Rebecca Centanni
Sociology 022 – In the Facebook Age – Spring 2010 – Dhiraj Murthy

The readings this week discuss the democratic potential of the Internet and its effects on the future of politics. The article by Papacharissi first examines the concept of the public sphere. The author notes that the Internet has created a new public space, but “a new public space is not synonymous with a new public sphere” (380). While the Internet functions as a public space in that it provides users a place to actively discuss, it does not directly enhance democracy, a key characteristic of public spheres. The author then looks at the issue of the digital divide in relation to the ability to access information, the possibility for miscommunication, and the commercialization of the Net to further support the idea that the Internet is not yet a public sphere.

The second article by Dahlberg discusses Habermas’ idea of the idealized public sphere to be found on the Internet, which allows fractional deliberation by individuals and is free of state and corporate interests. However, the author then presents three potential aspects that could undermine the democratic Net; corporate control and censorship, access restrictions, and the privatization of interactions. While he notes many positive attributes of the Net in relation to a democratized environment, he also notes that many interactions and services online are created with the priority of maximizing profits rather than enhancing democracy. Additionally, he proposes that the services provided by the Internet in relation to politics really only reach a small percentage of individuals, and therefore are only aiding those who have traditionally benefited by political and economic programs.

While I do understand and agree with most of the arguments presented by the authors, I feel that they fail to acknowledge three implications of the Internet as a form of virtual democracy: the ability of the Net to bring a group of individuals together, the impact it has had on youth culture, and the fact that the “digital divide” is theoretically not a new concept in politics.

As stated by Papacharissi, the Internet has the ability to “bring individuals together and help them overcome geographical and other boundaries” (381). However, the author then counters the previous point by noting that online discourse oftentimes ends in miscommunication, with certain individuals using free speech without a second thought due to the anonymous nature of online communications. Many individuals simply post hasty opinions rather than well-developed thoughts (385). This idea made me think of the articles we read a few weeks ago about virtual ethnicity, and the implications of the existence of sites strictly dominated by one ethnic group. However, in this case, it is political rather than ethnic groups that oftentimes dominate threads. In the article by McLelland, the author addresses 2-channeru and the implications of having such an exclusive, and oftentimes derogatory, site. Individuals who identify as native Japanese use the site in such a way that is offensive to other users, especially Koreans. And while this type of virtual identification can become hostile, I believe that it certainly helps the Japanese users further their sense of identity. I feel like the same pattern is visible in online political spaces. In doing a simple Google search of either conservative or democratic political forums, I was presented with a multitude of sites strictly dedicated towards one political party, allowing users to comment on recent news stories or even discuss past elections. I feel that these types of sites are definitely beneficial to the political user, allowing him/her to interact with others with similar beliefs while finding a place to express his/her opinions. Especially if the individual is, politically speaking, a minority in his/her geographic area, he/she has the ability to connect with others across physical boundaries who share common ideas. And while Papacharissi is correct in proposing that while political discussion has the capability of being transferred online it is not always going to do so, I feel that she doesn’t give enough credit to the Internet in its ability to facilitate discussion. The Internet can be used for a huge variety of tasks, however not all of them will ever be used simultaneously by all users. Instead, they choose what they want to do in their time online, and those who are politically minded may choose to use the easily accessible spaces set up online.
Two sites I found in doing my Google search:

Democratic Political Forum

Conservative Political Forum

Another aspect of the Internet as a democratic space that I find important is the effect that it has on younger individuals. My generation has been brought up on technology, and therefore the Internet is taken as part of our daily lives. It only seems natural, then, that politics become part of our online world. While I do not think that it is something to be proud of, I very rarely read the newspaper or watch the news at school. However, since so much political information is available online, I feel that it is the most convenient way for me to stay up-to-date with the latest happenings. I have my homepage set to a news site and therefore am updated on current events every time that I go online. And though I am not actively discussing politics, I still feel somewhat involved. Both articles discuss the increased commercialization of the Net and the ways in which that interferes with true democratic intentions. As Dahlberg notes, “the virtual environment is now marketed and metered out to network consumers” (74). While this is certainly evident of the capitalistic components of our society, I feel that it supports the idea that the Net has many components geared towards younger individuals. I think this is especially evident in the ways in which younger individuals take an interest in celebrity culture. Young adults pay attention to celebrities and want to buy many of the same brands that they endorse. Many celebrities now use their Twitter and Facebook accounts to share their political viewpoints and support certain candidates. And when individuals see their favorite celebrities supporting a candidate, they will most likely want to at least learn about that candidate’s viewpoint. Additionally, both Obama and McCain took advantage of such sites, allowing them to reach out to younger citizens while promoting their platforms.

Finally, while the two articles cite the digital divide as a reason why the Internet cannot be seen as a democratic sphere, they fail to recognize that this divide is not very different from what normally occurs in politics. As Dahlberg notes, the “commercial, privatized Net adds weight to fears that new classes are developing, based upon inequalities in the distribution of information and communications resources, that reinforce the structural inequalities of global capitalism” (76). And while both sources note that the emergence of politics on the Internet can lead to domination by the elite, this is not necessarily very different from what normally occurs in everyday life. While there certainly are exceptions, I feel that many of the individuals who do not have access to the Internet also do not have the time or resources to stay actively involved in politics. Therefore, they would not be very involved in political events regardless of whether or not they are connected. The Internet serves as a convenient method for many individuals who are already actively involved in political occurrences. Papacharissi notes, “the virtual sphere is politically divided in a manner that echoes traditional politics” (383). While the Internet is not necessarily going to radically change the way in which individuals interact with politics, it is still serving a purpose and providing a useful service for many involved individuals.

The Internet is rapidly becoming more and more prevalent in the lives of many individuals. And as Norris notes in the article about the digital divide, the cost of technology is staying the same while technological capabilities are rapidly improving. While these changes could certainly lead to an increased digital divide, they could also provide more opportunities for political interaction in cyberspace, possibly changing the ways in which individuals view and interact with politics.

This exercise confirmed my dislike of Twitter. I feel that a large portion of Twitter users use the site in order to post play-by-plays of their daily lives which I have no interest in doing. Originally I used a fake name in my account because I was unfamiliar with the privacy settings and uncomfortable with sharing personal information with anyone online. However, I ended up changing my name to “Becca C” because it felt unnatural posting about my life under a different identity. That being said, I still tried to keep my posts as ambiguous as possible. My Facebook account is set to private, and since I was not fully informed about all of Twitter’s settings, I tried to be cautious when posting.

The default setting on Twitter is to have a completely public profile- even more open than Facebook, which only allows for your network to view all of your information. Additionally, the search function picks up on both usernames and tweet topics, making it extremely easy to locate a person even when not intentionally searching for them. Last night I posted a tweet about doing my calc homework and when I logged on again, CalcABProfessor was suddenly following me. This profile had a ton of followers, and I find it unlikely that it was actually an individual person’s profile. That being said, I find it extremely unsettling that a Twitter user could simply catch the word “calc” in my Tweet, find my profile, and then be able to follow me. Another feature that I feel uncomfortable with is the “Top Tweets” feature. Without even having a profile, a person on the Internet could go to the website and see a random feed of tweets, and therefore see profiles (granted the individual does not have his/her profile set to private).

What I did not realize is that my Twitter account would show up on a Google search of somebody I was following. Once again, a random individual was directed to my profile even though he/she was not intentionally searching for me.
In addition to my discomfort with the default privacy settings, I really found no use for my Twitter account. In doing my required tweets, I found it difficult to find things that I actually wanted to share. When I use my Facebook account, I rarely update my status. For this assignment I had to provide 15 status updates in a 6-day period, but I found that most of my tweets were very forced. I feel like my daily life is nothing worth sharing with everyone. However, I did enjoy being able to have a conversation and respond to other tweets of my classmates.

In my opinion Twitter is perfect for celebrities, many of whom do update their profiles religiously. It provides a way for them to let their curious fans know what they’re doing without having to deal with uploading pictures and having friends. People can follow their favorite celebrities’ profiles without the celebrity having to follow them (i.e. the celebrity does not have to be the equivalent of a “Facebook friend”). In that sense, the interaction is much more one-sided and therefore less indicative of a true friend (in comparison to Facebook). Personally, I much prefer the ability to live chat with my friends, which cannot be accomplished through Twitter.

While I am not a huge fan of Twitter, I still found myself becoming slightly addicted to it (just like Facebook all over again). I would go online at least once an hour just to see what my other classmates were up to and to read the latest tweets. I suppose this is just part of the curiosity factor that brings individuals onto social networking sties to begin with. And despite all of my concerns with surveillance, I’m not sure if I’m going to end up deleting my account. I’m fairly certain I will not continue to update my page, but I might still log in just to see what everybody else is up to.

I personally find the issue of Internet surveillance very important, and am always cautious in what I post online. The readings this week all provided different viewpoints on the topic of privacy in cyberspace and the possible implications of personal information being exposed. The introduction by Blom argues that while Internet surveillance does indeed occur, it is a necessary aspect for modern-day individuality. In order for companies to produce the type and quantity of goods desired by consumers, they must be able to constantly survey the population to get a sense of current interests. Additionally, he argues that watching is a characteristic of human action: it is natural for people to monitor each other and subsequently learn from their actions, an ability that separates human beings from other animals. While I agree with the author on the economic benefits of cyber-surveillance, I’m still uncomfortable with the idea that complete strangers could somehow gain access to my online accounts.

In the article by Foucault, Bentham’s Panopticon is used as a metaphor for the surveillance that occurs on a daily basis. In fact, the obstruction of online privacy is almost an implied condition of the Internet- it is a public space, and therefore open to anyone who has the ability and the desire to explore. Foucault notes that individuals online are very similar to those within the panopticon- they are trapped within perfect visibility. People who are online are metaphorically in a very similar situation as they are constantly being monitored and are the object of information but are unable to interact with those watching them. The fact that this ability to survey, and therefore hold power, is public (meaning anyone online has the ability to access the information of others) makes the effects of Internet surveillance seem less intense.

What I found most unsettling about the study by Jones and Soltren is that they were able to download information from the profiles of many college students without even being in the network. Traditionally, Facebook profiles are open to an individual’s friends and others within his/her network unless the privacy settings are changed from their default position. However, simply by noting a pattern in the URLs of profiles for different schools, Jones and Soltren were able to download multiple profiles, indicating that any individual could do the same without the consent of the page’s “owner” (assuming we can even define the concept of ownership in cyberspace). I have two comments about the study. On the one hand, I think the data received is slightly skewed as they study only looked at large universities. I feel that in a smaller school environment, where personal connections can be made more easily and an individual can have more of them, one would be less likely to post as much personal information. Additionally, the conductors of the study judged the extent of use of Facebook by an individual by his/her number of friends. I feel that this is neglecting the fact that some individuals only use their profiles for a small group of intimate friends, and therefore numbers do not really hold importance.

Despite my uneasiness with the lack of security online, I have never considered stopping my Internet use or deleting my Facebook account. I feel that this sentiment is common for many members of my generation as well as younger individuals as we have almost been brought up on the Internet.

As children, our parents taught us to never talk to strangers. While that is still important advice, I feel like it now needs to extend to online-strangers as well. And with that comes “never share personal information online”. Online surveillance is such a large issue in contemporary society due to the fact that a growing percentage of online individuals are children, and they are starting to go online at earlier and earlier ages. While Facebook was originally created for college students, it has now expanded to the younger (and older) age groups, allowing people to join high school and geographically defined networks without having a college email address. What many people, especially children, fail to realize is that the Internet is a public place. As Foucault notes, the individual “is the object of information, never a subject in communication” (303). Since people never physically interact with those who are able to access their information, they oftentimes forget that they can be seen until it is too late. And as the article that I posted below asserts, the Internet is becoming a major source of information, consequently lessening the importance of traditional group activities. As a result, younger and younger individuals will continue to look to the Internet as a means to pass time.

Also, relating back to Livingstone’s article, younger individuals choose social networking sites that will best allow them to personalize their pages. While Facebook tends to be for the more mature audience, MySpace users are generally younger, and choose the site because it allows them to fully customize their pages. These kids are not thinking ahead to the consequences of sharing the information that they post online. Instead, they are merely focusing on bedazzling their own profiles and the ways in which their classmates will view their pages. And since the Internet has such little centralized control and widespread use, it’s hard to uphold the usage restrictions. Many SNS have minimum age requirements, but there is nobody to actually regulate the age of individual users. I know a bunch of my younger neighbors who have MySpace and Facebook accounts, and when I’ve casually mentioned it in conversation with my mom, she was quick to reply that their parents had no idea that they had one. As kids are using the Internet without their parents’ consent, it is much more likely that they will take unnecessary risks, as they do not understand the potential consequences of their actions.

While it is inevitable that posting online can lead to the public display of an individual’s information, there are ways in which this “invasion of privacy” can be controlled. Simply put, people need to be smarter about what the post online. As Livingstone noted in her article, many individuals had a difficult time managing their privacy settings on Facebook and made multiple mistakes. She asserts, “these difficulties in managing privacy via privacy settings reflect broader Internet literacy issues” (406). Essentially, individuals need to learn to be literate in technology before going online. Many of the problems arise because people do not take the time to read about the default settings in many social networking sites before actually posting personal information. As Jones and Soltren explain, an individual can post as much or as little information as he/she would like on a profile, but he/she still has to submit such things such as their name and email address to even open the account. And my people who are not fully literate in this technology (myself included) never consider the implications of submitting this data.

I did a Google search on Facebook privacy settings and found this information, supported by the information in the study. According to Facebook’s privacy policy:

Site activity information. We keep track of the actions you take on Facebook, such as adding a friend, becoming a fan of a Facebook Page, joining a group or an event, creating a photo album, sending a gift, poking another user, indicating you “like” a post, attending an event, or authorizing an application. In some cases you are also taking an action when you provide information or content to us. For example, if you share a video, in addition to storing the actual content you uploaded, we might log the fact you shared it.



Access Device and Browser Information. When you access Facebook from a computer, mobile phone, or other device, we may collect information from that device about your browser type, location, and IP address, as well as the pages you visit.


Essentially, every move that an individual makes while on his/her Facebook account is recorded, and even if the profile has strict privacy settings, a hacker still could still manage to gain access to the activities of a user. While I closely monitor my Facebook settings to make sure my profile is private, I honestly had never come across this page before and did not know about most of the information posted. Additionally, as the study notes, “ a user can request Facebook to not share information with third parties though the method of specifying this is not located on the privacy settings page” (6). The fact that this crucial privacy information is not even located on the basic privacy settings page proves the importance of online literacy to protect the identities of individuals. Such a large population of young adults (as well as younger children and adults) are inviting SNS into all aspects of their lives, but are not actually considering the nature of the space in which they are posting and the consequences that could arise.

Despite the fact that there are so many risks associated with interactions online, I do not at all feel that individuals should stop using the Internet. In reality, there are also many risks to privacy offline as well. I feel that cyber-surveillance has become such a talked-about topic because of the fact that individuals do not know how to correctly display information online. All that is needed is to educate people about the risks of cyberspace and the ways in which they can help to protect their privacy to the best of their ability.

This article from NYT.com discusses Internet use in China. It argues that for many residents of China, the cyberspace is becoming the main source of entertainment. The fact that individuals find it more satisfying to spend time online than interacting with other individuals is just one consequence of our growing dependence on cyber-technologies.

This article on comcast.net homepage is the story of how a 16 year old is suing his mother for going onto his facebook page, changing some of his wall posts, and resetting his password. The fact that the teen is taking legal action demonstrates how much certain people value their pages and they truly believe the pages to be a method of self-expression.

This week’s readings looked at the use of the Internet by teenagers and young adults. The article “Web hit touches a chord with anorexics” describes the impact that the song “Sophie” had on many individuals struggling with eating disorders. A short film called “My Story”, which showcased an individual’s struggle with anorexia, used the song as background music to the pictures, adding a new emotional dimension to the clip. The popularity of the song online is indicative of the power that comes with the ability to use multimedia sources in a virtual production. The video would not have had its emotional depth without the inclusion of the song. The combination of lyrics, music, and visuals came together to evoke a strong emotional response in the viewer, reflecting much of the pain that comes with an eating disorder. The powerful capability of the Internet to create works that leave a lasting impression on their audiences is becoming more and more commonplace in today’s society as individuals rely on multimedia sources for both professional and recreational productions.

The article by Livingstone looks at the use of social networking sites by teenagers and young adults, noting the shift that occurs in usage style as the teenagers mature. Profile pages on SNS are another example of the way in which multimedia sources can combine to create a unique experience for a viewer. The study showed that younger individuals are keener on creating fancy and constantly changing profile pages with excessive decorations whereas more mature users prefer streamlined profile pages. As Livingstone proposes, individuals tend to shift from using MySpace to using sites such as Facebook as they mature, allowing them to better create the image that they want to project. The study focused on individuals in the London area, and did not include any users from the United States. However, the study cites a statistic stating that the UK has about 6.5 million MySpace users (the most popular SNS in the UK) while the United States has 38.4 million. This discrepancy in popularities may hint at differences in the ways in which residents of both countries use the sites.. It seems that many more Americans use SNS than British, indicating that residents of the US may be more reliant on cyber communications whereas British teens still base much of their interactions off of concrete experiences. Additionally, the study concludes that many individuals change the type of site they use as they mature, however this data seems inconsistent with the usage patterns of the sample of teenagers studied. While the general trend seemed to apply for female users, most male users continued to use MySpace even as they matured. I feel that this difference in usage patterns between genders should be analyzed more closely to provide insight into the ways that SNS are used by different genders.

The idea of self-expression as discussed in the readings is interesting, especially regarding the ways in which individual expression is shaped by technology, and they ways in which online users then affect the capabilities of future technologies. As Livingstone notes, “while younger teenagers relish the opportunities to recreate continuously a highly-decorated stylistically-elaborate identity, older teenagers favour a plain aesthetic that foregrounds their links to others” (393). MySpace is notoriously popular among younger teenagers as it allows its users to fully personalize their profile pages. Everything from custom-designed backgrounds to “favorite music” applications can be added to one’s profile to give it a sense of individualized personality. While I never had my own MySpace page, a few of my friends did in middle school. Whenever my friends and I would hang out, a large portion of time would be spent on each other’s MySpace accounts, looking at the latest posts and constantly changing the personalized features of the page. And despite the fact that we were spending a huge amount of time on a page that only belonged to one of us, we all enjoyed the thrill of being able to add tons of personal elements to the page that would then be seen by a large portion of our classmates.

My personal experience also supports the idea of a shift to Facebook as individuals mature. I much prefer Facebook to MySpace for the fact that it is so streamlined and has very generic-looking profile page layouts. I find no need to add all the glitz that can accompany a MySpace profile but prefer to have my page reflect the maturity of my current age. Yes, I do upload pictures to help personalize my page a bit, but even my information sections such as “Interests” and “Music” are fairly compact. I feel no need to list every little thing I have ever been remotely interested or involved in because my target audience is my current friend base. They know about me already, and though my profile is set to private, I still find it unnecessary to add excessive personal information. However, I feel that Facebook is beginning to adopt more and more characteristics typical to a MySpace-like site as an increasing number of younger users is entering the site. Originally aimed at college students, Facebook has expanded its user base in both directions, attracting teens as young as middle school as well as middle aged adults. While older users will probably stick to the features aimed at the college students, the younger users are discovering a multitude of features available to personalize their pages. My sister is a freshman in high school and has had a Facebook page for about a year. Though we are only four years apart, I can definitely see a difference in they way we present ourselves through our pages. She and her friends are very into adding applications for the sake of adding them. She is a “fan” of about 90 different Facebook pages, ranging from our high school to “Standing alone awkwardly in public when you’re waiting for a friend”. I personally have never been keen on the “fan” application and don’t really use it much however just yesterday I pointed out to her that the number of pages she was a fan of was a bit excessive. She agreed and told me she would clean up, only to drop the page count down from 93 to 85. When I asked her why she is a fan of such random pages, she said that she likes them, and that all of her friends are fans as well.

I think that the availability of multimedia sources on the Internet has a large influence on the ways in which individuals differ in online self-expression though social networking sites. In general, younger individuals are much more molded by the media than are older ones, especially younger girls. They want to dress like their favorite celebrities and embrace the Hollywood socialite culture. As a result, they turn to pages such as MySpace, which allow them to feature a background layout of their favorite celebrity or a popular brand-name item. And as cyberspace makes it even easier for the media to infiltrate the everyday lives of individuals, young teens find it more and more important to associate their projected appearance with things that are seen as “cool”. I feel that this desire to project and appearance that is consistent with pop-culture is part of the reason why becoming a fan of pages is so popular amongst teens on Facebook. The feature allows them to make the same type of outward associations that they would with a background on a MySpace page. Even beyond SNS profiles, the “My Story” film shows the ability of multimedia sources to be used to project an image and attract the attention of outside individuals.

As Livingstone notes, individual identity online is strongly mediated by what an individual is capable of displaying on his/her personal page. The identity that is displayed to cyberspace is really a representation of “the self embedded in the peer group” (400). Thus, the site an individual uses for self-expression and the creation of an online identity is important to the final product. Individuals are seen as a member of their greater friend community, and therefore to make themselves appear popular, they want to choose a site that many of their friends are involved in as well. While identity comes from borrowed media for younger teens, older individuals look to establish themselves in the context of their social groups. As Livingstone notes, the formation of an online identity depends on “the choice of site (one must select that already used by one’s friends) and mode of address (most say they put on their profile the content that hey consider their friends would enjoy)” (407). Consequently, self-expression online is both limited and expanded due to the resources of cyberspace. As I mentioned above, the ability to use multimedia sources greatly expands an individual’s expressive capabilities when sharing representations of him/herself online. However, users of SNS do not want to display every little detail about their lives- instead they pick and choose details to best make them fit in with their target audience as well as the other users of the site.

After reading the articles I searched online for different social networking sites, and found it interesting to view the differences in the image projected by the sites based on their target users. Habbo.com is geared towards younger teens. It consists of a variety of hotels and public spaces where avatars can play games and engage in various discussion boards. The site is clearly geared towards tweens, using cartoon-like animation, bubble letter fonts, and bright colors. At the other extreme is a site called Decayenne.com, which is a SNS designed for the elite. The site is only open to users who have received an invitation, and focuses on connecting cosmopolitan individuals who live extravagant lifestyles and believe that they embody a prestigious spirit. The high-status target audience is overwhelmingly evident in just the style of the site itself, as it incorporates fancy script letters with pictures of extravagant locations and dark, mature colors.

A user of either of these sites could also have an account on another SNS such as Facebook or MySpace, but I would assume that their two profiles would be drastically different due to the different target audiences of both of the sites. The average Facebook user is not necessarily cosmopolitan and into “all things elite”, so a user who also has a Decayenne account would probably make him/herself appear more “average.” While the Internet does provide an easy means of self-expression, as well as a fairly simple way to share one’s identity with others, the type of media sources used greatly impact both how an individual presents him/herself as well as how he/she is perceived by others.

Decayenne

Habbo

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36197557/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/

AOL is planning on either selling or closing Bebo, its social networking site due to its inability to keep up with more popular sites such as Facebook and MySpace. The fact that the site is closing due to competition shows just how prominent social networking is becoming in the lives of many individuals and that it is so popular it is almost turning into a business. While I agree that SNS as a whole will have some aspect of longevity, the sites need to keep up to date with the changing desires of the users in order to survive.

This week’s readings discussed the idea of virtual ethnicity and the exclusivity that can arise in cyberspace. The article by Poster looks at the impact of language in cyberspace and how that relates to the already existing gap between ethnicity and identity. The article also suggests that true ethnic identification requires physical practices that cannot be satisfied through virtual representations.

The article by McLelland takes a more interactive approach to the debate on virtual ethnicity by looking at specific Japanese sites. It begins by introducing the vast usage of languages other than English on the Internet, noting that while English constitutes 30.4% of all Internet communication and media use, it is rapidly decreasing in popularity compared to Chinese, which stands at 16.6%, and Spanish at 8.7%. The article then describes Japanese ethnic identification and its emphasis on division by blood instead of birthplace. The article concludes by looking at 2-channeru, a Japanese posting site that demonstrates the intensity of virtual ethnic divides.

For me, the two readings emphasize the pervasive natures of the Internet and technology in our society (technically speaking, for those who have access to the technologies). Poster proposes, “we have moved to a condition in which what is actual is now virtual, articulating an undefined set of possibilities rather than a fixed state of things.” (201). Essentially, real is becoming virtual: i.e. the notion of virtual reality. The idea of ethnicity, which existed in the concrete world, is also applicable in cyberspace. This idea combined with Castells’ notion of real virtuality proves that we are indeed approaching a society in which cyber-culture is becoming (and soon will completely be) the norm for a certain portion of the population.

The connectedness of concrete and virtual gives the idea of virtual ethnicity not only global importance but also validity. Ethnicity and race have always been hotly contested subjects in history, so it only makes sense that they reappear on the Internet. As Poster notes, the connectedness created by the Internet allows for very different people to interact with each other without necessarily knowing each other’s ethnic identities (184). Additionally, he notes that the Internet is a very decentralized means of communication; information can be distributed to a multitude of individuals regardless of location (190). As a result, different ethnicities are coming in contact maybe even to a greater extent than they would in the concrete world. Consequently, Internet sites that target specific ethnic groups are becoming “ a heterogeneous space characterized by diversity, segmentation and connection” (McLelland 814). The Internet is bringing together people of different ethnicities that are physically distanced but at the same times it is making clearer distinctions between these identities.

So what is the importance of the fact that ethnic distinction has become an aspect of cyberspace? In my opinion, it serves to prove the connectedness of the real world and the virtual world. Yet I also think the joining of the Internet and ethnic vigor can be dangerous. Racism has been a problem for all societies throughout history. And while many cultures have been able to greatly decrease the amount of hostility between people that identify differently from one another, the Internet allows this issue to re-emerge once again. The Internet is more or less anonymous. Therefore, it’s much easier for people to post racial slurs, and voice very strong and oftentimes offensive opinions. While many sites are moderated so that offensive posts can be removed, sites such as 2-channeru do not have this type of censorship. As a result, people can continually post their opinions regardless of whether they contain offensive material.

In a sense, I feel the emergence of virtual identification is going to cause civilization to regress. While many people spent a large portion of their lives trying to eliminate hate between individuals the anonymity of the Internet is making it possible, and maybe even encouraging, people to voice opinions of hate and distrust. While we would like to believe that racism is decreasing in our society, the connectedness of the Internet provides a completely new venue for people to connect and form hate societies. More importantly, they can make their opinions heard.

While this is slightly unrelated to my above argument, I also wanted to address the concept of Japanese ethnicity. I was appalled to find out that the Japanese base their ethnic identities on blood relations rather than birthplace. At first, I did not really see anything different about this distinction- I’m Italian because I have Italian blood from my grandparents. However, I then realized that this would drastically change the way in which we identify ourselves in America. Yes I have Italian blood, but I would say that I’m American, not Italian. From what I understand, I would be Italian according to the Japanese customs of identification. I base my ethnic identity on the fact that I was born in America, and I’m sure the same system is used for an overwhelming percentage of the country. If the people living in America decided to use the same type of mindset as the Japanese when discussing ethnic identity, the idea of “American” would almost disappear. The only true “Americans” are the natives that were here when other explorers arrived. Most people that now call themselves Americans had family members that immigrated to the country multiple generations ago. Very few people would actually be considered “American.”