technoculture314-09

Watching a recent Star Wars re-run, I wondered what had happened to holograms and virtual reality. I seriously thought by now that everyone would be running around in an imaginary computer generated world a la The Matrix, and people would be talking on videophones. It seems that an answer has sort f arrived, in the form Augmented Reality. It seems that soon the free congenial space that we are so accustomed will be over taken by an overlaying of information, through either the visual capturing capabilities of iphones or the inclusion of technology into our eyewear, and even so far as our contact lenses. Wired magazine ran a great article here, offering to us what the future is supposedly going to be like. The inclusion of information directly fed to us baffles me, but it also made me realize that we actually live in a society that does this already. Feeling pretty cybernetic already, with my iPod, mobile phone, I worry that if covering our eyes in Augmented Reality is going to do more harm than good.

Advertising stands to gain huge amounts from this. I can’t help but think about what Negroponte talks about with bits and bites, the ability to replicate information seamlessly and endlessly, without any degradation in quality form the source. The contact lenses that are spoken about in the above article have tiny little LED’s (light emitting diodes, for you luddites) that can project the most minuscule of images, allowing you and only you to see it. I find it interesting stuff, as the possibilities are endless. In an already media saturated world, does this offer another encroachment on our liberties, a visual space that was once allowed for us and us only to see? I could see some fun to be had though: imagine playing a game in real life, with images overlayed, perhaps like this. Perhaps the Matrix doesn’t exist, but Augmented Reality pretty much comes close.

Ok, Im sure that everyone who has MP3 players, or iPods if you prefer, or at least a computer at home would have committed a 'crime' of music sharing or downloading music illegally from the web or file-sharing services, more than few times already for most of us and for some of us, it could be a part of the daily routine to discover new music and hunt for it on the internet to download it. Now, this music sharing and illegal downloads are, as it reads, illegal. Yar Majid, supports this statement by saying that downloading music without paying for it is clealry a 'crime'.

Despite the truth that we're committing this crime on a quite regular basis, (assuming that we are all music-loving students under extreme financial burden of being a full time student? Maybe it's a lame excuse but well.) there are clearly a distinctive advantage for both the music producers and listeners, because most of the listeners would be more than happy to spend thier money on the next albums coming out, from this certain band/artist if they really liked it, after listening to thier song that he/she downloaded from the internet. This initially builds on a fan base, even though its being done illegally. I don't know and sure about other people but I always tend to listen to few songs at least, but preferbly whole album, before i decided to buy the physical album. There are always new artists I discover (?) and happy to pay the price for the music they provide. This could just an excuse of being a music pirate but in this technocultural society, such process has become more than common for most of the young generation.

I don’t know why I do it to myself. Having already been subjected to The Devil Wears Prada, I find myself being convinced to sit through Sex and The City: The Movie. Fixed in my anti-capitalist ways, I find both movies offer little more than a representation of conspicuous consumption.

I digress. I also dislike the movies on another level: I find that the pseudo-feminist attitudes that both movies seem portray as rather harrowing. Women are meant to feel liberated that they can now own their own pay check, buy shoes and find their own Mr Big. This is where I think Suicide Girls offer an interesting paradigm, and I think that both Sex and the City and suicide girls can offer an interesting link.

Suicide girls attempt to be subversive, that is they attempt to represent the anti-Carrie, the anti-Dress wearing, shoe loving urbanite. However I come into conflict as I feel that they both are running still on capitalist modes of consumerism. They both are attempting to procure a pay check, and they both are subjectifying themselves for an audience, be it Mr Big or Mr Goth.

I find it funny that the models on Suicide Girls are offering an alternative to the Carries of the world: that is they are attempting to portray themselves as subjects. They are subjectified objects, which are attempting to draw the Mulveyian Gaze. Who’s more feminist? Carrie or Suicide girls? I would have to argue that perhaps Carrie is, as atleast she doesn’t need to take her clothes of to exist within a capitalist society.

Both, I guess, offer a faux-feminist point of view. They exist to draw the male gaze, something that I feel subjectifies and lowers women to a subordinate role. It seems ironic that Suicide Girls, a reactionary group of women that attempt to be the ‘Anti-Carries’, actually end up being more subjectified than their ‘frenemy’.

People are seems to be more familiar these days, with the reconstruction of their virtual identity online and they seemed to be quite comfortable with such process. Rather, people put vast amount of energy and time, in effort of fabricating thier 'self' to look better. Even if this process involves a little exaggeration on the fabrification of a virtual 'self', people seems not to think about it too much.

Since the identity fabrication has become a common thing for people to act on without thinking too much about it, it will be obviously difficult to wholly trust a stranger's identity as it appears on the internet. For example, on the social network sites like MySpace, this identity fabrication
could said to be quite commonly found, like Luke said in the lecture about this person who wouldnt let the other person know of her real age on this dating website, people are increasingly experimenting with their identities. The person who did not want to reveal her real age, perhaps with some other 'real' information about her 'real' identity, have had a bad experience of someone who lied about his/her identity and personality - which is a direct result of this identity experiment phenomenon.

Such process brings concerns for people living in this internet age, as our identities are gradually becoming somewhat 'constructed', not natural. People tend to show some doubt when it comes to relationships, perhaps its something that being online and digitalized brings along with the benefits of it.

If the title of this blog is a text message, most people would find it pretty weird. How can we not? The "bro" indicates a fraternal bond, where as the tongue-poking emocon is a sign of a feminine playfulness. Combination of the two seems odd of not out right weird.

Being an experienced txter, I cannot help but to agree with Lin Proitz's theory that men and women text differently, different with the way we approach texting to the same sex, different yet again when we text to the opposite sex. It seems to be a custom for men in the western society to restrict their emotions to a minimum when dealing with each other, even a friendly handshake can be shortened to a simple head nod. Texting therefore is also affected by such phenomenon. Short and sweet, down to the point, as little emotion as possible.

When a member of the opposite sex is involved however, the restriction is broken. Just as most men would feel comfortable giving a hug to a female friend, yet the same gesture is rarely made to a male friend. Technically, women are more emotive creatures, therefore when dealing with them, men feel they need to change their behaviour to adapt to those of the women's. Also when it comes to the opposite sex, attraction is always a factor. Even the most pure of friendships between men and women is often founded on attraction. Therefore, it is understandable that when men starts to text with women, their language become feminised, more emotional, perhaps little emocons such as the tongue-poking or smile :) would start to pop up, not only to show the man's friendliness and willingness to break out of his shell for the girl, but also suggest that who knows what changes might take place to their "friendship" down the road. From my personal experience, I can confidently agree with Proitz's theory.

Facebook, Bebo and MySpace are just a few popular social network sites that I am sure we have all at some point in our lives (me included) have used. I have always enjoyed logging on and using such sites. When I was in high school, my favourite social network sites were definitely Bebo. I liked how I could personalise my page with funky and loud ‘skins’ or backgrounds, I could add music to my profile, as well as being able communicate with friends and family. However, now I find that I much prefer Facebook despite the fact that this social network site essentially does exactly the same thing as Bebo. I have come to appreciate Facebook’s simplistic yet conservative set up and aesthetics which gives a very mature feel to the site. Furthermore, I enjoy how I can easily see how my friends and family are doing by looking at status updates, pictures, notes and videos on my homepage.

Social network sites are wonderful as they allow its users to connect with friends and family on a global scale. Social network sites provide users with means to further communicate and connect by enabling users to view and upload pictures, send comments, view posts and status updates as well as enabling users to converse with one another through instant messaging. Social network sites also allows users to add people with whom they share strong ties like best friends and family as well as allowing users to add and connect with those who they share weaker ties with such as acquaintances and work colleagues.

I have always viewed social network sites as fun and exciting way to communicate with friends and family. However, although my view is unlikely to change, I did find Judith Donath’s piece entitled Signals in Social Supernets a very interesting and thought provoking read. As Donath (2008), correctly pointed out, “Whether face-to-face or online much of what people want to know about other people is not directly observable.” Thus we rely on signals such as body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, consumption patterns, posts and comments that are exchanged on profiles to ‘read’ people and make judgements about others. Donath (2008) argues that because “People want to make the best possible impressions, to appear important, creative, and popular,” this can lead to deception. In a normal social context with friends the likelihood of deception is very low; however Donath argues that online representations do not always coincide with offline identities. I would definitely agree with this statement to a degree. Many people, including myself are guilty of telling little white lies or slightly exaggerating about ones self on their profile to make themselves sound a little better. For example in your interests one might say they enjoy cooking when in actual fact, they don’t actually cook that often but do watch cooking shows on television regularly. In this regard I can see where Donath is coming from.

I also found Donath’s comment regarding friending on social networking interesting when she said social network sites create “Supernets” that enable people to maintain more ties than possible without the invention of digital media and social network sites. In her essay, Donath, J. quotes Robert Dunbar (1996), a British anthropologist who claims that “The figure of 150 seems to represent the maximum number of individuals with whom we can have a genuinely social relationship.” Both Donath and Dunbar appear to agree that social networks do not enhance friendships but rather weaken them. Their argument is that instead of users establishing meaningful relationships with close friends and using social network sites as a means to enhance the relationship, many users of social networking sites add many acquaintances with which they have little or no association. Both theorists question if “Social Network sites will shift people’s social world from one focussed on a few important relationships to one consisting of an immense number of weak relationships?” I can clearly see their view point as many of my friends on Facebook have over 500 friends. This would definitely make one question how many of those people they actually have strong ties with. Furthermore, in some cases, the quantity of friends is often used as a way to display popularity which inevitably has taken over the quality of friendships.

Alternatively, I would argue that social networks can actually help to strengthen friendships as they offer a way to daily see how our friends and especially acquaintances are doing if we haven’t had the opportunity to see or speak to them. Which ever way you choose to look at it, is ultimately up to us to decide how we use such sites.


References

Donath, J. (2008). Signals in Social Supernets. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol. 13, p231-251. doi: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00394.x

Dunbar, R.I.M (1996). Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Written by Jessica Kadarmia

For my final blog I wanted to look back on some of the things throughout the course. From gender issues through technobodies, issues of trust, social supernets, ‘indymedia’, privacy problems and piracy, there is one theme that seems to be a commonality: Identity. And for me, I think that has the most interesting and complex issues that surround the internet. Perhaps not all, but certainly a vast majority of internet use is done for purposes of identification, but at one point in the readings I found myself doubting the very concept of identity. Why? Helen Kennedy’s article Beyond anonymity had me unsure whether maintaining identity in such a fragmented way was possible. It wasn’t until I realised that identity is not fragmented, but the representation of the whole identity as mediated through the technology of internet, at this stage, has to be. It’s still developing, and quite possibly, social networking websites may help to bridge the gaps between the disunited identities of the self.
In the final reading by Jose Van Dijck, his ideas about the movement into a more commercialised arena of user generated content may signify a new challenge for the unified online identity, but similarly, it could present a new opportunity for it. Many think that commerce changes user generated content, and it most certainly does, however money has always made the internet world go around, quite literally. And commerce is undoubtedly a significant part of identity. As is just about everything.