in impressions we would like to make. Another thing which is highlighted by the “Charlie sucks” site is the way in which blogs and profiles can leave an “electronic footprint” where information put online by you or others now might be permanent and could be accessed for years into the future. This proves to be an issue in terms of identity construction. Turns out search engines such as Google, are fielding complaints that information associated with searches made under an individual's name that bring up expressions of opinion which they now believe is harmful to their careers (some examples posted on the blog have poignantly demonstrated this) (R.Verkaik, 2007). The whole notion that a blog or a profile is for life - anyone who has tried to delete a face book account can relate to this - suggests our identities as constructed on the internet may not be as fluid and flexible as once thought.

References:
Sullivan, M. and Lane-West Newman, C. (2007). Identity. In S. Matthewman, C. Lane-West Newman & B. Curtis (Eds.). Being Sociological (pp.233-254)
Verkaik, R. (2007). Get out of my Facebook - how the web can haunt you .
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/identity-theft/news/article.cfm?c_id=1500934&objectid=10477932&pnum=2

The idea of asking what is identity and whether or not there is a crisis in modern identity is arguable. I’m not sure if identity is in a crisis but the online paradigm does challenge traditional forms of identity within society.

Hall’s notion of ‘identity’ and ‘identification’ is a good place to start, as Halls notion makes it clearer to understand this idea of toying with partial identities online. Identity is considered your true self, alluding to a static form of identification. Identification according to Hall connotes notions of an ever changing identity, where it’s continuous and adaptive over time. This adaptive identity leads to the idea of fragmented identities online and how our fragmented and changing identification is a suggested link to our social shift into postmodernism.

This shift in postmodernism reiterates the extension of wider social changes, and this idea of breaking away from traditional forms of communication. The online world of chat-rooms offers this ‘third place’, where it’s not completely public and not completely private. The communication in this third place allows the ability to form relationships that have two separate people giving ‘partial identities’. Online interaction can therefore have the ability to bypass cultures, cultures that are embedded in an individual’s identity. This third place of communication allows the ability to forge relationships that could be considered fake, in the way these relationships have two people engaged in communication without really knowing the other person. Perhaps this third place of communication is creating a ‘second relationship’, different from traditional forms of relationships.

Although we express ourselves very differently through new media than we do in person, the reasons why we express ourselves in particular ways are not as fluid as one might think. In 1969 Erving Goffman studied self-identity and representations of the self in society. I found that his theories were very similar to some of the points Luke raised in his lecture, and even that his performance theories were similar to those of Sherry Turkle (writing in 1995 about identity performance on the internet). For example, Goffman writes that identity is "a dramatic effect arising diffusely from a scene that is presented, and the characteristic issue, the crucial concern, is whether it will be credited or discredited" (245).

So identity is performed daily and is constantly changing and evolving based on life experiences; everything that happens to you shapes who you are. The way you express that person you have become is a performance for the sake of conveying information about your personality. The last part I took to mean that our crucial concern is whether other people will find us authentic or not. If how we present ourselves is constant acts of performance, as Goffman argued in 1969, then how we conduct ourselves on the internet and our concern for acceptance, and being recognised as authentic, is not solely an aspect of new media but an aspect of human nature. How we express ourselves on the internet is obviously a new and different way to represent aspects of our identity. But why we act in these ways, and our concerns about other people's perceptions of us are fundamentally the same as ever.

Liu (2008) identifies four types of taste performance in SNS: prestige, differentiation, authenticity, and theatrical performance. While I agree, I don't believe that these 'taste performances' are restricted only to SNS - I think they are an integral part of human identity performance, acted out in new media, in face-to-face contact, and even in for example letters written on paper one could find all of these aspects. For another of my papers we studied life writing letters by authors in the 19th century, and the ones that spring to mind right now were definitely coded by these 'taste performances'.

One of Sherry Turkle's (1995) main areas of theory is about the fragmented identity and the multiple aspects of self. In her chapter "Aspects of the Self" she writes how one woman is nervous about meeting a man she met online in 'real life', because she exaggerates aspects of herself on the screen, and another woman says that she has 3 different IRC identities (does anybody remember IRC? I was on IRC when I was about 12. I don't even know if it still exists. Anyway it was a really basic chat mode website). So both of these women still felt like 'themselves' on the internet, but they promoted / performed different aspects of themselves according to who they were virtually surrounded with. That sounds a lot like society in 'real life' to me, as well as in 'virtual reality'. I think that the theories of Goffman, Turkle, and Liu can be applied to both 'realities'.

The idea of identity is the meaning of who we are, in terms of our gender, age and nationality, something that is considered to be fixed. Each individual has a different and unique identity. In new media technologies such as cyberspace, the idea of identity tends to be quite confusing sometimes. As we cannot judge nor have a clear idea of people that are online are actually being honest and reveal their true identities, as we cannot see or touch them. It has been suggested that 'you could be a dog online', basically, anyone could be anything online.

Turkle argues that identity can be multiple, there is so singular and standard identity, it is fluid. It is often that we use different identities against different people, not just through the internet, but also in the 'real world' in a face to face communication. Goffman also suggests that our identity is a kind of performance, it is not just something that is inside us, but also the consciousness of how others think of us and somehow, we are representing ourselves by stereotypes, standards, sexuality, age and other discourses that mode us into who we are.

In last week’s tutorial we talked about authenticity and how cyberspace challenged this notion. I think the idea of whether or not people are being authentic online varies from different situations and different people. For those who want to build relationships with others online without taking any responsibilities in real life may not be as honest or authentic to their identities. For someone, like me, using social networking site such as facebook, my identity would be authentic as I know that people who could see my profile would only be my friends, well, at least I know that they are safe to share my information to. Hence I think identity in new media is a complicated term to define as nobody knows the true identity that is hidden inside each of us.

Note: this is not hate post haha just a note along..

I know what you mean about the whole being deleted off face book. To my utter bemusement, a very good friend of mine deleted me off face book. Now I had probably better add here that so called "friend" is not a Kiwi, he in fact is Croatian and constantly likes to reminde people of how much better Croatia is than NZ. I confronted him in real life with a friendly joking "hey dude, you deleted me! whats up?!" to me, it actually felt as though he did not want to be friends. In reality he just told me that he was "cleaning" up his facebook of "kiwi trash" um...(yea don't ASK why I'm friends with his guy..) he rightly assured me he did not think of me as trash but rather than he thinks it pointless in having English people on his page when all he does is speak Croatian on it anyway. OK fair dinkies.

It got me thinking however, more so when I read the post by Bcool. Seriously, when you delete someone off facebook does that mean your deleting them as a friend in real life? This just shows how sadly addicted I am to my networking sites, i feel like if I'm not a friend on facebook then I'm not a friend in real life, furthermore I have tons of "friends" on facebook who I barely speak to in real life but talk a lot to via facebook. You know whats worse? When I see these "friends" at uni we barely acknowledge each other, rather its a awkward "hey hows it going?" and then we scurry off trying to make sure we do not bump into one another again.

On another topic however, (and please do forgive me for jumping from one to another, their related i promise) Aesthetics – danah boyd (2007), how its claimed that my space is for I guess the "others" who are not "the good kids" Im going to have to disagree. Who's to say that those "misfits" are not good kids, but rather have just found a different (and probably easier way, lets face it, facebook is hard to use to begin with) to express themselves. I'm sure we have all dabbled in bebo before and you find that you have a multitude of ways of expression from skins for your page to sending "love hearts" to people. Its just a different way of expression and perhaps some kids just find it easier being colourful.

by Zhou Jiang

Digital media is different from analogue media in that the information exists in binary code, which has little physical presence. Analogue media exists in more substantial physical forms. For example, vinyl records store music in waves of vinyl which are analogous to waves of sound. The waves of magnetic particles on magnetic tapes also resemble sound waves. Information stored on analogue media tends to be tied down to that media. It is possible to copy these media but this is costly (e.g. one needs to buy tapes) and degrades the quality of copies. Once information is in digital form it can be very quickly and cheaply copied, and sent across the world. Earlier digital media was largely restricted to text, and was visually and sonically homogenous and toneless. Since the 1990s, however, digital media allows for more of our senses to be stimulated at once. A great variety of pictures, sounds and text can be brought together at once, and combined in different ways.

I had some thoughts on the tutorial question about technological determinism versus technological voluntarism in relation to mobile phone. I do not think that either is correct entirely but I would tend to agree more with technological voluntarism. Mobile phones have different meanings for different people, and are used in different ways by different people. For example, some parents of teenagers see mobiles as a way in which their children can get into more trouble or be contacted by dubious strangers. For other parents, however, mobiles are a way of keeping track of their children, as they can be phoned at any place or time. Also, mobiles generally increase our ability to contact other and be contacted. However, some people use their mobiles to avoid contact. They look at the number of the caller to screen the calls and avoid talking to some people. Also, they can text people they would prefer not to interact with in a conversation. In public places they can also use the phone to ‘shield’ themselves from interaction with others by looking at their phone constantly, texting and playing games.

The Sunday Star Times recently featured an article (sorry not online) about parents logging onto Facebook and the (often indignant) reaction from their kids. It'll shock some to learn that 35 years and older are Facebook's fastest growing demographic, and perhaps more disturbing, 100,000 of them have gathered in a group called 'Cool Parents Who Have Facebook'. In the interests of full disclosure, I fit the age group but I would never join that group. The journalist was inspired by Michelle Slatalla from New York Times and her article about her teenage daughter's reaction to mom invading her private online space. Slatalla writes (in a hokey American way) a column called Cyberfamilias, which chronicles the changing landscape of family life under the influence of the Net. This column wasn't one of her best but the comments page was worth a read. Slatalla's statement that "membership makes it possible for parents like me to peek at our children in their online lair" incited some outraged responses. "Ugh. Fine, join Facebook, but for the love of God, don't friend your kids," said one teen. She has a point. If you're not part of your daughter's social network in real life, why invade her friends online? Others posted advice to "get over it and change your settings". What you really have to worry about, said one teen, is the "regular creepy people". In the article, Slatalla quotes Professor Michael Wesch, who argues that younger users are actually involved in the serious business of exploring their identities, which understandably, they don't want to expose to their parents. Referring to the Her@ group experiment, Helen Kennedy said that guestbooks can be conceived as spaces in which the identity of self is constructed through identifications with and recognition from others. In other words, your identity is partly shaped by the people you hang out with. There's no way my teenager wants to associate with my parental dorkiness online and the same goes for millions of other teenagers. Shunned by their own kids, parents are shaping their own identities online with support groups like CPWHF. Most of my friends are using Facebook as a communication tool, not spy tool. And given that most over-35's have spent more time on the planet, we may even rack up more friends than our kids. Of more concern is the ignorance (among all generations) about information dissemination. As Kennedy points out, anonymity is more complex than it seems...there's a difference between feeling anonymous and being anonymous. While their parents lurk online, many teens have sealed their settings to protect their privacy - faceless to their parents but on full display to the rest of the world. Anonymity aside, I reckon most social networking sites are more about people fabricating a slicker version of themselves. I recently toured the South Island with a 16-year-old college student from America, who spent hours taking photos for her Facebook page. Pose, click, same (gorgeous) look.

In class Luke Goode talked about cultural differences on SNS, and whether there were social class distinctions between those who use different SNS. I have been thinking about it in terms of New Zealand, and the sites which I think are the biggest SNS around at the moment, Bebo and Facebook. From my own observation of SNS, I agree with Danah Boyd when she says that SNS attract members depending on there social class. Although I understand Bebo has appeared to be loosing members over the last couple of years to Facebook, myself included, I notice there are still some very devoted friends of mine who still adore Bebo, and who refuse to move to Facebook, or to participate the same way on Facebook as they do on Bebo.

From what I have noticed is that Facebook seems to be a site where the friends I have are what I consider, of a higher social class, who are socio-economically more advantaged, and what Boyd describes as from a “hegemonic society”. Academically I notice they are those who are of a more educated background, which probably reflects the origins of Facebook where it was intended for Harvard academics. I feel the aesthetics of Facebook tend towards more what I consider is a kind of “high art or culture” in cyber space or SNS terms. The lay-out, features, and particularly the minimalism of Facebook that Boyd discusses is what gives it this effect. Facebook has what I consider a more sophisticated, simple, clean site and is more about the content and words, rather than making the profile look a certain way, so those that use it are asked to be more academic in a sense.

Bebo in contrast is what I think is more low art or culture, thus people of lower social class or what society considers “alternative groups” may gravitate towards it more. Much of what makes Bebo low art in a cyber space sense is the overall aesthetics of Bebo. Unlike Facebook, I feel it is more cluttered with a lot of colour, where you can customize your “skin” to whatever you like, whether it’s a Rihanna skin or the other popular culture skins that are available.
From this I definitely feel the decision to gravitate towards Bebo or Facebook definitely reflects the differences in social class, groups and lifestyles in New Zealand.

I was watching an old episode of Gilmore Girls (yes, I like to watch re-runs of things. I live a sad, sad life, I know) and came across a little tidbit that I found quite interesting. Lorelai [Lauren Graham] tells Luke [Scott Patterson] that she would rather type out an email to her daughter Rory [Alexis Bledel], than even talk to her on the phone, because, she says, it hearkened back to the days of letter writing, and Charles Dickens and literature. [Season 4, Episode 80]

So. My question is. Is this actually the case? Is the typing out of a lengthy email the same as writing a letter? And is it preferable to talking to someone on the phone, or even face-to-face (or is this a personal thing)? At the outset, yes, email definitely does hearken back to the days when we wrote letters. Indeed, that was actually the original purpose of email, to be a faster system of mail. It eliminated the need of a lengthy address that people often forgot and it reached the intended recipient in minutes (if not seconds) instead of days (if not months).

But there seems to be a general resentment of this new way of communication. It's everywhere, for goodness sake! It may just be people and the media telling us what to think, but there has always been a romantic aspect to writing a letter; to imagining the person at the other end reading it and their expressions and emotions upon reading it. Indeed, many a great song was penned about distant lovers writing to each other...about a father at war writing to his family back home, expressing his concern for their safety, etc. Films like Amelie have elaborate sub-storylines about a lover pining for her dead/estranged other half and reading his old letters, reminiscing about what used to be. Even the Gilmore Girls scene from above continues this. Lorelai [Graham] continues that while writing an email, she always pictures Charles Dickens sitting at a table writing letters on sunny afternoons.

In addition to this, however, comes the idea of recieving letters. Unless they get lost in the post (which, considering modern postal systems is pretty unlikely) the recipient will almost always get a letter, but emails depend on internet connections, on file corruptions, viruses and the list goes on. The effects of a damaging email is instantaneous, while a damaging letter's effects are delayed (even though this could be a blessing or a curse). On the whole, however, it seems that with advancing technology, we see advancing problems.

Another question is our literature and literary heritage dying out with new technologies? Most people today would rather watch a film based (however loosely) on a book/novel than read the actual book (which, in most cases is better than the film). More currently, however, people now would rather download a film and watch it before it comes out than wait for the film to come to their countries. Internet versions and scanning means that buying a novel for the sake of collecting or the satisfaction of owning a good book (and thus supporting the author) is all but dead. However, the internet can also encourage novel-centred creativity. For example, after the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the rise of websites where adults, teens, tweens and everyone in between could post stories which imagined endings that were (in some cases, significantly) different to Rowling's manuscript. On the more extreme end, there have also been websites that, even today, continue to post Harry Potter erotic literature. Imagined erotic trysts between Harry and Hermione, Ron and Hermione (in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - yes, Moaning Myrtle, the puns there are astronomical), Ron and Harry, Harry and Draco, and after Dumbledore's coming out, between Snape and Dumbledore, Harry and Dumbledore; the permutations and combinations in people's imaginations were (and still are) endless.

So that was what I thought was interesting...Please feel free to further answer/contradict my questions/answers...

Yesterday, a so called "friend" deleted me from their friends list on Facebook. By "friend" I mean someone I met and whose name I managed to remember at a friend's 21st birthday party. After I saw her name while browsing through Facebook, and remembered the cute dress she had on at the time, I added her. Something tells me, I won’t be doing that again anytime soon.

Two days ago, she posted a note on Facebook, a poem by a certain poet about the mystery that is – love. I, being heartbroken from a recent break up, made a sarcastic comment on the note that ended with something like: “…sigh…right now, love is such a bitch”. The next day, I was no longer a “friend”.

My comment had nothing to do with her, it was regarding my feeling towards “love” at that moment, and her note seemed like an appropriate forum for me to express my thoughts. Was it because I used the word “bitch”? I certainly wasn’t calling her a “bitch”. Was it a misunderstanding? Anyway, it’s her Facebook account and she has the right to delete whoever she pleases. However, this raised a certain question for me.

If she made it so abundantly clear that I was no longer a “friend” on Facebook, does this mean I’m no longer a “friend” in real life? I mean we’re not exactly friends. I’ve only met her once. But let’s say if I was to walk down Symonds Street and there she was, walking towards the opposite direction, an eye contact is made, we recognise each other. Normally, I’m the sort of person that would react by saying: “Hey, aren’t you *****'s friend? Remember me?” However, now with Facebook standing in between, I feel as if I’m forced to look the other way and pretend I don’t who she is. Let’s imagine this routine repeating day after day as we walk past each other for a week, what if one day she decided (miraculously) that she overreacted, and decided to add me once again? Would the invisible line that has separated us for the past week be lifted? Would it suddenly be okay for me to say “hi” again? Just some thoughts. Oh, and no hard feelings towards her, despite what the blog title may suggest haha.

In tutorials today I discovered that the concept of a 'personal homepage' is unfamiliar to quite a few people. This isn't really surprising given that few people today invest time in building their own personal website from scratch in order to construct a 'home' for themselves on the internet where they can 'put their stuff' and just 'be' online. For most people it's a bit like building a house of straw when Facebook or MySpace or Blogger will put you up in a fully furnished state-of-the-art apartment. However, in the late 90s many internet service providers offered their customers a little bit of free space on the internet to create a personal homepage and these were typically used to create a space that described the author's likes, dislikes, interests or to demonstrate their creativity. Enter 'personal homepage' into Google and you will see many fine examples of the classic personal homepage still exist.

I think the same desire to have a space of your own on the internet and to display something of yourself persists, but perhaps our new cyberhomes are a little more communal and also a little more commodified.

If you have never seen a late 90s homepage this parody captures the personal homepage aesthetic quite nicely.

Enjoyable silly piece on the ubiquity of screens by Guardian columnist, Charlie Brooker:
"We watch them on the bus. At work. At play. We have been invaded by screens. They rule our lives. All we need is a screen to have sex with and the circle will be complete"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/24/charlie-brooker-screens-invasion

I was browsing the Stuff technology page, and I came across an article in which the opening paragraph reads:
"The man regarded as one of the founding fathers of the internet is in the country - and he says the future of the web is in our bodies and in outer space."

Vint Cerf is the vice president of Google, and this article outlines his vision of "the introduction of internet capability to existing neural interface technology such as cochlear implants, allowing, as an example, web radio played direct from computer to brain". This got me thinking about the Kingsley Dennis reading, and how "the body brain is increasingly shifting towards becoming a biologically-enhanced data processor for wireless reception and transmission (Dennis, 2008). Donna Haraway (1991) describes a cyborg as "a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction" (I got this from my FTVMS312 reader). So putting these two concepts together, Vint Cerf’s vision is of a cyborgian future.

A cochlear implant, as mentioned by Cerf, works by sending impulses to nerves in the ear, and then directly to the brain through the auditory nerve system. Cerf has the vision of using such technologies to receive and transmit information through the internet. The concept of using technologies such as this has been suggested before, and even used to a certain extent by Philip Kennedy with brain implants in his patient Johnny Ray’s brain to allow him to communicate with a computer using only neural signals (Baker, 2008). The idea of receiving and transmitting information is what has really captured by attention though. What could the effects be of such a practice?

On the positive side of the argument, if our brains were able to download information, we would essentially become super-intelligent, or, as Baker (2008) suggests be able to communicate with other species. Our brains would not be limited to the things we learn or experience, but we would be able to know incredible amounts of information and communicate without even speaking to one another.

However, whilst the imagination could easily run wild with exciting possibilities, I fear that the negative implications of the concept of introducing an internet capability to neural interface technologies would far outweigh any positive aspects. The brain will naturally recoil from things which could cause it, or the human body harm (survival instinct), but if this was able to be over-ridden by a computer system, a version of the plot line of The Happening could be unfolding right in front of our eyes. The possibilities of being able to control the human brain, and over-riding the basic survival instincts would be a weapon that could kill off an entire population in seconds.

Additionally, by opening the brain to the internet, the brain would probably be vulnerable to viral attack, just as a computer is. For example, a Trojan horse virus is designed to open the computer up to a hacker, and allow them remote access to the machine. Once the virus has been installed on the computer, the hacker is able to remotely control the system. Essentially, the hacker would be able to hack into the brain which the computer was operating with. If the computer implant was able to influence the brain, the hacker would then be able to control the person’s actions, shut down certain neural functions, or, as mentioned above, over-ride survival instincts, making the person kill them self.

This all seems like doom and gloom however, but I think that if the technologies were used appropriately, and in situations in which they need to be used (such as someone who was completely paralysed or unable to enjoy a ‘normal’ life), then this particular concept of a cyborg is not so abhorrent. I am however, wary of exploitation of such technologies, and believe that if computer implants were to become accepted and a way of life, massive amounts of effort and money would need to be poured into developing security systems to protect the human brain.

Information I used

Baker, S. (2008). Rise of the Cyborgs. Discover. 29(10). 50-57

Dennis, K. (2008). Opening Pandora’s box: How technologies of communication and cognition may be shifting towards a "psycho–civilized society. First Monday. Vol 13(2)

Link to the article: http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/2779006/Google-evangelist-sees-web-brain-implant-link

http://failblog.org/2009/08/22/facebooking-win/

The subtitle “Identity in the Age of The internet” caught my eyes in this week’s reading. It is quite relevant to the example that Luke said in the lecture that a person who refuses to tell her real age on the dating site. It seems funny and ridiculous in the first time, but it is true in the reality and also reminds me my own little experience.

By the time when the "chatting room" was still very popular, I was so excited and put up almost everything about me online. The common questions that often asked were age, sex, height and so on. I was still new to the “chatting room” and I did not notice that people were actually lied who they really are while I was totally being honest with unknown people. There was this guy who I chatted with for a while and wanted to meet up. I looked back our “conversation” history and found out he is 170cm tall and I agreed to meet him. However, everything was not what I expected, in fact, I did not realise it was him, because he looks so different as he described online (He was about the same height as me when I was 165 around that time.). I realised the internet does not always tell the true, thus since that time, I changed my details in the homepage, thus, my identity online has been changed. 

Identity never can be completed. People keep changing their identities due to the circumstances; a person can be 175cm tall, kilos of weight which is super skinny today, can simply change to 170ccm. 60 kilos tomorrow and be a totally different person. Internet is like a wall between two people. They never know who is on the other side and who they really one. People have to guess the others’ identities based on that they’ve put up their homepages. 

There is a huge drive at the moment towards making internet searching capable of reflecting real time information. This ability to sort results by real time has given Twitter a huge advantage over other search engines, even to the point where people look to them for breaking news updates. Their list of the top 10 trending topics, updated in real time, gives an insight into what has people talking. These topics can range from world news, to people posting their opinion on the latest blockbuster, or even a video on YouTube that’s gone viral. Facebook recently followed suit, allowing users to opt-in to a searchable public timeline of their status updates.



A few months ago, Google, the world’s most popular search engine, allowed users to filter search terms according to date. Being able to differentiate results that were posted recently and those from a year ago has the potential to create a new user experience where time sensitive terms will return the appropriate results posted recently. At the moment, results are merely sorted by relevance, which can be frustrating if you’re looking for information on a developing story.

This focus on gaining information in real time is an example in the way that technology is shifting the way in which we process information. Rather than wait for a traditional news media such as newspapers and news agencies, we have become cyborgs, extending our senses so that we may both broadcast and receive information ourselves. However, the paradox is, at the same time, this flood of information means that we are limited in the information we can physically process, and many people will select information based on what others are talking about, rather than sorting through everything.

Just thought I would share this everyone, I think it's fantastic!

I happened to come across this article about recessions in the American porn industry that was quite relevant to what we talked about last week on online pornography. I found it under the news section at Taiwanese msn.com, and found that it is in fact a translated article from the Los Angeles Times. It talks about the rough times within the porn industry nowadays, not so much due to the economic recession but the prevalent use of internet allowing people to be able to access free content at the ease of their fingertips, making a dramatic decline on the number of consumers that are willing to pay for porn. The article pointed out that at least 5 of the 100 top websites in the U.S. are portals for free pornography, and that industry insiders estimate that revenue for most adult production and distribution companies has declined 30% to 50%.

I believe how this shift of porn watching is beneficial to the consumers, but I really feel bad for the exploiting of the girls that are in the industry. I think convenience, privacy, and price are perhaps the main factors to people’s choice and development of viewing habits as to why they would prefer porn viewing online over the previous purchasing of DVDs and other hard copies. Apart from that it’s free of charge, I believe it should have an even greater impact in especially to pornography in comparing to the film and music industries, as simply downloading or just video streaming is much less of a fuss and much more secured than physically purchasing hard copies, in the risk of been spotted when you make your purchase or your collection been found by someone you don’t want to expose your personal taste to. After all, evidence of internet browsing history is much easier to hide than that of DVD disks.


(The article from LA times for anyone interested: Click Here)

I felt Kennedy's study in the reading this week had some weaknesses. Firstly, the students were all female, mature, working class and ethnically a minority; they were chosen because they best represented 'the digital divide' but this is highly problematic. The fact these women were largely computer illiterate, having grown up only gauging 'one' reality (just life, not cyberspace) meant they were pre-disposed to treat the construction of their homepages as logical extensions to their real-world identities - which they did. Kennedy maybe should have compared them to people growing up fully immersed with computers as a space of (potentially) alternate reality, where the internet in particular is connoted to be (by other media too) a 'wormhole' where one can disappear and either map, embellish or subvert their offline self - no doubt more creative identity 'performance' (Butler) would have been rampant here. Secondly, her treatment of the very word 'anonymity' I felt was hazy. There seemed to be a rupture in the definition. 'Anonymity' she originally sees as pertaining to truth value and loyalty to the offline self ("the students did not engage in the presentation of anonymous identities" i.e. no disjuncture between online and offline identity). Then she ackowledges "there were (nevertheless) traces of anonymity in internet identites" without reminding us 'anonymity' used here refers not to truth value but to the perceived level of privacy one is operating with on the homepages - a completely different context.
It seemed the students in Kennedy's study 'felt' anonymous (privacy) in their sanctuary of their homepage, but they didn't 'be' anonymous (they maintained high truth value) because their homepages reflected and mapped onto their offline selves.

I am different with different people. I am mostly the same with my friends, but at home, due to personal circumstances I assume a completely different identity. Call me paranoid, but the two hardly overlap, unless there is a considerable degree of trust involved. My online identity is the self I cannot be in reality; an extreme version of myself. It is, to me a third identity, the "me" I want to be but cannot in real life. It serves, often as an escape from my home life, helping me to (subtly, of course) air out my grievances with my home life. It allows me to talk to my friends about problems, or even just gossip. However, as I learnt, the more extreme that my life online was, the emotions resulting from my two realities colliding online was much worse . For example, a few weeks ago, a friend of my father, and therefore my family, sent me a Friend Request on FaceBook. The resulting confusion (over what to do), befuddlement, panic and anxiety it caused was consequently also much greater than if I had bumped into her on the street. The fact that she could see my photos, my posts, my friends, basically most aspects of my life, and the fact that she was free to form her own opinions and make her own judgments from them, and the fact that they could get back to my family here caused me no end of panic. In the end, however, I found a way to block only her from viewing my Wall, or my Photos - a concept I'd never have known otherwise.

In the reading about identities and anonymity on Her@, I found myself identifying mostly with Noorie, the woman who posted her angst towards her misogynistic husband. The internet, especially the Status Bar on FaceBook, allows me to tell the world I feel bad, and then have a friend ask me what's wrong and comfort me, thus allowing me to move on almost instantaneously. However, the public aspect of putting even something as remotely personal as this worries me. Even on the blog, people seem to be quite comfortable sharing personal details of their lives that pertain to New Media, even if it is to prove a point. The anonymity of it (to other users) may be a factor, or the fact that the class is so big that jusgment is not an issue from somebody you haven't met, or even possibly due to the fact that we can feel safe from judgment thanks to the administration of the blog and the paper.

This article connects with some of the issues we'll be discussing this coming week.

Many will agree with me that the Internet is one of the best inventions of today because it gives the user so many opportunities of video chatting with people in countries around the world, meeting interesting people in chat rooms and lastly stalking different people anonymously. There are many social networking sites that people can join for free and at the same time get the latest information on what his or her crush is up too.
Many high school girls join sites like Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, Multiply and so on to know what their crush has been doing, by examining his status updates, and checking out his latest photo albums. But since there are privacy options on most of these sites it becomes a challenge for these girls to create a whole new imaginary person that they have to give a life too. They pretend to be this bogus person, thinking that their crush will accept the friend request that they will send that will give them full access to his profile. They now have to maintain two accounts on each of the social networking sites that they belong to and think and act as two different people. Even though this can be challenging and confusing many of them are successful in doing it and enjoy living their second life. They have two worlds, one of their own and the other of the second identity, that they are part of and two identities to live through. This is a smart way of stalking a crush because the crush will have no idea that the person that he added is a non-existent person in real life. Now the girl is able to comment on the different things that her crush does and knows what kind of a person he really is by reading his profile and looking at what kind of friends he has. The girl then reaches a satisfaction level that she will cherish and work hard to maintain, the moment of being a mouse click away from the boy of her dreams.
Technology today has a way of affecting how people live their lives and gives them the satisfaction they need. This craze is still very popular among teenage girls around the world who are very desperate to be part of the world of the boy of their dreams.

I am one of the many addicted university students to facebook. However while getting my daily fix of nzherald.com I stumbled upon this particular article, with the headline "has facebook ruined a relationship of yours?" As I thought about it I came to realise that indeed, facebook can be a catalyst in to arguments about a relationship. For example, two of my friends who are in a relationship, lets call them Jane and John Doe for reasons that I do not want to expose them. Johns ex girlfriend recently added him on facebook, and much to Janes disgust he accepted. Johns ex is now sending wall post to John. This has further infuriated Jane, who now thinks John much prefers his ex girlfriend. Now while I think its a over reaction, it got me thinking, if you accept your ex boyfriend or even indeed another attractive person, your significant other may indeed have a over reaction and begin to question the relationship. I guess the problem here could lie in that people are beginning to rely on networking sites as the main form of communication in a relationship and fail to talk about issues outside of these network sites.
Just a thought really.
Oh and if anyones interested this is the link to the article http://blogs.nzherald.co.nz/blog/your-views/2009/8/13/has-facebook-ruined-relationship-yours/?c_id=1501154

This post is on Filament magazine (warning: links in this post may contain nudity), which I think provides an interesting contrast to Suicide Girls.

Filament is a new magazine that, in addition to printing articles, features photography of scantily-clad and nude men. The magazine's makers claim these photos portray the sorts of body types, facial features and physical/emotional contexts that women prefer, and that these images are made for “the female gaze”. This is quite different to the tactics employed by Suicide Girls, which essentially asks heterosexual females to derive pleasure from erotic depictions of their own gender.

I find this idea of “the female gaze” quite interesting. On the one hand, it can be seen as a radical notion. It allows the appropriation of the phallic symbol, challenges the traditional male gaze of much pornography by actively “looking back” and allows the exploration of female desire. It seems these potentially radical connotations have been picked up on by the magazine’s printer, which has refused to print an issue that features a nude model with an erect penis (the cited reason of potential offense to "the womens/religious sectors" seems a little flimsy).

On the other hand, the notion of a “female gaze” is problematic because all it essentially does is flip an existing power structure (the male gaze), making it focus on and objectify a different gender. The objectification of males may be politically and ideologically potent in the current societal climate. In the long term, however, the practice could become ethically objectionable, especially considering that other publishers may lack Filament's devotion to non-exploitative sexuality (as outlined in their FAQ).

The “female gaze” also seems to create a heterosexual space that refuses queerness and excludes those of homosexual or bisexual orientations. Interestingly, there has recently been some controversy when an article about Filament was filed in the "Gay" section of a pornography news website. This perhaps suggests that the notion of “the female gaze” lacks the flexibility necessary to survive in today’s sexual world.

So while Filament may be an interesting and worthy experiment, I think it ultimately highlights the need to create new discourses and models of sexuality that are entirely independent of, rather than derivative of, current patriarchal models.

It is clearly apparent from our last lecture that there are many ways in which we can interpret the nature of identity in relation to new media. I tend to follow the argument that the ‘online’ self is just an extension of a new form of identity (fluid, fragmented) which is the result of a rising ‘post-modern’ society. In the reading for this topic, it notes Hall (1996) as saying: “identities are never unified and, in late modern times, increasingly fragmented and fractured…often intersecting…and are constantly in the process of change and transformation”.

I liken this notion to a kaleidoscope in the sense that there are a range of different parts (aspects of our personality) which we group together in different ways, turning and shifting to create a certain ‘design’. There are a number of patterns possible but essentially they are all part of the same object (or person).

I agree with what Luke mentioned in the lecture in that I don’t think it is right to deem people as ‘fake’ if their online identity in ways seems to mismatch what people know of them in real life or if their profile differs across different sites – I think it is the combination of all these ‘identities’ that allows a better understanding of who a person is.

One critique to this perspective is the ability for people to essentially make up, exaggerate or withhold certain information about them when creating virtual identities. I guess when considering this, there is a clear difference between getting to know someone online and in person – physical interaction allows people to ‘experience’ a person’s identity rather than have it 'described' to them for their own interpretation. For example, online someone may describe themselves as ‘funny’ – in having an actual conversation with this person would you actually find out the extent to which this is true or not.

The concepts of the death of distance and intimacy at a distance piqued my interest because they reminded me of the relationship I have with my best friend. While we met in person, our relationship takes place almost exclusively via the internet because my friend and I both suffer from bouts of crippling anxiety in the physical company of others. The so called death of distance is certainly true in our case since he cannot bring himself to see me more than a couple of times a year, and when we do neither of us is comfortable, but we communicate extensively online almost every day. What makes our relationship possible is precisely that distance, our mediated intimacy allows us to communicate fluidly in a way that would be impossible were there not a buffer between us. While the idea of intimacy at a distance is highly problematic as it poses serious questions about whether our interaction is becoming somewhat watered down and perhaps even made too easily digestible in the technological age, we must not lose sight of the fact that these technological developments also have the potential to have exactly the opposite effect. People who are unable to have meaningful relationships due to anxiety disorders are able to use the mediation and distance online communication provides to develop intimate relationships they may never have thought possible before the advent of the internet. While this in no way makes up for the lack of physical contact and face to face interaction, it is a valuable source of meaningful contact that many people would otherwise go without. In no way do I mean to imply that the internet does not have huge potential for detrimental effect on human relations but I felt that the last couple of lectures and readings had been utterly depressing that a reminder on the positive effects of new media was overdue.

The rapid expansion of the digital realm has left us constantly bombarded with information. This forces us to be selective, to filter such information in terms of our interests and desires. The means to be selective have been provided, such as search engines that narrow down lists of thousands of potential sources. We have become accustomed to this type of society, and we have become more and more demanding. It is no surprise that many of us have adopted a 'get-to-the-point' attitude, particularly apparent in online culture. We want information, and we want it fast. And just as a search engine can save us many laborious hours of research, 'befriending' a person on a social networking site such as Facebook allows people to achieve the status of 'friend' (debatable, I know) while omitting more than a few time-consuming steps in the traditional path to friendship (developing trust and affection to name a couple).


On a different note, I was surfing the net for websites concerning online identity when I stumbled across this site that claims to calculate your personal online identity by placing you in one of four categories on the “Digital Scale”. The site allows you to monitor your online "brand" (the impression of you that people receive when they enter your name into a search engine), providing potential steps for tweaking your online identity to your satisfaction. This aligns well with the notion of the ‘idealised self’ - the identity that a person chooses to be projected. This particular website is concerned with online identities in the career domain, so this online "brand" is obviously one that is going to portray a person in a good light to potential employers. In my opinion, it is highly unlikely that this site, or any other for that matter, can allow people to exert full control over their online identities. However, I think this serves as a good example of how identities are performed in ways that take other people's potential perceptions of a person into consideration prior to said identity performance. In other words, what others think, matters.

Facebook is great for catching up with old friends. Recently, an old school friend of mine who I haven’t seen since about the fourth form added me as a friend and started chatting to me online. It was cool to find out how they had been and what they were up to now, however as the conversation started to get a bit too personal and disclosing for my liking I became less inclined to reply and eventually simply logged off without any explanation. Writing about now this sounds a bit insensitive, however I must admit (and I’m a tad shocked by this) how indifferent I felt about it at the time.

Thinking about the whole concept of intimacy at a distance, I realise how in this instance I was managing my distance and negotiating my emotional investment in such a way only deemed appropriate, or indeed possible via the internet (and perhaps other communication technologies such i.e. texting). This was characterised by the ease I could exit the conversation. I was able to simply log off and exit the conversation without any explanation and in all likelihood without causing any offence due to the ever present possibility of perhaps having experienced some sort of technical difficulty such as unexpectedly loosing connection or having to suddenly leave the conversation for some other reason. However, in everyday practice, simply walking away from someone mid-conversation because you’re not willing make the level of emotional investment asked of you at that time would be seen as rude and offensive. Similarly in face to face conversation you are expected to be constantly attentive, however, during online conversation it is considered acceptable to be doing other things besides holding the conversation without appearing inattentive, rude or distracted.

Unlike ‘real conversation’, ‘virtual conversations’ are easy to enter and exit. In this way ‘virtual conversations’ seem somewhat more user friendly when compared to the fast paced, attention requiring and at times emotionally demanding ‘real thing’. However, I would argue that there is something about this fleeting, non-committed feature of 'virtual conversation' that makes me think that in gaining one thing, we are loosing something else. The idea that the internet has brought about the death of distance holds resonance here - certainly geography still matters greatly and distance hasn’t really vanished. The internet is a good thing in that helps us stay in touch with people all around the world quickly and effortlessly. On the other hand, it also encourages relationships and communications that are virtual - intimacy at a digital distance. In realising my own insensitivity and perhaps even selfishness in simply abandoning a conversation just because I couldn’t be bothered with putting in the emotional investment, I feel that empathy and other human qualities may get reduced because of less face-to-face contact. If I were talking to this person face-to-face I most certainly would have handled the conversation differently.

The very name, Facebook, is ironic because you don't communicate face to face, which in my opinion is a much better for intimate conversations. Sure, you may have hundreds of Facebook “friends” and share with them intimate details of your everyday life. But how often do you see them? Have coffee with them? Embrace them? More significantly, does it actually matter? Something to think about.

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I would have to agree with Magnet's conclusion that Suicide Girls is limited as a feminist website. Although it doesn't explicitly claim to be feminist it is clearly inferred.

Contrary to the cybertopian reading that is possible with this site, the way it portrays its treatment of women as empowering, the commodification of women becomes more acceptable, more legitimised and therefore is a product that is more easily consumed. Not only is it a more guilt-free indulgence (like low-fat ice-cream), it is reinforcing objectification of women.

In reference to the argument that the politics change with the method of production (women taking control of their own shoots) I fail to see how this changes the method of consumption. In fact, the site encourages self-objectification, giving the models a false-sense of empowerment when it is more likely that the source of their gratification comes from other people finding them desirable. These women are still performers looking to gain a bigger audience share than other models. Whether they do it for the money or the status they get from being models, they are selling themselves.

This leads me to my next point. The women on this site are compared to mainstream images of women in pornography. The differences are generally viewed as "refreshing" and supportive of diversity where in other media forms they may have been neglected. Magnet's argument rebuffs this idea in terms of the lack of racial difference within the site and the treatment of "coloured" models. She fails to note that, although these women are fashioning themselves differently from the mainstream images of women in pornography (namely women with breast augmentations and highlighted hair) that the Suicide Girls models are also, and even more extremely, fashioning themselves for a market. They become technobodies and or/cyborgs, inseparable from the technology of their tattoo artist or their plastic surgeon as well as the images of themselves that are placed of them on the Internet. The question arises whether a site that was exactly the same but with mainstream pictures would be considered in the same way that the "different" models are. I highly doubt this. It is also important to note that not only is the majority of models white women but they are not as separate from mainstream ideals- there is a group which is dedicated to people who "...just love big boobs."

When viewing the site's homepage I noticed that it seemed to be of a kind of hybrid nature between the soft-porn site and a non-pornographic blog. This returns me to my first point as this can be viewed as an attempt at repackaging the pornography product to make it more sanitary for users who are quite possibly uneasy about viewing traditional, less subtle porn sites. On the other hand, this may be an attempt to attract female members to the site. I am, however, reminded of the many times that the phrase "He doesn't buy playboy for the articles," has been used in sitcoms. And this attempt seems to be thinly veiled as it is a contradiction to the real product that is being offered: not the ordinary. It's a bizarre kind of mix.

I am currently in the market for a new laptop. When before, my search priorities were weight, size, and design, now I spend endless hours comparing technical aspects such as memory, hard drive, video card, keyboard size, battery life, display resolution and operating temperature. Why the sudden change in searched qualities? Gaming. A few weeks back, lectures based on gaming emphasized the unbalanced gender playing field and stereotypes of women purport by gaming. Although this is possibly the most important issue in relation to gaming and gender, I think that it is also imperative to look at minor effects of gaming on women.
From personal experience and observations of other female gamers, it seems that most female gamers have a better understanding of and a more “fervent” interest in the technical aspects of technology. Although it is true that men are more interested in the actual functionality of the technology while women are more interested in the social aspects, women, especially women who play games, are slowly being immersed into the male side of things.
For me, it was my fascination for the game “The Sims” that got me interested in the technical aspects of my laptop. Upon playing the game, I noticed that sometimes the game would lag or crash. So I set upon finding a way to enhance my laptop, thus enhancing my gaming experience. Upon much Internet research, I found out that a larger RAM and a larger HDD would help with the lagging problem. Thus I bought a larger RAM and a larger HDD and upgraded my laptop myself. Now, I know that this isn’t much of a big feat for men, but how many women can say they have upgraded their own laptop RAM and HDD? While in search for the RAM and the HDD, I also learned the difference between DDR2 and DDR1, and SATA and PATA. Upon having to (or really just wanting to) upgrade the parts myself, I learned how to successfully open up my laptop without breaking everything, and the places of where everything was.
My interest in technology was furthered by my developing interest for The Sims. When the Sims 3 came out, I was dying to try it out. I was unsure about the system requirements so again, I searched around on the web and found a helpful website (http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest) that determines if your computer is able to run specific games. From this I learned that I would need a better video card and processor (in which I learned about NVIDIA GeForce, ATI Radeon, Intel GMA and GHz), which is impossible because a video card is welded onto a laptop. Thus, I am back to my opening sentence, I have no other choice but to look for another laptop that will meet my requirements.
Although this blog post is primarily based on my own experience, I know that other women who are frequent gamers are also more technology savvy than most others because it is a requirement for gamers. From what I have observed, women who play more complex, competitive games such as WoW are especially more knowledgeable about technology. Thus the interest in gaming fuels interest in technology.

*Another piece of actual evidence is the growing number of websites dedicated to women interested in technology. A particularly useful one that I often visit (although it is void of information about laptops) is http://www.technologyforgirls.com/ , and the “Jargon Buster” section is especially helpful!

We're all made to feel special and different as children, yet, we are all socialized into society so that we don't stand out too much and try to lead a normal life. When we're older, we have the capacity to think for ourselves though, and this creates endless possibilities. The idea that identities are fluid and fragmented is discussed in our course Reader by Kennedy (drawing on Hall's work in 1996), and just like a freight train, it hits me - this has been happening since... forever.

Think about it. When you're at a family function, surrounded by your mother, father, etc, how do you act? Do you act like you would when you're around your mates, on the booze, during a night out? I didn't think so. We learn as we get older that acting the same way about everyone all the time doesn't always work out, due to expectations. I argue that the individual doesn't have as much choice as they'd like to think they do, by drawing on the work of Judith Butler (from our lecture).

Don't get me wrong. I agree and understand fully that we are all individuals and have the capacity to create our own identities, but I believe that we do so in the space and the confines of the public realm, rather than our own private thoughts. Now, it may be because I do Sociology as well which is causing my view on the fluidity/fragmentation of identity as more of a societal process, but there is no denying that, for example, when you decide what you want to wear, you take into consideration what others will think. I think this applies to not only our offline selves, but also our online selves. Because the societal shackles on the formulation of our online identities may be temporarily broken, due to the relative anonymity we are provided in a digital world, we are given the tools and more options to create ourselves in more ways. Therefore, I have to argue that identities being fragmented has always been a common phenomenon, but has always just been more subtle and more acceptable, whereas the internet will let us tweak our identities in the most extreme ways, making it much more noticeable and more problematic (due to people being able to lie and deceive others much more easily).

What does everyone else think?

Kennedy's article provided interesting insights into the critical cyberculture studies phase that we are currently exploring. Identity and Anonymity are issues under constant scrutiny within new media and the cultures that exist within it. In order to provide a context, take that of a forum based website where like minded individuals or groups sharing similar interests converge to discuss, debate, share and express ideas, information and experiences. Forums have become a haven for the anonymous, it is a place within the cyber world where one can escape the aesthetic and social attributes they may possess to create or expand their personality and extend social contact.

Kennedy however clearly explains how the empowering anonymity found behind a screen is far more problematic; while visual cues are absent; our ability to communicate online can quite easily express aspects of our identity. In other forms of internet forum such as Facebook, identity is prioritised and considered a significant part of their social being. Constant updates, becoming a fan of ____, and commenting are explicit expressions of our ever changing and transforming identities. Leaving your Facebook account unattended for a long period could prove disastrous in today’s context leaving an outdated impression of your online representation. These personal profiles existing on the internet in most cases feature our real name so therefore must be a transparent reflection of ourselves, or perhaps they are simply a construction of an identity we would like to possess. As in the offline world perhaps you will be judged on whom you are friends with, what group you belong to or associate with, or simply by the number of friends you possess in your online representation. Facebook quizzes further provoke question; a friend of mine has just achieved the status of '20+ beer champ'. It seems that no-one ever achieves an embarrassing or poor result suggesting their answers were chosen according to the predicted outcome they would achieve; representation or construction?.

What is written on your wall and where you've been tagged show aspects of your identity, allowing others to make judgments based on their relationship with you. If we use Kennedy’s concept of analysing the offline self (assuming we know this person offline) we can develop a deeper understanding of their online identity, considerin it an extension of their offline self, or a constructed online-self. Who sees this online persona is controlled by the individual and therefore keeps a level of anonymity to the outside world. Conversely, you may be trying to achieve the exact opposite, publishing your constructed identity to all who care to look.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009 by jayjay

I think what Luke said in class about wanting to be individuals but at the same time wanting to identify with others is quite a universal which in turn gets reflected in how we use new media.

facebook reflects this as was mentioned in posts before in regards to how we present our tastes in music, film, etc. to be “out there”, but we also remember to make sure they’re not TOO out there. I also agree with what was mentioned in an earlier post about how the lack of immediacy gives us the time to deliberate about what we can say when we are making online comments for instance. I’m sure we’ve regretted saying more things to people in person than we’d have regretted writing wallposts, and the fact that we can delete comments just gives us more power to shape and construct how we think others should see us.

It seemed as though some of the ideas about identity were similar or related in some ways, like the impression management of “ideal self” and Gothman’s notion of carefully constructing an image of oneself for the outside world. A particular part of Gothman’s idea that struck me was his notion of leakage in which parts of our carefully constructed performances break down and conflict with our notions of self-identity. I talk again of facebook, and the recent hijacking of accounts I see on my home page. You’ll know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever left your facebook unattended with a friend and you come back and realize your status now says there is a party in your pants and everyone is invited...

Every individual I’ve seen on my facebook homepage whos status has been hijacked has quickly posted within minutes an explanation of what happened and who the perpetrator was. I think this highlights how people may want to protect the identities they have constructed and how they would want to salvage and repair their identities if they were ever damaged.

This week’s lecture reminded me of the “friendship books” my friends and I used to write in back in high school, which were similar to the way nowadays on cyberspace we are often asked to identify who we are through the tastes we have. Like Facebook and dating sites, these friendship books asked what our ‘favourite films’ were as well as other tastes we had, only on an actual physical book which got passed around within the school. Identity branding through these simplistic categories was evident even back then but today with the many internet sites that are around, we are asked these kinds of questions more often, so this is a lot more evident and has a lot more effect on the our way identity is constructed and the way we perform that identity. I was as anxious then as I sometimes feel towards describing myself on cyberspace now. So for this reason I agree with Liu’s argument that our tastes are sometimes a performance. The one motivation behind this performance that I am particularly interested in is the motivation of prestige. The tastes people describe on Facebook are sometimes motivated by prestige, that is appearing a certain way, and conforming to what they perceive as the ideal identifier of themselves. This is because I believe today Facebook profiles are such a huge part of who we are, and describing aspects of ourselves that can be critiqued can be quite daunting for some, as they may not want to appear too different from others, particularly for teenagers who are beginning to shape their identity especially in relation to popular culture. I think this idea of prestige on Facebook is a big factor because our friends are often from many different areas of our life, as we belong to many groups and communities, not just one. Appealing to all of these groups can be a difficult task, so can be a vulnerable aspect of sharing our identity with our friends. Identity performance is without a doubt something which some may feel pressure to perform, but is heightened so much more today as a result of new media.

Last Monday's Lecture got me thinking about how the internet has changed our lifestyles completely. Everybody has heard one story about somebody meeting a stranger online and the scary events that followed. It's so easy to re-invent yourself on the internet, and your 'profile' could easily be manipulated in so many ways. But internet dating sites have become so popular over the last years. I read somewhere that its more common for career- orientated individuals to be on dating sites because they don't have the time to go out to a bar and meet people. Dating sites allows the individual to be specific with their searches and find a compatible match in a matter of seconds. I think I can be understanding to those situations. If you can go on a website and meet ten compatible people with blue eyes, brown hair, and who likes to ski; why not? But at the same time, I think the internet makes us more self- conscious and aware of our surroundings. In the lecture, Luke discussed this notion of 'fantasy' when it comes to online dating. The question that I ask myself is if these relationships people build online would be transferred in the 'real world'?

While we may not realise it or admit it, it's safe to say that all of us to some extent are guilty of 'editing' our likes and dislikes. First impressions are those that last and i'm sure I wasn't the only one who was just a little bit nervous yesterday in the lecture when faced with the task of summing up my tastes in music, flim and literature with only one choice for each category. While it wasn't all that hard to pick my favourites, what was hard was trying to predict what the person sitting next to me would think of me if I actually had to share with them. Would they think of me as some sort of pyscho because my favourite song is 'Sculpting the throne of Seth' by Polish brutal death metal band Behemoth? The last thing we want is to be looked down upon or viewed negatively by our peers, and it's all too easy to acuire a false impression of a stranger based purely on their tastes in various cultural areas. True I do consider myself a 'metalhead' listening to music that most people would be afraid to even look at the album cover of, but I also enjoy drum n' bass, jazz, dub, ska and electro, not something you would expect after being told what my favourite song is.

An interesting phenomenon it is that people would lie about their preferences just to look 'cool' or 'popular' in front of others but this is exactly what is happening in the digital age in which we live. New forms of communication like email, texting, blogging and online chat allow us to mediate and control how we come across to those we are communicating with. In a face to face context we are generally put on the spot and will often tell the truth on matters such as this. I would probably admit to being a huge fan of death metal to anyone asking me what music I like, unless it was made in a 'disconnected' context. By not being forced to give an immediate response, we can consider not just the answer that we wish to give, but the answer that other people would like to hear. As Luke pointed out in class, a prime example of this is looking at friends supposed 'likes' on facebook, and sometimes it seems as though people have gone to extreme lengths to paint a certain image of themselves, which may or may not be a true refleciton of themselves.

Another example that sprung to mind was the feedback and comments people post on music website www.ultimate-guitar.com. The site features news, reviews, guitar tabs and forums amongst other things aiming to connect musicians worldwide. It's interesting reading the comments people make on various news articles, particularly when it's concerning a band that the majority of the people who frequent the site would look down on, like 'Fall Out Boy' (sorry if anyone reading this is a fan!). Most comments posted about the band are of a negative nature, and anyone trying to defend the band gets 'flamed' by other users for liking such a group. In light of this i fail to see why anyone would bother making a positive comment when they are more than likely to be abused and ridiculed just because of their tastes. This raises the issue of authenticity, and calls into question the extent to which we can trust peoples 'online identities'. Are these identities likely to be a reflection of our true selves? How can we tell who is genuine and who is not? Oh, and just in case anyone was curious, my answers to the ‘favourite things’ question in class are, ‘Sculpting the Throne of Seth, Ace Ventura, World War Z. Unless of course you think I’ve mediated my answers in order to look cool!

The society that surrounds us today critically analyze who we are, therefore making people want to hide their true identity. The new media offers the concept of anonymity in virtual communities and online identities.

But in our offline community we are judged and judge people through whom and what they identify with. This judgmental approach that our society takes makes everyone in society to identify with things that may not truly be a part of who they are. Identity consist aspects such as physical appearance, religious, aesthetics, gender, wealth status and much more, but we highlight aspects of our identity, we feel will be accepted by the society and make us individuals at the same time. Luke mentioned in the lecture ‘identity is in constant tension between belonging to a certain group and being unique as well’ which highlights the fear that every individual have of alienating oneself. This fear of alienation relates to Erving Goffman’s argument of “who we are defined by what people think of us”. We are defined by the people’s judgment on is so therefore portray or highlight an aspect of our identity that is socially acceptable. Goffman also stated “we are in a level of performance to define what people think of us. Carefully construct what we present to the world.” We are always thinking about how we are perceived, but in the online world there can be a form of anonymity.

The anonymity the online identity offers, allows users to start new of whom they are and who they want to be. But the concept of being anonymous is not as easy as feeling anonymous. The online world offers a distance barrier but the way users write and the links they use are ways to find out a part of the offline users identity. We a society may feel anonymous while surfing the internet, but how we use it makes us identifiable to a certain degree.

A twenty-five year old Chinese man named, Sun Danyong, committed suicide on Wednesday, 22 July, because an important iPhone prototype in his possession went missing. Danyong, who worked for Foxconn Technology Group in the product communications department, was said to be responsible for sending 16 fourth-generation iPhone prototypes to the major computer and communications company, Apple Inc. According to a story on foxnews.com, the man apparently had his house raided by Foxxcon’s security company after he reported the missing prototype. The man then told a friend that when the security officers couldn’t find anything they beat him up. Although the security official in question, Gu Qinming, denied the allegations, he was still suspended by Foxxcon. Interestingly enough, the article also noted that employees dealing with the new products have to guard them quite closely as there are many journalists and competitors who would like to see what Apple has next in store. So how did the employee, Danyong, get caught up by the pressure of keeping this prototype a secret, so much so, that he thought it was worth more than his life?

To start off thinking about it, the situation is not actually as bad as it seems. In other words, it was just a prototype that went missing, it seems highly unlikely that the designers would not have kept a record of the new tweaks they had made to the phone. Even more, the prototype was a communications device not a nuclear missile, so it could not have been that death-threatening. Danyong could have committed suicide because of the pressure put onto him by the security company; maybe fearing greater repercussions would result if the prototype had actually been stolen by a member of the media or competitor. If this premise is taken as feasible, then that means that at a really basic level his death was due to the fact that Apple Inc. could not create a buzz around the iPhone’s new features. It is interesting that this story implies that if there is no buzz over a new product, it could cost the company quite a bit. And that the cost could be more than a financial price. Can this incident be associated with the master-slave binary that Luke proposed in class? Although this could be an extreme case, it seems that technology is making us it’s bitch more and more these days. No one can really know for sure why Sun Danyong killed himself. No one can really know for sure if it had anything to do with technology. But it does sound suspiciously similar to the plot of many movies (iRobot). And I don’t want to end on a conspiratorial note, but the security company’s involvement does cast a big-corporation-like shadow over the whole incident.