Monthly Archives: February 2010

In Class 2/25

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Viral Video (selected by EJ)

Sex on Second Life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruMi3MAGkvc

Virtual subjectivity in Second Life

The Matrix

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_8Zq_iWuFg

Further Reading:

Second Life: an overview of the potential of 3-D virtual worlds in medical and health education

Coming of age in second life: an anthropologist explores the virtually human

In-class response exercise to Carter’s ‘Cybercity’

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Denise Carter, in her ethnography of Cybercity, concludes that social space is a social product (an argument she borrows from Henri Lefebvre, a French sociologist. After watching clips regarding ‘Second Life’, do you agree with this? If so, what do you think of the following question posed by Wellman and Gulia: ‘can online relationships between people who never see, smell, or hear each other be supportive and intimate?’

Each person in class needs to post a response to this question in class today as a comment here.

Virtual Revolution

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Random notes…

Almost 2bn people now online

Internet is ‘smartest brain in the world’ -Wozniak

UK spends about a billion pounds a week online

Web as ‘great levelling of humanity’?

Wikipedia: ‘most important information source in the world’? a flip of information coming from elites from ‘above’ to that of one coming from ‘below’ from the masses.

Gore: a platform for global reflection

Ushahidi: a case of the Internet as a powerful medium for putting pressure on governments (here: Kenya)

Your thoughts???