Here’s Ashlee W.’s review of Lisa Nakamura’s Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet:
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- Cristin on What did you think of the wordpress set up for the class?
Interesting topic Ashlee, it’s cool that it relates to your own passions in grad school as well! I liked that you inserted slides into your presentation and introduced the author. I never thought about “turning an eye on race” in the digital world.
The blindfolded world would be an interesting one, but I’m not sure anyone would choose to take their individual identity away. In today’s day and age we are taught to be proud of our heritage. And I must admit that with avatars and such, I love being able to make my “Wii-me” look like me, but I hate when it comes time to make it bigger or smaller, taller or shorter, lol. Pregnancy avatars are pretty funny, I had no idea that was available. I think it’s important that people should be represented in every aspect of life and the digital world as well.
As someone who’s 6 months pregnant, I think I need to create a pregnant avatar
That’s great they’re out there!
Interesting, Ashlee. I am so glad that we all, up to now, anyway, had an opportunity to choose a book within our own sphere of interest. I kind of felt, toward the end, that you might not recommend the book, or that you were perhaps going to recommend it with some misgivings. i did really enjoy your discussion of the muslim woman with a very feminine physique. I have had 2 muslim student teachers (both of whom wore regular clothing), but they did share with me that in their culture, the more covered some of them were, the more they spent time with makeup, shoes, manicures, etc.
The book sounds interesting and you have such a nice friendly voice! Good Job!
That idea of access is a big deal. If we are going to teach technology in the classroom we have to give acccess to our students. Many schools dont have that, no matter the race or gender, but it seems that the urban areas dont have the access to the technology that the suburban areas do. What i find interesting is how people can be anyone online, but what you are saying here is people want to be themself and accepted as who they are. Very interesting.
That is definitely what I found most interesting, too, Cristin. That is why I kept thinking that people keep saying, “Oh! I wish we were all equal! I wish people didn’t pay so much attention to race and gender and religious beliefs! These preoccupations only separate us.” Well… here we are given a “world” where you can be completely faceless and raceless and everything else. BUT, as Nakamura points out, people haven’t really taken that chance. They see the Internet as more of a way to further express themselves and who they are and what they believe. Very interesting, but not surprising.
So interesting, Ashlee. I believe that we are trying to move toward a post-racist community.
I think a post-genderized community is a little more complicated and difficult because there are cultures that structured based on gendered roles.
I grew up in a southern, very religious community that I rebelled against since, I don’t know, age 6, by shaving my head and refusing to go to church (my parents wanted me to be a nun/perfect religious type), making every “non-white” friend available to me and attempting to show my “non-black/rainbow” (no such thing as all white) friends what we could do. Our school was segregated via de facto. And I realize how my core identity is shaped by those experiences and many others. I wish I had not experienced the rejection and abuses but still. I try to advocate and represent myself online as accurately as I can without the cartoon avatars. But then, I think that using a picture is a little dangerous. I just think color labels come with a lot of crap and negative connotation. But then I think if people look at me as a “white” person, then I should know what that means and know the negative connotations that come with it. So this is a really interesting topic. If we ever meet in person, I’d like to hear you talk more about it.
You bring up a good point here. I think that is what Nakamura is saying, in the end– You have this chance to express who you are and to show who you are, but at this point in society, it shouldn’t be a big deal. We need to be over the stigmas attached to race and gender and beliefs and celebrate the fact that we are different and go global to understand each other. At least, that’s what I really want to believe in the end after reading about her studies…
Very nice review, Ashlee. I never really thought about how the internet was largely a male domain in the beginning. I wonder if the emergence of Web 2.0 had anything to do with drawing the female demographic in more. Not to perpetuate the stereotype, but I wonder if the more communicative aspects of it have something to do with that… thinking along the lines of the tendency to think that girls spend more time on the phone the boys… tend to use more words, etc. Although, again… that may just be the stereotype.
Really, Dave, that was basically what she was saying in that part of her book. The web was so numbers, numbers, numbers and you had to be trained in order to communicate on it. It was too technical and complicated and didn’t really seem communication-friendly. As soon as a more “user-friendly” creation of the web came out, it just ballooned. Nakamura places the true start of the web towards the time of the new millenia when the web was a whole bunch more understandable. It was at that time, too, that things like avatars and social networking sites and blogs really came about to promote expression. So, the women mixed with the broadening access mixed with the new avenues kind of joined hands and created what we know today– this really intricate and expanding market to communicate and express. All pretty cool
Great job Ashlee, I like your question regarding, if we could all be w/o race would we take the chance. It was a nice lead in to some of the things you brought out from Nakamura’s book. For instance, the issue of online avatars that reflect the way we want to present ourselves to others, or, how we think others will perceive us.
Ashley, I really enjoyed watching your video. and want to read the book. You brought something out that I did not know, the web was first male oriented. When I first took rhetorial theory and writing I remember women were not even considered writers. Good job.
Ashley, this book sounds so so so interesting—I am definitely going to have to pick it up! Nakamura’s arguments seem very rooted in feminist ideas about choice and subjectivity within specific material constraints, and connecting these ideas to how people portray themselves online seems like a very important project. I found it particularly interesting when you talked about how many people choose not to be anonymous online or strip away their individualizing (and sometimes stigmatizing) features. The Internet may seem like safer place to be oneself, though the materials constraints are still there; they’re just different. I definitely want to read more about who is creating avatars for whom—in other words, who is controlling how people portray themselves, and how people create their own avatars. The latter seems like a form of online activism, too!
Let me know also say that you have a great on-camera persona, and your review is really coherent and well-organized. You should definitely start your own vlog!
I don’t have much to add other than you did a good job with the video, sounds like an interesting book, and I’m looking forward to reading the review!