Identity, Representation, and Death in Virtual Space (MSTU 4020; Week 5)

The following post is a weekly response for a graduate course on Social & Communicative Aspects of the Internet at Columbia University, Teachers College. I invite all Media Speaks readers to engage by adding comments below.

I enjoyed engaging with this week's readings because issues of identity and representation in virtual space suit my research interests at this point. I was particularly drawn to Sherry Turkle's chapters "Introduction: Identity in the Age of the Internet" and "Aspects of the Self." Though published in 1995, Turkle's ideas about self representation through virtual spaces are still relevant today. I wasn't too familiar with MUDs (Multi-User Domains) before reading Turkle, though I immediately associated MUDs with Twitter and Facebook, particularly concerning how people use these spaces to interact and create community. Below are a few ideas from each chapter that are worth noting as we think about identity and representation.

From "Identity in the Age of the Internet"

• "The culture of simulation affects our ideas about mind, body, self, and machine" (10).
• The self is constructed (10).
• "On MUDs, [and I'd also argue on popular social networks of today], one's body is represented by one's own textual description" (12).
• Computers have identities (18).
• "Are we living life on screen or living in the screen?" (21).

From "Aspects of the Self"

• As we enter virtual communities we reconstruct our identities (177).
• The Internet is another means of explaining or perceiving identity as multiplicity (178).
• "More people experience identity as a set of roles that can be mixed and matched, whose diverse demands need to be negotiated" (180).
• "Do our real life selves learn lessons from our virtual personae?" (180).

Turkle also discusses mental health in the context of virtual life; do MUDs, or social networks, exacerbate difficulties or contribute to personal growth? I'd argue that we cannot necessarily approach this issue as an "either/or" problem. Virtual life and social networking can magnify mental and emotional afflictions but perhaps participating in these worlds can also provide a way to work through issues since, for the most part, we are still connected to a community of people, some of whom may function as a support system.

I'm not sure I can point to one particular idea that I adamantly disagree with, though perhaps I can expound upon one particular idea Turkle mentioned in the Introduction.

She writes that "one's body is represented by one's own textual description" (12). I wasn't sure if Turkle was referring to textual description as only written text or including other modes. The body surely can be represented (or manipulated as Turkle's seems to be implying when referring to textual description) through other modes like visual description, as in still and moving images.

Take for instance post-mordem photography presented in virtual space. How is the self represented through death? How is the body represented through the dead's visual description?

I thought about an art exhibit that a photographer told me about while we were discussing (on Twitter) the implications of taking still pictures of the dead. The discussion revolved around representation, privilege, and what death or dead bodies mean as we view them in photography. Needless to say I was struck by the images below (see link). I also thought about the cultural/social meanings associated with the idea that a white photographer (Elizabeth Heyert: http://www.elizabethheyert.com/) snapped photos of dead black bodies. I believe the family of the dead allowed the photographer to take these pictures. Still, there's something unsettling about the presentation of images, especially as these images are digitized and widely accessible via the Internet. I can't help but wonder about the photographers relationship to the images and her "use" of them through exhibition, and too, our perception as the virtual viewer of the body as it represents death.

http://www.mediamatic.net/page/65222/en (Warning: These images may be unsettling).

I think issues of identity and representation of human life, and even death, are truly fascinating because the Internet itself is, as Turkle argues, a means through which we can see identity--as well as community and language--as multiplicity.

Are Net Geners Really Tech Savvy Learners? (MSTU 4020; Week 4)

The following post is a weekly response for a graduate course on Social & Communicative Aspects of the Internet at Columbia University, Teachers College. I invite all Media Speaks readers to engage by adding comments below.

I was delighted to read Kirschner and Karpinski's article "Facebook and Academic Performance" because I'm sure this article will continue to spark plenty debates between educators and professionals, as indicated in the First Monday journals. I had first heard about the statistic that "Facebook users have lower GPAs and spend fewer hours per week studying than non-users" via Twitter. Kirschner and Karpinski's findings were significant enough to be published on TIME, although the media hype surrounding the article is a major academic criticism of the study overall. However, it's also important to mention that there is plenty of room for improvement in this study. The researchers indicate limitations and ways to better improve qualitative data at the end of the article.

Another reason I was highly engaged with this article is because it's relevant to other ideas I've been thinking about lately concerning our new generation of tech users and learners. I often wonder if students and minorities are, in fact, learning via online spaces. How do we understand literacy via online spaces in urban communities as African-Americans mobile users are on the rise, for instance? I posed a similar question about the relationship between literacy, new technology, and urban communities on Twitter a few weeks ago. I cited digital scholar, Allison Clark, who stated (paraphrasing) that we can't research or print a paper using a mobile device. I also wrote an article addressing a similar topic on The Loop 21.

Needless to say, the initial responses I received from Twitter and from my article were from people who immediate came to the defense of mobile technology.  Some stated that because mobile technology is so innovative and rapidly expanding that we can, in fact, learn and become more literate through this type of media. Though I'm reminded of the conversation we had last week about the difference between information and knowledge.

Are what we're doing (or learning) by way of Google, Wikipedia, and on mobile devices ("passive consumption of information") a true indicator of knowledge production?

Kirschner and Karpinski's article also asks us to consider whether or not Homo Zappiens or Net Geners (those multi-tasking "techies" born in the 1980s and 1990's) have a deep knowledge of technology, especially when learning-by-doing "is often limited to basic office suite skills, e-mail- ing, text messaging, FB, and surfing the Internet" (1238).

So I wonder, are net geners really tech savvy learners or simply consumers of "low level", passive, or superficial technology? How might we measure knowledge production when the majority of minority net geners are using mobile devices to access the Internet?

And now, your moment of Zin.

Who Owns Cyberspace? (MSTU 4020; Week 3)

Source

This week's reading discussed the implications of cyberspace on (and as) society and economy. I was particularly drawn to Dyson's et al. piece "Cyberspace and the American Dream: A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age" and Webster's "The Information Society Revisited."  Admittedly, I found myself distracted by the date on which these pieces were published, especially the Magna Carta piece (1994). How might these articles best relate to technological advances since 2009? We've discussed before the rapid changes in technology and how these changes almost certainly influence our social, cultural, economic, and political lives.

For the most part, the Magna Carta article came across as a melodramatic argument for technological determinism of cyberspace. Released in 1994, this "living document" constitutes a guide, (akin to The Constitution perhaps?), which encourages future readers to learn from and add to ideas about the impact of cyberspace on society. I'm not sure if or when this document was last updated, although I hope, for the sake of its purpose, that this document is still a work in progress.

However, one of the most notable quotes from the Magna Carta article came from a 1964 quote by libertarian Ayn Rand. It reads:

Government does not own cyberspace, the people do.

This quote immediately made me think about net neutrality. Sure, the government does not own cyberspace, but neither does, or should, corporations like Google and Verizon.

Net Neutrality Explained

It's interesting that Dyson's et al. piece talked about the idea of property rights in cyberspace since it appears like the founding mothers/fathers of this document didn't account for The Great Recession of 2010. Neither, perhaps, did they consider that the election of the first African-American president of the United States would ignite a fire storm within U.S. politics. Could they have ever imagined that conservative and libertarian media personalities like Glenn Beck would publicly condemn the president and his Administration as socialist for expanding broadband Internet access to poor and rural communities? Did the authors of this piece ever wonder about how the progressive left and far right would fight to the death about government regulation of the Internet? From a 1994 perspective, I can only imagine how easily it was to romanticize an open, neatly regulated, and "demassifyied" virtual landscape. Though in present-day reality, it seems as though cyberspace has turned into an even more contentious landscape.

The Young Turks Vs. Glenn Beck on Net Neutrality

If anything, the views expressed in the Magna Carta article could be best categorized as technological determinism.  Tech advancements of cyberspace as a determining factor to the progress of our society as a whole does not necessarily signify a happy ending of a utopic society, but perhaps best functions as a starting point to a very long, exhausting, and controversial debate.

Technological Determinism (MSTU 4020; Week 2)

A deterministic view of technology suggests that technology has the power to influence social organization, that technology itself can be a "change agent". In Marx and Smith's "Introduction" they distinguish between a hard and soft approach of understanding technological determinism.

HARD: The idea that the power to influence change comes from technological advancements itself.

SOFT: A view that locates technology in a social, economic, political, and cultural matrix (p. xiii).

In the end, the authors argue for a redefinition of tech determinism that acknowledges our need to create a kind of society that invests in technologies with enough power to drive history (p. xiv).

Robert L. Heilbroner's piece "Do Machines Make History" also argues for a more complex understanding of how technology can influence social and economic systems, and conversely, how social and economic systems influence technology. He proposes a soft, or mediating, view of technological determinism.

Based on these readings, I wonder:

1. If technology makes history, or influences social systems, can it also be said that technology defines a given society? If so how? Can we define ourselves by the technology we use presently, or must the defining be done in retrospect (in the future looking back)?
2. Heilbroner writes, “If nature makes no sudden leaps, neither, it would appear, does technology” (p. 57). Who, or what, does nature describe?
3. How might Heilbroner’s soft view of technological determinism work to explain the evolution and social aspect of the Internet?

Here now is your moment of Zin.

Until next post...

New Season, New Content (Hello MSTU 4020!; Week 1)

Happy Friday!

I'm pleased to announce that Media Make Change's official blog Media Speaks will be revamping this fall. We took some time off over the summer to regroup and think about better ways to improve Media Make Change. Our passion to serve communities through social and new media still stands strong.  We're looking forward to new partnerships and ideas from individuals willing to support our efforts.

In other fantastic news, I'm officially a doctoral student at Teachers College, Columbia University! I still can't believe I'm here. Sometimes I wonder if the Admissions Department screwed up somehow. Ha! Anyhoo, as required for a few of my courses this semester, I'll be posting lots more content this fall on #tech, social media, identity, and communication theory. I'm already giddy about the ideas I'm learning through some of the assigned readings this week. All of which brings me to:

Hello MSTU 4020!

Thanks so much for stopping by. I'm looking forward to engaging with you all this semester.

Back to the readings for a second, I came across this lovely tidbit of information last night while reading a chapter 4, "Marshal McLuhan and the Cultural Medium: Space, Time and Implosion in the Global Village", of Nick Stevenson's Understanding Media Cultures: Social Theory and Mass Communication.

It reads:

"[T]he mass media's impact upon the construction of horizontal spatial relations and temporal dimensions of social life remains chronically underresearched."

#ZING!

My dreams have come true! I've finally come across ideas where folks are talking about the relationship between new forms of media communication and time/ space theories, and how both influence social organization of culture and identity. Since Stevenson's article was published in 1995, I'm excited about reading more of his work as well as McLuhan's ideas on space and time.

While you're here, feel free to take a peek at one of the videos from my class MSTU 4020.

Until next post...