Danica Loucks
Sociology 022 – In the Facebook Age – Spring 2010 – Dhiraj Murthy

As you may recall, last week I wanted to see how large of an effect tags had on the number of views a video got. I added some celebrities names to my stop-motion YouTube video to see if there would be a spike in views. It only increased by a few views, so I think that it didn’t really have an effect. That makes me think that the tags on our “How to Become Famous on YouTube” had less to do with the tags, and perhaps more to do with the title. In about a week, our video about how to become famous on YouTube which would be in Keen’s mind monkeys ruining culture, got 38 views. In two months my other video got 39. There could just be so many videos tagged with celebrities that it doesn’t make a difference. Information overload???

As you may recall, I felt confused by the articles on virtual ethnicity because I couldn’t figure out how it all connected. It turns out, it doesn’t connect–welcome to post-modernism. For this post edit, I have decided to explore post-modernism further, as I have only an inkling of what it is. This background information will supplement the outline of concepts from our readings.

While reading Poster’s article, I felt I didn’t understand it because I expected things to be connected, but it seemed after Poster spent a few pages explaining one point of few he would say he wasn’t examining what that person was examining, rather…{insert new, but somewhat related topic here}. The various ideas presented show that there isn’t a single grand narrative–a characteristic of postmodernism.

The term postmodernism applies to culture, art, literature, and so on, and I found many descriptions that focused on different aspects of it, but from what I gathered, postmodernism is…

• A view that social and cultural reality, as well as social science itself, is a human construction.
• A relativistic system of observation and thought that denies absolutes and objectivity
• A condition in which individuals have lost faith in universal belief systems or ‘grand narratives’. (i.e. Socialism; Communism; Feminism; Religions)
• A general cultural development, especially in North America, which resulted from the general collapse in confidence of the universal rational principles of the Enlightenment.

Apparently in a post-modernist view, the universal bonds that connected communities are no longer taken without question. Thus people engage in activities in attempt to make sense of the world and their place in it. In contrast to modernism, a culture of postmodernity includes “a range of lifestyle possibilities and social identities from which an individual can choose (http://www.sociology.org.uk/atssspl2.htm).” According to Giddens, Modernity has the characteristics of capitalism, industrialism, and centralized power. According to Bauman, it moves towards uniformity, attempting to erase individual differences and impose an identity upon people. Also, he says it is achieved through agents powered by the state. So what happens on the Internet when a single government entity may not have complete control over the identities expressed or imposed? The Internet’s huge space and varying pockets of interaction created by factors of language, class, education, race, etc. seem to reject the idea of uniformity. In postmodernism, viewing social and cultural reality as a human construction could reject ethnicity as a grand narrative.

One of the articles I read states, “Lacking the protection of class and communal togetherness, lacking any given racial and gender identities, individuals are left to experience feelings of isolation and detachment, having to create their own bonds of solidarity, selfhood and justice.” In a post-modern world, perhaps ethnicity would be lost, but the malleable Internet may serve as a space to recreate ethnic identities. (Maybe this is what Zizek would consider the false virtual, whereas he might say in a postmodern society we are losing the virtual idea of ethnicity that existed because of peoples belief that is was there?)

Poster’s chapter explores various views of ethnicity and how those definitions apply to virtual ethnicity or how they do not apply. In the end, he seems to settle with Levy’s idea of the Internet as “collective intelligence” in which the individual’s identity is never permanent and is under-determined. Its position is “never before” instead of “always already.” This view says “individuals in cyberspace cannot attach to objects in the fixed shapes of historic ethnicity (208).” This perspective is  the conclusion at which Poster seems to have landed, but how did he get there and what exactly does that mean about virtual ethnicity?

Approaching Ideas of Virtual Ethnicity:

• Lisa Low states “oppositional solidarity movements have been organized around racial identities because of social and economic oppressions that have targeted those identities.” These communities are “resistance cultures,” in her view and that they prevent the becoming of “the abstract position of national citizenship” due to class, race, or gender inequalities. The ethnic identities are contradictory to “the resolution of the citizen to the nation.” Race and nation are pitted against each other. We see quite the opposite inMcClelland’s article on Japanese Race and the internet, in which race–specifially Japanese “blood,” not even the Asian appearance, is necessary for racial inclusion. Poster is also of the mind that race and nation are not necessarily in opposition.
• Launching into globalization, “ethnicity becomes an impediment to alliances of solidarity, not an inspiration to resistance,” according to Lowe. What is local become linked with large structures of economy and media–unless, of course, you are a resident of Japan, in which the Japanese presence on the internet is primarily made by Japanese people for Japanese people. The term “ethnoexcentrism” is introduced. Since ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s culture or ethnic group is superior to another, does this term mean that that culture is expanded connect with other geographical clusters of people of the same culture/ethnic group? A global feeling of localism among a group?
• Chow views the global stage as a chance to enhance our experience of our own culture by translating things we learn about ourselves by contact with others. It is a “moment of self-construction through the other.” Would the Japanese idea of race be an applicable example of this? While they have had this idea of race longer than the internet has been a tool, the internet possibly helps them reinforce their construction of race? However, it was said that there isn’t particularly a digital divide along race lines. The internet seems like a place that might give Japanese a chance to further display their feelings of superiority, but at the same time it gives the “Koreans living in Japan” a chance for more of a voice, so that seems more like a resistance culture.
• The example of the Maori reporter who felt that the Maori culture was threatened by various technologies that would record and share the Maori culture without their peoples’ presence. It is important to remember the various views people have in regards to spreading there most valued practices. For the Maori, it sounds like ethnic identity and global information were incompatible. The image of a “global village” isn’t a possibility for everyone.
• Telegraph=pacified and unified Earth? That obviously didn’t happen, and I rather doubt that the Internet will do much of the same. With progressively advancing technologies more and quicker communication occurs, but with previous global connections, these seem to be primarily used for economic uses rather than working towards world harmony. Would  this pacified Earth that is imagined by some people have no ethnicity?
• The internet is given a description using words of “place”–cyberspace, messages traveling through it, a virtual “territory.” Therefore, the question is posed, with this space is there virtual ethnicity to accompany this virtual space?
• I was especially intrigued by Nietzsche’s theorization that “language..itself [is] a second or virtual world standing against and outside “the real.” Last semester in Intro to Cultural Anthropology, we were introduced to the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis in both its strong and weak forms. Basically, language “is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas, but is itself a shaper of ideas, the programme and guide for the individual’s meaningful activity.” It argues that the language we use works as a lense to how we perceive the world. Then according to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, language isn’t a different world, rather it affects how we see the world. It creates or mediates our “real.” Poster’s important question about this matter is “how does the form in which language is exchanged between individuals and groups affect the cultural contstruction of the world and subject positions within it?” This includes all forms of symbolic structures–language, images, animations, and sounds. Technological reproduction of culture transforms identities, including ethnic or national identities, due to the ways in which it changes the relation to the audience. Electrical distribution allows for much more alteration in contrast to mechanical distribution. The internet allows for broadcasting, networking and decentralization.  The internet becomes a “global environment of exchange,” and Poster suspects that “an alteration of the way language is packaged and exchanged [will] affect the constitution of ethnic identities.” I’m not sure what he means by this: Is it something addressing ideas of machine translation that is unable to even attempt at portraying a language’s lens in the translation to another language? Or perhaps that the alteration is that it has shifted from a transmittance of language with other physical objects that create ethnic identities to just the language itself?
• Then things start to get especially difficult: Zizek writes off the internet as not revolutionizing, then universalizes it–says that “everything is always already virtual so although it is everywhere, it is also nowhere.” Zizek views the virtual as the symbolic, but Poster calls him out on that determination, as symbols are tied to material things. Poster accuses Zizek of placing the Internet, as “an apparent novelty,” under already existing positions. If I understand correctly, Zizek’s “real” virtual is the mind that imagines something is there? And that Zizek believes the virtual community on the Internet is falsely virtual?
• According to Zizek, the on-line interaction, in his example, the virtual sex which is psychoanalytically accepted as being real sex, is a case in which the user is in control of their exchange or experience. However, Poster argues is that one does not control online interactions any more than with any other communication medium.
• Oh, but good news–Poster just went on his digression of Zizek to show us the “practice of the denial of the virtual.” There is the possibility for the internet not truly change communications except for hastening the exchange, but Poster takes the stand that “virtuality represents an occasion for the articulation of new figures of ethnicity, nationhood, community and global interaction (194).”  He says that what is “natural” is what we are used to and by denying the natural something new is created. I think the point of his sentence there, is to perhaps emphasize that ethnicity, although it may seem natural to most people, is something created, and therefore, a new ethnicity could be created online, but that it wouldn’t be a “false” ethnicity. (?)
• Perhaps the article on Japanese race is a good way to open our eyes to race and ethnicity as a cultural construction, thus showing that ethnicity could be created either online or offline? Last semester, Professor MacEachern came to Intro to Anthro and gave a lecture on the idea of race being culturally constructed rather than biological. It really made sense, I thought, but students who I talked to later were had a hard time accepting that idea. When we are introduced to Japanese ideas of race–in which the race is based on Japanese blood, particular behaviors, and a certain level of language, the idea of race as constructed is perhaps easier for people to accept than in the United States where race is primarily based on physical appearance.
• So if ethnicity or race is not inherent, rather something assigned to various groups of people, shouldn’t ethnicity be able to be constructed on the internet? The problematic issue here is that ethnicity is communicated through various rituals (both formal and informal), appearances, language, and so on. I can imagine language being able to be expressed online to some extent (although this could lead to ethnic “imposters”), appearance being verified by photos displaying clothing, styles, homes, etc., but it’s when you get into the actions that produce and reproduce ethnicity that things can get sketchy. I thought this was best demonstrated by the example of Cyberjew.
• The ideas of Michel Maffesoli introduce us to an idea of society increasing in massification but also increasing in heterogeneity, with the increased differentiation occuring on mircro levels. This new form of “tribalism” connects people while also letting them be individuals. Just as we learned earlier in the article, language is quite powerful in affecting perception, thus the use of the term “tribe” is unfitting, since the groups of people were “urban, … dispersed within wider relations [than kinship]; subject to modernizing process of the division of labor and institutional differentiation, not combined in the unity spatial and functional solidarity; penetrated by processes of commodification and telecommunications, not restricted to production for the use and face-to-face symbolic exchange; disciplined by the nation-state, not governed by hereditary hierarchies (199).” The internet supposedly created a local neighborhood in the opinion of Maffesoli.
• Poster’s new question after the discussion of Maffesoli: “how [are] specific figures of ethnicity…altered by their electronic constitution in virtual spaces (200)?” Poster says the virtual is a historical articulation of the real, “fully as actual as any other such articulation but one connected specifically with computer-mediated communication technologies.” According to Pierre Levy, a difference exists between the sets of real or potential and actual or virtual. The potential easily becomes the real, as it pre-defines the real. However, for the virtual to become the actual, it must be invented. But in today’s world, it is more often the case of the actual becoming virtual from checks to libraries to whole “worlds” in the case of Second life. Levy writes that Virtualization “is not a derealization…but a mutation of identity…”
• From my understanding, overdetermination means that something has multiple causes, and that as an example, events are backed by multiple previous events and is an eventual result of these events. In contrast, underdetermination relates to virtual social ojects being overdetermined in a way that makes them complex and indeterminate.  These virtual objects are formed by practices, discourse and institution frames that participate in and exemplify the contradictions of capitalism and the nation-state. They do not have clear paths and call upon social consturtion and cultural creation. Social objects on the internet go through multiple transformations as altered by Internet users. It becomes “virtual in the sense that it only becomes actual through the countless transformations it undergoes as people copy it and change it. A type of object thus emerges into social space that is overdetermined in the sense of being structured through multiple contradictory practices but is also underdetermined in the sense that it remains an invitation to the imaginary (202).” I include this quote because while I think I get the idea of the over or under determination, but I don’t get what is making it “actual.” Is it actual in that it is a social object, thus communicating a message or association through it’s existence?
• With this idea of virtual meaning the object requires overdetermination and underdetermination to make it actual, Poster sets physical things separate due to their consistency of presence in space and time–and of the difficulties faced when they are not present. With virtualization of things, we can draw things to our fingertips without needing a particular space or time. Instead of going to the library to find a journal to read an article, we simply search for it on the library website.
• I think after this description Poster differentiates cultural identity from that which is entirely virtual, as the messages sent between people are attached to those individuals and information on the Internet that constructs identities is also attached to individuals. These ties appear often on homepages or social network profils. In some cases, like bulletin boards, MUDs and MOOs, ethnicity seems to be more virtualized. But in the Japanese race article that discusses ’2-channeru’ which is a bulletin board setting, the ethnicity was accentuated (in part by the topic bringing out strong opinions of ethnicity, in part by the levels of Japanese speech associated with different ethnicities). The people in that forum, at least, are not disconnecting from their ethnicities any time soon.
• Online ethnicity is also discussed with regards to “Cyberjew.” Poster, himself, somewhat doubts the Internet’s ability to convey the “‘micropractices’ of everyday life” that he considers to make up Jewish (or another) ethnicity. For some, online Jewish communities represent a way to reunite the Jewish people–since they are spread all around the world, they could create an online homeland, an online Israel (the people, not the state). In this sense, the Internet is not creating new ethnicities, rather is being a neutral instrument of community that connects preestablished ethnic identities.
• Online ethnicity is problematic. The anonymity of the internet comes into play again, as “how is one to know that participants in electronic communities are Jews (206)?” Traditional practices that help define Judaism cannot really be performed in cyberspace. The difference in time is also an issue. These issues make some Jews doubtful of the Internet forming any sort of ethnicity.
• For others, the Internet is viewed as an opportunity for a global spiritual change, creaing a “noosphere” or “collective intelligence.” This would include a constant mixing of thoughts and ideas, developing new signs and new social organization, and puts the individual as an object within this collective intelligence. The individual is, therefore, not able to be attached to historic ethnicities.

After all this listing of ideas and attempted responses, is Poster’s point that the Internet will lead to various populations becoming disassociated with any ethnicity?

It seems from the examples of Cyberjew being a “neutral instrument of community” and the discussions on 2-channeru strongly displaying pre-existing race differences as defined by the Japanese, the internet is yet again reflecting what exists. But when I say exist, I mean in the sense that people have used the Internet to recreate various identities. So far it seems that these online communities and discussions are using language (powerful, but doesn’t override other defining aspects of ethnicity/race) to display ethnicity, but also in that language is used to describe the other things that define culture, for example in one of the English comments on 2-channeru: “125, USA: Your all just the same fucking thing. Slanty Eyes….” in that part of the conversation is based around physical appearance, which is, at least in the U.S., a part of defining race. If so many things became virtual that the behaviors that reproduce ethnicity were no longer practiced, would the ethnicity disappear as Levy (and I think Poster?) proposes? Or will online forms of these practices be developed that will send the same messages even if they are not performed physically?

I think that if postmodernism is creating a disbelief in universal bonds and people are being forced to seek out their identity, the Internet serves as a space that can either allow previously constructed identities to be reproduced, but I wonder that if  the combination of people not taking identities as they are imposed upon groups of people, with the many ways to express identity online, could create new groups that project new identities.

Looking at Poster’s article through my new postmodern glasses is clearing things up a bit (and, of course, blurring things again with more questions!) Postmodernism is exciting, and I look forward to learning more about it in the future, as I am sure there is a lot more to know about it and more that can be proposed about virtual ethnicity.

(Professor Murthy: Any book/article suggestions regarding postmodernism for some summer reading?)

The Information Society Reader–Chapters 7 & 8:

Daniel Bell and Kumar write about the Information Society and serve  as our first plunge into the Facebook Age by introducing us to concepts of what the Information Society is.

The Post-Industrial Society and Taylorism

For Bell, the rise of a post-industrial society is bringing people up to higher-classed occupations and giving quicker access to more information. He contrasts the post-industrial society with previous eras. He characterizes the pre-industrial society as a game against nature, in which the labor force focuses on extracting resources from their surroundings and because of low productivity and a big population resulting in underemployment, domestic service is cheap and plentiful. The industrial societies are described as producing material goods, searching to create the most products with the least amount of energy and money, and creating semi-skilled workers who perform simple components of a larger skill. Bell introduces the post-industrial society as a society based on services. He says in the post-industrial society, professionalism, developed from having information and knowledge, is what is valued. Further, standard of living is no longer calculated by quantity of goods, but rather quality of services. Bell says that while professionalism has become a status position, it conflicts with populism coming from calls for more rights and greater participation in society. Bell uses statistics to explain how the work force in the United States shifted being primarily manufacturing-focused to being primarily service-focused. His statistics show the number of white-collar workers increasing. Bell says the classical proletariat is becoming less common, and he explores the idea of this shifting group of blue to white-collars as a creation of a new working class, that replaces the old with a potential for revolutionary leadership. That is, leadership to guide the inevitable revolutionary conflict resulting from capitalistic economic crises, as described my Marxist sociologists.

For Kumar, the post-industrial/information society does not mark significant ideology changes, but rather uses new technology to re-inscribe ideas of industrialism and the proletariat, extending that control even further up the class ladder. While Bell uses statistics to show an increase in the number of white-collar workers with the coming of a post-industrial or information society, Kumar, in addition to saying some jobs’ names have been changed to sound more white-collar, claims that positions that used to be considered highly skilled–i.e. managers or accountants–have been ‘dumbed down’ so that a wider range of people with less education/skills could complete the job. Kumar’s analysis of the rise of more white-collar jobs opposes the idea of the educated workforce (i.e. managers, computer programmers, etc.) being revolutionary leaders that will overturn the ideas embedded in industrialism and capitalism. Instead, he believes they are still yoked under control of a smaller, elite group. He argues that instead of technology creating a more equal society where information is more dispersed, technology is being used to turn previously skilled jobs into semi-skilled jobs through which the worker is again alienated with his work and knowledge is becoming privatized– in effect not changing industrial values, but applying them to immaterial objects.

While Bell throws a plethora of factual numbers at the reader, Kumar counteracts those facts with an explanation of how terminology can be subjective, thus modifying the appearance of statistics. I, personally, feel more inclined to agree with Kumar’s argument: his explanation of how white-collar jobs are being changed to semi-skilled worker positions seems viable.

Status and Labels

Bell essentially uses the analogy “Capitalist is to worker as professional is to populace,” but Kumar believes that today’s professional is not actually the result of developing greater numbers of more skilled and more independent people, but rather a change in semantics and job tasks that make so-called “professionals” really just another semi-skilled worker, who is part of the populace. Kumar argues that the terminology placed on various careers has been modified to make even plumbers and garbage collectors be labeled as “engineers.”

Bell approaches Kumar’s idea of today’s engineers being part of the working class that is alienated from their product and from their work, but he says they do not identify with the working class, rather they have moved up socially and do not want to slip back, thus they hold great importance in status symbols of prestigious associations, stiff requirements for certification, and changes in school curricula. Their goal is to differentiate themselves from the working class. The downfall to maintaining this professional status is that one comes across as elitist and contrary to “New Left populism.” Bell decides that in the pull between bureaucratization and populism, the professional is likely to resist alienation that threatens achievement by being professional and going in neither direction. He concludes that the “new working class” is a “radical conceit.”

Gender

The historical gender stereotypes were apparent in these changes as the modified jobs shifted from primarily men to primarily women. What is this saying about the view of women in the workforce? We always hear about men getting jobs higher up in the hierarchy and getting paid more, but the way in which it is described by Kumar makes me wonder if the Taylorization of these jobs make sures that while women were entering the work force as they ventured out of the household that they wouldn’t actually end up on equal footing with their male counterparts. Is there a consistent correlation with women’s location on the job ladder and the extent to how high Taylorization of jobs extend?

Communal Behavior in the Post-Industrial Society

Bell describes the post-industrial society as “communal,” and later goes on to explain that the communal society means increased participation of individuals and groups in communal life, and says that it is the rise of so many organizations calling for instituting services for to meet their needs that has paradoxically resulting in stalemates and few of the groups getting what they desire. However, looking at all the different services people get on the Internet and the opportunities they have to project their own voices, it seems that while organizations may not be getting what they want, individuals often are. Kumar seems to be saying that powerlessness of individuals or groups comes not from enhanced participation in communal life, rather the center of control being moved higher on a hierarchal ladder to allow for scientific management (Taylorism) to control the masses.

The Government: A Driving Role

Kumar points out how such a large proportion of IT Research and Development is backed by nation’s military defense divisions. The idea that we really only have continued advancing in technology as fast as we have due to the drive for more advanced military equipment/explosives is semi-creepy to me. Doesn’t that give you a feeling of being out of control? Maybe I’m just a bit paranoid about it, but it reminds me of a mixture of the many science fiction books I’ve read growing up–somewhat of a feeling that those in power only let knowledge and technology accessible if they want it to accessible, that the advance we believe to be affected by consumer demand could actually be significantly dependent on the amount of money the military pours into IT R&D and which of those developed technologies are dispersed among the general population.

Reflection on Segment of Earlier Post:

In the first blog post of the semester (the original of this one), I wrote the following:

From my own experiences, I don’t see our society becoming more communal. I would consider increased interaction with the people you work, study, play and live with–the people who surround you in every day live–perhaps an increase in “communal” life. I don’t view sending more text messages to people who are not with you, and in result, ignoring the people around you, as being more communal even if it does mean you have more text interaction. (Have you ever been to a birthday or New Year’s party, where everyone is texting people who aren’t at the party?) Sure, “instant” messaging is supposed to allow people to interact at a near real-time rate across vast distances. But what is more instant than face-to-face communication? I suppose the world is becoming more cyber-communal, but to what expense to a traditional sense of communal? Well, I guess communal can envelop many different things–community interaction, but also, as these authors focused on, participation in decisions that affect the masses. I am interested to know if the percentage of the population voting has significantly increased since the advent of home internet use allowing easy access to candidate information. (I have tried searching for information about that on the internet, but have yet to find any numbers. Supposedly text messaging helped in Obama’s campaign.) Perhaps the advance of technology does increase the access people have to information that could contribute to their effectiveness in communal decisions…but does that mean there will actually be increased participation?

This passage rings with my previous perspective that leaned in a somewhat cyber-pessimistic direction. However, “In the Facebook Age” has introduced so many different takes on our online interaction, that I feel my opinions shifting. I won’t be signing my life of to Facebook anytime soon (well…maybe I already have??), but I think that throughout there was evidence of true relationships online, as well as demonstrations that whatever occurs online has real effects. I still think that just because the information is there doesn’t mean it will change people’s behavior–in fact, the information overload may cause apathy and inaction. But still, things like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter do seem communal, although they have further influences  such as algorithms, affects of the digital divide, and language barriers. It is communal in a different sense of the traditional communal life, I think, because the interactions can exist in different ways. As the Internet allows for a breaking down of geographical barriers, perhaps virtual reproductions of communal behavior are increased but cannot necessarily get through other cultural, class, education or language barriers. However, relating back to Kumar and hierarchal management, are we really immersing ourselves in the Internet as freely as the we think? Not that I’m proposing some sort of conspiracy, but after reading about the intense commercialization and privatization of cyberspace and having the knowledge that so many things are under the hood of Google, as well as the haunting Facebook logo and like button that has spread across and inhabited the Internet like a family of rabbits, we seem to be treating the Internet like it is the revolutionary space that is was meant to be (according to its counterculture creators). And when we see these companies trying to make us think it is this unrestricted, run-by-the-masses space, such as large corporations playing the part of amateur on YouTube, it’s not believable  that the Internet is a challenger to power hierarchies.  It seems to reflect social structures and inequalities (i.e. digital divides), but at the same time can influence social norms (levels of self-disclosure). Not entirely novel, yet also introducing new aspects to society. An interesting creature indeed…

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1978757,00.html

A new  app for iPhones, Blackberries and other smart phones is TigerText. Users can set the length of time they want the message to exist, and then it self-destructs. Instead of having a record, people can almost pretend like it’s a spoken, unrecorded conversation. The article relates it to spouses cheating on each other. I can imagine there are many other uses, too, that would make tracking the history of events rather difficult.

This video was circulating around Facebook today–maybe another attraction people have to YouTube is that while the famous (commercialized) people are still central players in the popularity mix, YouTube includes clips that makes the celebrities more human to the masses. Do the celebrities seem more accessible and more personable if they are showed doing “regular” human things and, in this case, being ignorant?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkKqihEUmH4&feature=player_embedded

I was just thinking about how YouTube videos become famous, and while there are some that get there simply because of their humor or talent or what have you, there are explicit instructions out there about optimizing search terms on your video. What’s more, people can mess with the algorithms by tagging their videos with unrelated tags that are the most popular. Josh and I tagged our video on Tuesday with things like “YouTube fame,” “injury,” “humor,” and “how to,” but we also included “Lady GaGa” and “Soulja Boy.” Our video wasn’t the most viewed in the class, but I was surprised that it received 29 hits in 2 days. (Let’s face it, the video itself is the kind of monkey trash Keen is talking about.) In fact, that video, that we made and produced in about 20 minutes, has received in two days almost the same number of views as the other video I have uploaded to Facebook (a process which with taking all the photos and putting them together consumed an entire evening of my spring break).

I believe that the views of the video made by Josh and I are primarily due to our tagging–the manipulating of the system so that from an algorithm standpoint, we look like we are part of the popular culture. In that sense, it seems the popular culture still dominate and dictates not just what we watch, but what we create. There are definitely videos that get to the top without being tagged in relation to celebrities, but the pop culture seems to still be the hub of entertainment. The other day I watched a video on YouTube (not that any of use ever spend time there) that was a random (?) little girl being thrown through the air, shooting a mini basketball between her legs and then being caught by another person. It appears to be an amateur video, but hey, we never no. In any case, I checked out the tags and one of them was “lebron james.” Yes, they both had to do with basketball–but other than that, not a lot of relation. The video is nearing 200,000 views (was uploaded on May 2nd) and has 900 comments.

It also was favorited by 736 people and has an average rating of 4.81–perhaps that says that although it may take popular tags to get noticed, people like to see other people doing things–whether they be funny, daring, or just everyday activities. While the embarrassing videos of people singing along (Disturbia kid, anyone?) is viewed by Keen as a degradation of our culture, perhaps what leads people to watching these videos is that it shows that other people are weird too. And in turn, that if it’s becoming socially acceptable to express yourself on YouTube, even if it’s a bit strange in relation to what is considered “normal”–or perhaps, especially it is strange–people then participate in the creation of those videos themselves. If other people are doing, why not you?  (Hmm…Keen may like to think that he is a step above the monkeys playing on YouTube, but just because he refuses to participate doesn’t mean that expressing your crazy/personal life on YouTube isn’t shifting to become normal. Is YouTube enabling the weird to become “normal,” or perhaps in better terms, the weird to become popular?

In any case, I want to pursue the idea of purposefully incorrectly tagging videos to make them popular as a necessity for YouTube users that don’t have a large network on the site. I have added “charlie bit my finger,” “llamas with hats,” “numa numa,” “kittens inspired by kittens,” and “harry potter” to our class experiment video. And as another experiment, I added “lady gaga,” “jason mraz,” and “harry potter” to my other video (in addition to its “stop motion” and “food animation” tags). I was rather hesitant to do this because it has nothing to do with these things, and to me it seems wrong to mis-tag the video. But…curiosity wins out on this one. It may be a better test than the newer video because its views have held pretty steady for the past couple weeks, so it may be a better determination of whether or not the tags actually make a difference.

Oh, and shameless plug. If there is anyone outside the class reading this blog. View our movie.

It has no talent and no humor. But, it is tagged with other famous things, so at the very least when you are done viewing it, you can check out the “related videos” and find something else that may be more appealing to you.

(My older video will not be embedded in this blog post, because I want to see what the tags alone will do.)

Also…I initially though of posting this from my iPod Touch, but then I couldn’t since we returned them on Tuesday. Several times I have reached into my backpack to check the time or the dining hall menus. I am now condemned to searching out a computer to look up the menus or (*gasp*) actually going to the dining hall without looking. In th 3 1/2 month that we used the Touches, I became rather habituated to the connection–checking the menus, checking my email (although I usually would just check to see if there was anything I needed to reply to and if there was, then I would get out my computer), checking the temperature, looking at my Twitter feed way more often than I did before our Twitter experiment. It’s not a feeling of loss per say, but nor is it a feeing of liberation. I just got used to having the connection and used it because it was there. (I have also considered actually getting an iPod Touch now, but in a way, that would be succumbing to the draw of constant connection. And really, outside of Bowdoin campus where we have wireless pretty much everywhere, there isn’t much point. There are not many large pockets of wireless in MT.)

I suppose the true examination of my dependency on technology and the connections that derive through the Internet will occur during LT expedition, which happens after finals and will be nearly a week of no communication with people outside our group. After immersing myself in the Internet this semester than I ever have before, I wonder what reaction I will have. Granted, disconnecting and being busy paying attention to navigating rapids, setting up and taking down camp, portaging and so on is quite a different connection from participating in “regular” life, such as a general week during the semester. I don’t imagine having any withdrawal symptoms on this trip, but I also think that when everyone around you is disconnected, it doesn’t really matter that you are disconnected, but if you are living in a world where nearly everyone around you is connected and you aren’t, then it becomes more difficult to participate in various interactions. We shall see.

(This post is also tagged with Lady Gaga and Harry Potter. Will the WordPress users come flocking?)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/business/media/03link.html?src=un&feedurl=http://json8.nytimes.com/pages/technology/internet/index.jsonp

http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2010/04/30/06

73% of Internet use is NOT in English!

It was interesting to hear how Google Translate actually works, but it doesn’t seem to be the silver bullet for translating languages. They do point out that translation is becoming cheaper and more accessible. Machine translation may not be entirely accurate and may lose the nuance of a piece of writing, but machine translation may be better than none at all.  The alternative translator that showed both languages after the translation occurred sound like a good idea to remind us it is just a machine translation. The podcast also made a good point that with the ability to translate what other people are saying, people have to become more aware of what the “other” is saying.

A Revamp of http://learn.bowdoin.edu/courses/soc022-danica-loucks/2010/02/what-is-friendship-is-online-friendship-real/ as one of the three edited blogs.

This week’s readings focused on the development and existence of relationships online.

Can’t Teach an Old Dog New Tricks

While reading “Home Virtualis” by Sven Birkerts, age 58, I wondered if his negative view and reluctance to accept online interaction as real is related to not being introduced to the technology until a later age. He brings up some good points, but I find myself believing the idea of online friendships as real much more easily than Birkerts does. Is my willingness to accept it related to growing up with some sort of internet use for much of my life?

If Birkerts believes the Internet “is anarchic, grass-roots, ungoverned, and unpoliced, except by self-appointed vigilantes,” it’s no wonder he seems to have a hard time making “real” friends online. Such a “Wild West” image is perhaps something the originators of the Internet would like, as we learned in the Internet Revolution film. The Internet, however, is largely the space of commercialization. This privatization makes the Internet–in the eyes of some people–less of a revolutionary space. Capitalism shapes how it is used, social inequalities are projected onto the Internet and access to its use…so would it really be likely that the Internet would change “fundamental human patterns?” In Birkerts’ opinion, yes.

Birkerts describes the experience of the internet as something that is all absorbing, timeless, and an addiction. He views the experience as a very negative experience–positive while you are experiencing it, but hard to draw away from, thus a controlling activity. As the internet becomes more in the center of our focus, Birkerts says this massive engagement must change fundamental human patterns, and humans themselves. Here, I agree with Birkerts, as he explains how human organization developed from tribal isolation to more complex societal arrangements, thus it makes sense that the internet is the extension of that development.

As Birkerts compares the engineers and the visionaries and their attitudes towards the internet, I found the statement about the internet as a hive compelling. When Kevin Kelly says, “many things will emerge that we, as mere neurons in the network, don’t expect, don’t understand, can’t control, or don’t even perceive,” I think of how before I started this class, I was unaware of all the things resulting from the internet and related issues like the digital divide. Birkerts seems to side with the engineers and believe that what the visionaries imagine would require too much technological advance and a strong collective will.

However, he then goes on to say there is a blurring between the self and computer. Admittedly, the brain and the computer can perform many tasks, but what about emotion and sentimentality? Apparently, in Artificial Intelligence there is no place for sentimental idea of soul or spirit. This is related to social constructionism in psychology, a theory saying “neither personality nor behaviors issue from a core self, but are constructed moment to moment under shifting societal constraints,”  and deconstructionism, “the aesthetic theory that works of art and literature are not coherent creations by individuals but are, rather, subtly masked ideologies…of the tradition.”  Birkerts views our connection to (and dependence on) computers and the internet as doing away with the idea of the self/individual. Birkerts says that as the internet is used more, the ideology of AI and not having a need for self gains ground. He says, “The intellectual climate promotes reliance on the technology and the proliferation of computers and users intensifies the climate.” and “Are we not thrusting ourselves willy-nilly into an electronic collectivity that cuts against the very foundations of subjective individuality?” He views the internet as “antithetical to selfhood,” but isn’t the internet supposed to be a place for people to express individuality? Does the internet turn us into a collective group that are only visible as one mass, or does it allow each person to have more individuality?

Birkerts seems like he would be a fan of all those science fiction novels or short stories that show the power of machines over the humans. He worries that because there isn’t a big difference between computer processes and mental functions, that we may accept the machine as a replacement without examining it critically. If this worry was backed up with some sort of Artificial Intelligence story or iRobot or something, I might find it mildly compelling. However, he backs it up with an example of people around the world grieving together on the internet after the death of David Alsberg. I do believe that examining the news story to see that the public views grieving online as grieving together, but since those people view it that way, I would consider that they are grieving together; they are sharing feelings of sorrow.

This example of grieving–debatably “real” or not–is to me an example of real behavior. Birkerts seems to believe that what happens on the internet isn’t “real,” but when he describes it, it is an imitation of human behavior in our society. For instance, the existence of “netiquette,” and experienced users who make sure newcomers learn and abide by those rules and expectations. This is just as newcomers to a community learn what is appropriate, or how children learn how to behave and meet societal expectations. Additionally, there are always the people in a society who don’t follow those rules, for example insulting, given the term “flamers” on the internet. This is different from offline life, because it does allow people to have more anonymity; therefore they may become more vicious in their comments.

According to Birkerts, the vague boundary between online and offline life is “alarmingly loose,” but as Castells and many other studies have showed (i.e. Cybercity), the interactions that occur online are real. They are occurrences of real virtuality in the terms of Castells. Birkerts discredits the communal online grieving and says “to suggest that cyberspace is not a cold and data-driven place but one that supports genuine relationships and carries emotion content, the implications seem…chilling.” Oh, Sven.

He wrote in the beginning that the internet introduces an us vs. them mentality, and perhaps to some extent it does between users and nonusers. There certainly are changes in the way people interact between offline and online relationship development, and perhaps online relationships have somewhat different characteristics than offline relationships, but the “us vs. them” mentality may arise from Birkerts’ role as a reluctant newcomer to the Internet. If he has not experienced social interaction on the Internet, perhaps he cannot admit it exists. He disregards terms like “neighborhood” and “console” when used in the context of online activity, but if the Internet is a reflection of society, than it makes sense that even if the “constructions” on the Internet are not physically the same as, say, a neighborhood we describe it that way, because we are limited by our language in how to describe things.

I think it was good for Birkerts to hear from the old lady who used online social networking to have more communication with people after she was unable to go out. We often talk about old people being left out of the transition to Internet use, but can be a connection tool for homebound seniors to help them be more social. The woman said, “This experience is real, too…” Birkerts interaction with the elderly lady seemed to open his eyes a bit to how engaged these people are emotionally–he assumed they were engaged in the technology before, and he for a moment seems to believe that these online community participants are having real relationships, but he is not quite ready to accept this. Or at least, he doesn’t take it for the positive thing that F. views it as. He says as the world gets more out of control, cyberlife will “make serious inroads on the ‘real.’”

Real Vs. Actual

I believe what the old woman experiences are real, particularly because of this philosophical essay about the difference between “reality” and “actuality.” (http://www.crcsite.org/actuality.htm) What is actual is vibrational energy, what is actually there. But what is reality is what we perceive, thus we all experience somewhat different realities. Most important in regards to online interactions is the verb “realize.” How we use it these days, it is figuring something out in our mind, but if you really think about the word–”real”+”ize.” An excerpt from the above linked article:

Realize something that does not exist. Picture in front of you a shoe box, wrapping paper and string. I take the wrapping paper and place it around the shoe box, fold the paper so it fits snugly around the box. Next I take the string and wrap it around the length and then the width of the box and tie a knot. You saw a mental image or ‘realized’ a non-actuality. You have seen a box, made of cardboard, with a particular color, a box-top, paper etc. All these items were imaginary. But you could visualize them clearly as if they really did exist. Now, when you can see a thing so clearly that you can recognize it, distinguish it from other articles, and tell just how it is made, it must be a reality to your consciousness as though you had actually seen such an article.

We can real-ize something that doesn’t exist physically, and I would argue that the friendships and “neighborhoods” on the Internet are realized by the people who participate.

Birkerts’ Idea of Our Future Existence

Birkerts believes that by engaging in electronic media we are “agree[ing] to behave according to the rules of that system; it is to direct the focus outward, away from the self.” Admittedly, anytime you “plug into a system”–even nothing that has to do with technology, for instances joining an organization or frequenting a restaurant–you are agreeing to the terms of that organization/business. Also, engaging in activity on the Internet does appear to be an outward action, but perhaps not “away from self.” Perhaps it is reaching outwardly to build connections to that self.

He writes, “Our sense of our own presence in the world has much to do with our being the objects of other people’s awareness. But on the Net awareness is only partial.” True, people don’t necessarily visually acknowledge you on the Internet, but the act of reaching outwardly to make online social connections puts us in other people’s awareness if indeed we require that acknowledgement to feel like we exist.

Birkerts strongly looks down on the creation of virtual settings–environments, rooms, neighborhoods. He seems rather bitter when he writes “Go to a no-place, by all means, if that is what you need to do, but don’t try to pretend that the no-place is actual, a home. It cannot be.” I agree that a virtual environment is not an actual environment (and I did notice that he used “actual” instead of “real,” in this sentence, but I don’t think he was using as a different meaning), and it’s sad to think of virtual environments replacing actual ones, but it does provide a “place” for people to interact. This is seen in the Cybercity article with the Plaza, Beach, and so on–because those are places that are deemed social places, they are treated as such online.

He proposes humans will be “homo virtualis,” pulling away from nature and the constraints of place, time, and immediate interaction. He seems a bit bitter and sad about it, and I do agree that there is something important about the idea of presence and immediacy. I just think online and offline interactions can both be real.

Denise Carter’s “Living in Virtual Communities” shows us how these relationships can be real.

Virtual Ethnography

I am intrigued by the idea of a virtual ethnography. It appears as if such a thing can actually be done–as we see in this article, and as I read about in my anthropology class last semester when we were learning about marriages developed through global correspondence–which, in my opinion, lends evidence to the fact that the Internet is a place. If not physically, it is used and acknowledged by all these people thus the interactions that go on between people on the Internet are like those that occur in a community, but without the base of a physical location.

Defining Friendship

After introducing the reader to various views of what a relationship or friendship is, Carter shows how the online relationships in Cybercity meet those criteria, and how they often extend into offline relationships. Cybercity, for me, was a much bigger step towards “online community” than I had ever heard of. Before, I had heard of (and used) social networking sites that aren’t virtually spatialized, but this community had public areas, like the Plaza, people’s homes, and neighborhoods. Initially, this seems a bit silly, reminiscent of Farmville on Facebook, but when Carter reminded me of spatial codes, this makes a lot of sense. In Intro to Cultural Anthropology last semester, we wrote essays comparing spaces and discussed what messages they sent or what rules they dictated. The non-space inside cyberspace can be designated to certain activities by applying spatial codes. These codes make this space meaningful to the people who are using it and determine what behaviors are acceptable. Carter inferences that Cybercity is a cultural construct, and I concur. It reinforces the status of the social spaces and accompanying behaviors, further backing up the idea of the Internet reflecting our society.

Carter applies the following guidelines regarding friendship on Cybercity:

1. Friendship is voluntary, informal and person.

2. Friendship may offer relief from role performance.

3. Like described by Birkets, friendship teaches us how people see us, thus allowing us to view ourselves.

4. A “pure relationship,” as described by Giddens, involves freedom, commitment and intimacy. It is not anchored in social and economic conditions, rather is “free-floating.”  It involves active trust and personal disclosure.

Finding Friendship Online

What is very interesting about the friendships in Cybercity (and I would imagine in other friendships developed initially online), is that instead of beginning somewhat superficially and developing into a stronger relationship that meets the characteristics of a pure relationship, and is not based off external influences, the Internet relationship seems to develop in the opposite manner. People who are comfortable with using the Internet (longer-time users) describe the process as meeting people from the inside out. They get to know the person’s personality and quirks (sans body language and often aural cues) before physically seeing them. Many of the Cybercity members described this as a positive experience because there were no first-impressions based on appearance or where that person stood in society. I wonder (semi-sarcastically) if Internet friendship is the solution for creating friendship that is not based on physical appearance, allowing everyone to have an equal chance at developing a friendship. Then if friends do decide to meet in person, they already have a connection and commitment that may overcome any aversion they may have to the friend’s physical appearance.

Another interesting aspect of Cybercity is the friend-finding expeditions. Perhaps in the way it is described, as people aggregating in a non-space in cyberspace, it seems a bit silly. But when you look at how people find friends in actual life, then it is yet another imitation. People don’t often go out alone, or just randomly show up to meet one person who they don’t really know. They go in groups; they go to public spaces. Further, as people grow up they are taught how to make friends, although not directly, rather by observing and trying to imitate those behaviors. Carter describes the less experienced residents learning from the more experienced residents. In this way, newbies to the Internet are “children” in cyberspace, and the veterans are the “adults.”

When looking at the list of where people visited, we saw that the plaza was by far most visited place, but saw that the ethnographer’s “house” had quite a few visitors–nearly as much as a “public place” (the Cafe), which according to her description of people’s visiting habits was a bit unusual. I immediately thought of the ethnographic novel, Return to Laughter, by Eleanor Bowen, and how she received many visits because she was the strange newcomer, who was unique, interesting and mysterious. Perhaps this spike in visitors to “Dutypigeon’s” (Carter’s) own “house” is the virtual version of the attention an ethnographer receives when existing in an unfamiliar community.

Carter points out that as we go through offline life and go through different social settings, “we meet people but do not tend to actively consider them as possible friends.” But in Cybercity, “residents learn to regard everyone sharing the same social space as a potential friend.” Partly because all spaces in Cybercity appear to be social spaces. I wonder if a business had online conferences but also an online “cafe,” if the differentiation often seen in today’s workplace would be the same. In any case, we meet the cashiers at Hannaford, but we do not consider them potential friends. Yet if they have access to the Internet and we were members of Cybercity or a similar site, then we would be potential friends. As described earlier, we do not think of the barrier that normally seems to exist between the Brunswick Townie and the Bowdoin Student, rather are open to getting to know people in our online community. While this seems like a positive thing (and I think it is), why does it require the Internet to have this openness and acceptance? Apparently the borders developed by our categories of class, race, gender, and age are too big to make those friendships in actual life, but in cyberspace that can be laid aside, as long as the online community doesn’t exist around a specific group of people.

Looking back on these articles and this blog post after having read about virtual ethnicity, the digital divide, and social capital, there is valid reasoning to arguing against the breaking down of barriers, the connections between diverse groups of people and the motivation for creating online friendships, but I still maintain that online relationships can be developed.

Honesty Online

In regards to truth on the Internet, Carter admits that there is a risk of being lied to by members of the community, but a study on chat rooms showed that people who don’t spend much time in them are more likely to lie, and people who spend a lot of time in chat rooms tend to be more truthful. I feel this is true, because as one used the Internet more, they become more comfortable with it, and the more integrated it is into their lives, the more “real” it becomes for them. It may be easy to tell a few small lies to someone you have never met and will only chat with a few times, but turning your whole being and behaviors into a lie is much more difficult. Last semester, Professor Dickey responded to a student’s question about if people in India could just move to another location and then pretend to be in another jati/caste. She said that the behaviors were so specific and integrated into each group’s lives that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to put on an entirely different “face.” In the same way, if a person’s commitment to communications on the Internet becomes large, it becomes difficult to keep the impression he/she gives online separate from their actual personality or being.

Moving Offline

Carter’s description of how many of the residents she studied met offline supports the idea of “real virtuality,” and how online and offline life are mixed with each other. Even more compelling was that when these people met, their online friendship proved to constitute friendship in offline life, although sometimes with people making a few adjustments. She also mentioned how the friendships sometimes continued on the backward trajectory of starting as internally-referential ‘pure relationships,’ but then become based on external influences after meeting in person. I believe that shows that the influences of class, race, gender, and age are strong enough to even change a relationship after being “pure.”

Where Friendship is Not the Explicit Goal

By following the given descriptions of friendship, it appears that people do have friendship in Cybercity. Cybercity, however, is focused on building friendships. I wanted to look at some of the characteristics of a social network that had another purpose to see how relations occurred there. I frequent a social network called Gluten-Free Faces, which is a group of people from around the world virtually coming together to discuss various aspects of celiac disease and gluten intolerance and how to deal with it. Of course, I didn’t have time to do some sort of massive ethnographic study, but here are some of my observations:

1. While the site is a global group, among the created groups people aggregate with people in their geographical areas. Perhaps this is because the topics discussed often involve things or services available to people, so they focus on where they have access. There are also groups focused on various other commonalities from body building to other allergies. I think one of the powers of the internet is that it allows people to “surround” themselves with like-minded people. This can be a good thing in the case of hobbies or discussing health problems, but runs the risk building large gaps and more misunderstanding between opposing groups (i.e. in politics). It is interesting that while people join this online group that is global, they focus their interactions in groups of “Irish Celiacs,” “UK Celiac,” “Minnesota Celiac,” and so on.

2. It is a place of open discourse as planned by the originators of the internet, but at the same time people are able to use the forums as places to spread the word about their products and services.

3. This site is very much an example of an information society. There is networking and friendship that goes on, but what is most impressive is the amount of information that is tossed back and forth.

I think there is evidence that real relationships do form online, but after finishing out the semester examining other related topics, I realize that the conversation about friendship online, the Internet’s role in changing fundamental human behaviors, and how the Internet may or may not connect people of differing background, is much more complicated than can be shown in just the two articles by Birkerts and Carter. Carter shows real friendships, but Birkerts says they don’t exist, so I think my conclusion remains that real relationships develop online. However, I also have realized that some people just don’t believe building real friendship can happen online–and perhaps for them it doesn’t feel real, so it can’t be real for them.