What digital language are you speaking?

In the reading Villanueva uses the term dialect with respect to the different variations of spanish spoken. The different dialects spoken separated people that were often grouped together as hispanic when in fact, the differences in dialect were so important that they often struggled either to understand each other or identify themselves as part of the same racial group. (Villeneuve, 40-41)

The term dialect, according to wikipedia, is "a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group...distinguished by it's vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation." While this term is meant to apply only to language, it can be applied to all forms of rhetoric in general. In the context of rhetoric, a dialect becomes the different uses, associations, meanings and connotations of various symbols (including language) characteristic of a particular group. Looking at the different dialects used in media can help us understand more about the authors intent and/or meaning.

Bibliography

Villanueva, Victor. "Spic in English!" Bootstraps: from an American Academic of Color. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1993. 34-50. Print.

"Dialect." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 03 Nov. 2010. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/dialect.>

Quiz Questions

In the article Digital Arabs: Representation in Video Games, digital dignity is when

a) a player feels capable of achieving a challenging or difficult goal

b) the ideologies of the hero match the ideologies of the intended audience

c) video game representations of other cultures breakdown negative stereotypes

d) a player feels a sense of pride in his culture when playing the game

Digital Arabs: Representation in Video Games shows how games created from the Islamic point of view help players to view the world in a more culturally neutral tone.

Blog #9: Will someone please tell me what my race is!

I liked the site about Race the Power of an Illusion. I admit, that before reading it I thought there must be some genetic or biological basis for race. After all, I can identify who is black, asian, indian, or american indian. After completing the sorting people test and getting only a handful of people placed in the classification they put themselves in I did an experiment. I reloaded the sorting page and as fast as possible I moved people into categories without paying any attention to where I was putting them. I was going for random placement. When I viewed the results, I did about the same as when I tried to classify people based on their appearance.

It is insightful to realize that our appearances are just as likely to put us in one racial classification as another. However, this view of race still perpetuates one of the main problems about race: that you can be classified into specific racial groups. In this way the website has not gone past the idea of "menu-driven" races that Nakamura talks about (102).

However to the websites credit, when comparing skin traits the site demonstrates that lightness or darkness of skin color is evenly distributed between the people who classify themselves as different races. Since skin color is probably the most common trait used to identify race, this essentially destroys the concept that you can classify people into any single racial category and helps to go beyond the menu style of categorization.

The terms used in the discussion of race are so ingrained into society and the way we speak that elsewhere in the site they revert to this menu-driven idea of race. Under the race timeline looking at the year 1994 for example (other examples are available), they look at the different income levels of whites versus blacks. With the idea in mind that race has little to do with skin color, how can such a comparison be made? What they are really doing is comparing people who classify themselves as white or black. As constructionists, this makes it impossible to tell if the statistic is occurring because of race or if people are identifying themselves as that race because of the statistic. Don't people in a community tend to identify themselves as part of that community? If you live in a community that people classify as black, even if you are hispanic, would peer pressure cause you to classify yourself as black as well? Is peer pressure even required?

We now come to the title of the post. My sister married someone of hispanic decent, but he is just as white as I am. My brother married a women with dark skin, but she was raised in a "white" family and has no idea what nationality her birth parents are. As I look at the people around me I am beginning to wonder what race I am. I'm not entirely clear what nationality my ancestors are and since biology is not a factor it is entirely possible that I could be considered asian, african, or european.

I think the site is enlightening, but it often reverts to dropping people into racial buckets rather then allowing people to exists as part of many races. Many people, including Nakamura, contend that racial stereotypes (or cyber-types) can be eliminated. This is a utopian goal I believe we should strive for. Unfortunately, race is just one of the more recent ways in which humans are manifesting one aspect of our nature.

We are community creatures and we seek to participate in communities that will protect our interests. In order to unify the community we link our identities to the simplistic notions that bind the community together. We become "Recovering Alcoholics", "Jocks", "Black", "Intellectuals", "Republicans" or one of many others. As we take on these identities we begin to view others in terms of the communities they participate in; generally focusing on only one and ignoring the many others they are in. As we compete for scarce resources we pick out negative aspects of others communities as reasons why we should get the resources and they should not. History has born this pattern out using different criteria. Greeks used language, romans used their culture, Catholics used religion and in the future maybe we will use something similar to the digital divide. Weather you call it race, gender or some other trait, stereotypes are created as part of human nature. We must find a way to operate knowing these stereotypes exist rather then simply trying to eliminate them or we will usher in new discriminators as we push the old ones out.

Bibliography

California Newsreel. "RACE - The Power of an Illusion | PBS." Race - The Power of an Illusion. PBS. Web. 28 Oct. 2010.

Nakmura, Lisa. Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print.

Blog #4: Home is where you hang your hat

In the article Webs as Pegs, David Bell argues that virtual communities are an improvement over the non-virtual type. I don't have time to review all of his supporting points so I will consider two of them. He offers support for this through several statements. He contends that virtual communities are more durable the non-virtual ones because they move with the individual rather then requiring people to break ties. He categorizes virtual community relationships as "pure" because people can take what they need or want from the community and then move on. That is the feature he is emphasizing when he calls them "peg communities."

I disagree with Bell's assessment of communities. It is true that when people move physical community ties are often broken and must be re-established in a new area. However, this does not mean that virtual communities are more durable. Statistically speaking most people end up living less then 25 miles away from where they were raised (I wish I had the source for that information, but I can't remember where I heard it so you'll have to look it up if you doubt me). This means that mobility is not as much of a limitation as he would argue.

One of his other main arguments is about the "pure relationship" virtual communities offer. He defines communities in terms of what you take away from them rather then what you give to them. In this respect people take away much more then they contribute to virtual communities. Even when adding content, most people are doing something for themselves rather then trying to "give back" This is evident in the number of online "flame" wars that take place in various communities. People are more interested in making themselves heard then sharing ideas.

I participate in both virtual and non-virtual communities. I go to work, I attend church and I am learning Taekwondo at the local dojo. Currently, I am a member of a enterprise computer support elist, and I also use Facebook. In addition, before I was married a couple of years ago, I participated in an online relationship site. What I find happens is that whenever something come up in non-virtual life the first thing to go is my involvement in virtual communities. Why is that? I think it is because instinctively we prioritize things happening in our immediate vicinity as higher priority. When the bodies needs are present, I must address them or risk harm but when I want to congratulate a friend, what does it hurt if I wait a day or even a week.

What is a community. Joseph Smith, the first prophet and founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints (Mormons), made a statement when lecturing about faith. He said, "A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation" (Lectures on Faith, 69) Ignoring the obvious discussions this brings up about religion, I want to focus on what this says about community. Religion after all is just a very structured community. I think it is true that the benefit of community is not what you take from it but what you give to it.

Where communities become hybrid, they have advantages over traditional communities, but not because of their pegginess as David puts it but because of their lack of pegginess. It is commitment that drives us. When we lose that commitment, we also lose the protection and support that communities provide us.

Bibliography

Smith, Joseph. Lectures on Faith: Delivered to the School of the Prophets in Kirtland, Ohio, 1834-35. Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1985. Print.

Bell, David, and Barbara M. Kennedy. The Cybercultures Reader. London: Routledge, 2007. Print.

I'd like to compare shoe websites for assignment #2.

Nike, Reebok, and Redwing

The reason why I'd like to compare these sites goes back to a class I took on world civilizations. When we were studying early homosapiens there was a great deal of attention given to the footwear that early people used. It gave a lot of insight into the problems he faced and how he chose to solve them. I would guess that if shoes said so much about people in that time then it likely says a lot about us today.

Blog #3: Yahoo, take me away.

Can you remember the commercial with the frustrated mother looking for relief from the stresses of daily life, and in the end she exlaims "Calgon, take me away." It became a best selling slogan. In earlier days you could call !Yahoo the digital (and masculine) version of Calgon. The current version of their site has strayed somewhat from that ideal.

In the beginning the web could be a frustrating tangle of hyperlinks. Yahoo!'s contribution to the net was to organize the madness and take you away from the confusion. It's early website was very simple. It used few graphics and was dominated by text. It organized information in an academic, open way in order to make you feel at home. In this way it became a comfortable place for surfersto return after their explorations around the web (Burnett and Marshall, 99). It may have been maintaining the appearance of openness, but it clearly had commercial ties. Burnett and Marshall said elsewhere in the book "The connotation of Yahoo! is that it is driven by the characterization of the Web as a form of media entertainment while making appropriate genuflections to the Web's role as information source." (97) While distinguishable in the older versions, as Yahoo! has developed these commercial ties have become more evident. Dynamic advertisements feature prominently. Where the old site featured primarily hyperlinks that would ultimately take you away from Yahoo! the current site provides links for various services and entertainment which keep you on yahoo.com. The theme in the past seemed to be simplistic. Following the advertising paradigm the new site uses eye catching icons and a variety of bold colors. In the center, the hyperlinks have been replaced with images and news articles offered in a way to allow you to get a glimpse at the top stories and then read those that interest you without ever using another service. The text that is present is displaye

d in different sizes and colors emphasizing those things that they want you to see. In a continued throwback to the good old days of the internet, they have preserved the search field at the top of the page. It is segmented from everything else though, and seems more like an afterthought.

If you find Yahoo!'s presentation unsatisfying, you can customize it by creating an account and choosing some of the links that will be displayed on the right side. However you can create your own custom page at my.yahoo.com which allows you to add and remove content (except for advertisements). Again, all of the information is provided by Yahoo! and there is never a need to go elsewhere.

I've added a screen shot of the my.yahoo.com website. It is interesting to note that almost none of the text is legible at the reduced image size, however you can still read the add and the Yahoo! logo.

Bibliography

Burnett, Robert, and P. David. Marshall. Web Theory an Introduction. London: Routledge, 2003. Print.

"My Yahoo!" Yahoo! Web. 22 Oct. 2010. .

Blog #8: Headline-The Web Eliminates Stereotypes!!

In astonishing news the web has successfully eliminated all racial, gender and age stereotypes. What this means is that there is no reason to fear discrimination when using a virtual identity. How did the web achieve this utopian goal? It did so by simply making all virtual identities white males of about the same age.

Hopefully the statement above is so obviously false that it was humorous. The digital age doesn't appear to be eliminating stereotypes. However, the term stereotype doesn't quite fit the world of virtual identities as argued in the article Cybertyping: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. In order to more appropriately approach this topic Lisa Nakamura coined the term cybertype (3). My understanding nCybertyping is the act of stereotyping online identities through the lens of virtual reality rather then the standards commonly known in non-virtual reality. Since virtual identities aren't directly connected to a physical entity, they aren't directly related to our bodies. This doesn't eliminate cultural bias, it just allows people to choose which team they are playing for. Identity tourism is the process of "switching teams" in order to see what it's like to use a different identity.

Street fighter 2 is essentially based on cyber types. Each avatar is muscular and well defined as all "fighters" should be. In addition to the fighter cybertype, each individual avatar overlays additional cybertypes. To focus on one specifically, let's look at Chun Li. She is the only women of all the street fighters and she follows many of the typical female stereo types. She wears makup, a dress and fixes her hair in buns with ribbons. If she loses a match, she is even shown crying as this picture shows. While she has skills that are useful against many of her opponents she seems to be portrayed as week.

Some amount of identity tourism takes place through the avatars of each character but I think the most powerful form of it is through the game as a whole. It is even organized in a tourist fashion. The player moves from one country to the other fighting different characters. At each arena, the back drop shows cyber types for each nationality. While many nationalities are represented, the United States has two players in the game. This allows the player to pretend to be a street fighter and move from one nation to the other and virtually experience each culture as a street fighter. In between stages the character is given a bonus round that allows him to do as much damage as possible to a luxury car.

This game gives evidence of the danger behind identity tourism in two ways. First, allowing people to try out violent acts gives rise to the possibility of transferring those acts to real life. Not everyone who plays a game like this will do that, but some probably do. The second danger is the misrepresentation of each culture. The nationalities are certainly more dynamic then what is shown in the arena, but the player may feel like they are experiencing the culture when they are only experiencing how the programmer cybertyped that culture. To the right is a picture of the character Guile's arena. It portrays americans in a very militaristic light. Hardly the opinion I'd like others to have of me.

Bibliographies

Nakamura, Lisa. Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. New York Routledge, 2002. Print

Okamoto, Yoshiki. Street Fighter 2. Capcom, 1992. Computer software

Blog #2: Digital Division by Zero

What is 1 ÷ 10? - If you think you know, think about an email signature I often use

There are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

(For those that don't, 10 in binary is the number 2)

In simple terms this is an illustration of what the digital divide is. An individual's approach to problem solving is affected by their understanding of technology around them. When two people communicate, if one of them understands newer technologies they will view the problem differently. The one who understands binary would clearly see multiple solutions and may not know how to solve the problem due to insufficient information. The person that doesn't understand binary, would clearly see an immediate solution. Both answers are correct. The digital divide is characterized by this. People who understand and use digital communications technology solve problems in one way, and those that don't understand and use digital mediums use another. Both are correct from their perspective, however, our ideologies tell us that using these new technologies is good and those that don't use them are backwards or disadvantaged. Thus, a so called digital divide is created between those that use technology and those that don't.

Selfe and Selfe argue that the office metaphor used in computer interfaces today further expands the digital divide. They would argue that a new metaphor needs to be used. However I believe that the office metaphor is the most appropriate, and that all others would ultimately cause problems. In Politics of the Interface, Selfe and Selfe state

"The interface does not, for example, represent the world in terms of a kitchen counter top, a mechanic's workbench, or a fast-food restaurant -- each of which would constitute the virtual world in different terms according to the values and orientations of, respectively, women n the home, skilled laborers, or the rapidly increasing numbers of employees in the fast-food industry." (486-487)

In other words, the office metaphor excludes these classes of people because it doesn't represent the world as they see it. On the contrary, I think that the office metaphor is more inclusive then any other. Most homes have an office, and house wives often have a husband that works in an office. Skilled laborers may not spend their time in an office, but the business they work for uses an office and they understand the paradigms of the metaphor. Even in the lowliest fast food restaurant, there is an office. So while Selfe argues that the office metaphors used are "interested versions of reality" (Selfe and Selfe, 486) because all of these classes understand it, the office metaphore allows them to be included.

Any metaphor selected will exclude classes of individuals. What is critical is finding one that will include the greatest number of people. If we were to fashion the interface after, a kitchen for example, while it may appeal to house wives, it may exclude career women who avoid the kitchen at all costs. When first created reading, writting and math were limited to individuals of high rank and money because they used it to manage their wealth. Though the symbol we use today are rooted in their ideologies, we don't attach the world view that they attached to each symbol. Without their work, we would still be passing stories around campfires, but because everyone could understand management of wealth and resources, eventually these symbols spread to even relatively uneducated people.

Bibliography

Selfe, Cynthia L., and Richard J. Selfe. "The Politics of the Interface: Power and It's Exercise in Electronic Contact Zones." College Composition and Communication 45.4 (1994): 480-504. National Council of Teachers of English. Web. .

Lies, Statistics, and Peer-Reviewed Journals

Let's talk for a moment about the article by Nicholas DiGiuseppe and Bonnie Nardi that discusses character selection in world of warcraft(1). The discussion is interesting and the conclusions are theoretically intriguing, however the whole thing is a load of balogna. I'm not saying that I disagree with their conclusions. They could be right. Here is the problem I have, the data the paper is based on is worthless. "Why do you say that?" or "How can their data be wrong in a peer reviewed journal?" you may ask?

Here is why it is wrong.

Determination of gender was based, in part, on a highly fallible (and stereotype laden) method. Listening to the sound of the player's voice is hardly a reliable method for determining gender. But that's not even the worst error made in this supposedly peer reviewed article (What does this say about the peers?). From a statistical viewpoint there is insufficient data to draw any conclusions about the overall population. A sample of several hundred is needed in order to determine the percentage of characters chosen. Even if we accept that error (8%, plus or minus) isn't that bad, the breakdown for male vs female in each character class is unacceptable. In order to be about 70% confident that our results are within 10% of reality (For you non statistics people, this level of confidence is only slightly better then using a coin toss to pick the right answer on a true false test.) a sample of 25 individuals for each character type needs to be surveyed. The most people sampled of any class in this article is 7!

Go ahead, check my math...

So this article is worthless. What's worse is that it supposedly past a peer review. This article provides evidence of the reasons to use wiki based reference. When you limit who can review an article you are limiting what errors can be found. By opening up who can review an article you can actually increase the reliability of information presented. Academia doesn't seem to like this since I've heard countless professors say that wikipedia can't be used as a source. However it's doubtful that the type of egregious errors in this article would have lasted long on a site like wikipedia. </rant>

(1) DiGiuseppe, Nicholas, and Bonnie Nardi. "Real Genders Choose Fantasy Characters: Class Choice in World of Warcraft." First Monday 12.5 (2007). Print.