A few sources to check out

After (finally) finishing my entry on more twitter hatin’ and conflatin’, I seem to be in technology/social media mode. As I start to think more about blogs and social media in relation to ethics, moral selfhood and care of the self, here are a few sources that might be helpful:

1. Jonathan Franzen.  Liking is for Cowards: Go For What Hurts (Also known as: Technology Provides an Alternative to Love”
One key argument he makes is that internet technology (ex. the “like” button on facebook) contributes to our narcissism and our refusal to move outside of ourselves to actually connect (and love) others. When we “like” something or friend someone, we just invite it into “our private hall of flattering mirrors.”  I want to come back to Franzen’s claims in his essay and really think them through, especially what they mean for the Self. I’m not sure how or if it connects, but I want to revisit Chela Sandoval’s discussion of love in Methodology of the Oppressedand read it beside Franzen’s assessment of love.

2. Natasha Singer. The Trouble with the Echo Chamber Online
Speaking of insular selves who devote too much energy to reading/thinking about what they like/what they are interested in, Singer discusses the problems with the personalization of the web. Here’s a relevant passage:

But, in a effort to single out users for tailored recommendations or advertisements, personalization tends to sort people into categories that may limit their options. It is a system that cocoons users, diminishing the kind of exposure to opposing viewpoints necessary for a healthy democracy, says Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist and the author of “You Are Not a Gadget.”

I was excited to see this article because I have been known, quite frequently, to rail against the streamlining of my experience–especially when it comes to Netflix and how they recommend films based on my daughter’s excessive watching of Barney or Horseland or Suite Life on Deck.

3. Parser, Eli. The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You
In this book Parser, who is the former executive director of Moveon.org, discusses the dangers of web personalization and the filters that search engines–like google–or social media–like facebook—use to streamline our internet experience. Here’s his description of the filter bubble:

The basic code at the heart of the new Internet is pretty simple. The new generation of Internet filters looks at the things you seem to like—the actual things you’ve done, or the things people like you like—and tries to extrapolate. They are prediction engines, constantly creating and refining a theory of who you are and what you’ll do and want next. Together, these engines create a unique universe of information for each of us—what I’ve come to call a filter bubble—which fundamentally alters the way we encounter ideas and information.

Of course, to some extent we’ve always consumed media that appealed to our interests and avocations and ignored much of the rest. But the filter bubble introduces three dynamics we’ve never dealt with before.

First, you’re alone in it. A cable channel that caters to a narrow interest (say, golf ) has other viewers with whom you share a frame of reference. But you’re the only person in your bubble. In an age when shared information is the bedrock of shared experience, the filter bubble is a centrifugal force, pulling us apart.

Second, the filter bubble is invisible. Most viewers of conservative or liberal news sources know that they’re going to a station curated to serve a particular political viewpoint. But Google’s agenda is opaque. Google doesn’t tell you who it thinks you are or why it’s showing you the results you’re seeing. You don’t know if its assumptions about you are right or wrong—and you might not even know it’s making assumptions about you in the first place. My friend who got more investment-oriented information about BP still has no idea why that was the case— she’s not a stockbroker. Because you haven’t chosen the criteria by which sites filter information in and out, it’s easy to imagine that the information that comes through a filter bubble is unbiased, objective, true. But it’s not. In fact, from within the bubble, it’s nearly impossible to see how biased it is.

Finally, you don’t choose to enter the bubble. When you turn on Fox News or read The Nation, you’re making a decision about what kind of filter to use to make sense of the world. It’s an active process, and like putting on a pair of tinted glasses, you can guess how the editors’ leaning shapes your perception. You don’t make the same kind of choice with personalized fi lters. They come to you—and because they drive up profi ts for the Web sites that use them, they’ll become harder and harder to avoid.

You can read an excerpt of the book here. You can also watch a Democracy Now! interview with Parser here.

Resources Round-up

I am always using this blog as a space for experimenting with new ways to archive my research (and to document who I am as a scholar, thinker, teacher, troublemaker). Sometimes these experiments work and sometimes they don’t. Here’s another one to add to the pile: Resources round-up. In this (type of) entry, I want to archive some resources (mostly articles, but some blogs) that I found and started reading this week. Hopefully, I can return to these resources later for future syllabi, articles, and/or blog entries. Perhaps if I become disciplined about it (ha ha! Even though I embrace being undisciplined, I still see value in developing specific sets of repeated practices–habits–on the blog. In fact, habitual writing is one thing that I really like about blogging.), I could do one of these resources round-ups every (other?) week? Possibly. But before I get ahead of myself, I need to write the first of these round-ups.

1. The Ethics of Waste
by Gay Hawkins

I have already started writing about this book on Unchained, a diablog that I started with my partner this summer (and haven’t written in since the beginning of August when the s**t hit the fan and I had to start working on multiple syllabi and finish up an article on feminist pedagogy and blogging). Originally I picked up this book in late August; I briefly thought about using it in my queering desire class in tandem with other sources on the abject. I imagine (but I can’t remember) that I was also intrigued by the author’s reading of waste through/in relation to ethics and daily practices. Now that I have read the introduction and first chapter, I am considering using it in my queer ethics class. Still not sure.

2.Developing a corporeal cyberfeminism: beyond cyberutopia
by Jessica E. Brophy

I haven’t read any of this article yet. Here’s the abstract:

This article discusses – and rejects – cyberutopia, an idealized theory of internet use that requires users to leave their bodies behind when online.The author instead calls for a cyberfeminist perspective in relation to studying the internet and other new media, centrally locating corporeality and embodiment. The underutilized concept of intra-agency is then employed to develop liminality in relation to the experience of going online.The author then outlines different versions of cyberfeminism and endorses that which addresses the relationships between the lived experiences of users and the technology itself.The article concludes with a call for theorists to expand and enrich the concepts used to study new media.

After a quick glance at the bibliography (which looks really helpful) and a skim through the article, I am convinced that this essay is a good one to revisit. The author hits on a lot of my areas of interest (including agency, Butler, performativity, liminality) and offers a good overview of cyberfeminism in relation to cybertopia.

3.DIGITAL WHITENESS, PRIMITIVE BLACKNESS: Racializing the “digital divide” in film and new media
by Janell Hobson

I am excited about this essay because of the author’s approach to thinking about the digital divide. While I recognize that access to technology (who has computers/who can get online) is a very important issue that needs to be addressed repeatedly, I worry about how “the digital divide” can be used to shut down any discussion about the transgressive and transformative potential of social media and Web 2.0 technology. I also worry about how discourses surrounding this divide work to reinforce certain binaries and ignore/erase experiences that don’t fit the binary–Hobson talks about this in relation to whiteness as progress/technological advancement and blackness as primitive. Here’s the abstract:

This essay argues that cultural scripts, such as popular films and other forms of visual culture, have constructed a racial ideology about technology, especially in conceptualizations of the “digital divide.” By associating whiteness with “progress,” “technology,” and “civilization,” while situating blackness within a discourse of “nature,” “primitivism,” and pre-modernity, the digital divide amasses cultural and racial weight and highlights hostile interactions with digital technology among marginal groups. However, a growing corpus of work by digital artists of color and web 2.0 participants has exposed these mythic constructions by re-imagining blackness and womanhood beyond technological exclusion and surveillance.

Here’s another excerpt in which Hobson provides a concrete overview of the essay:

In what remains, I first delve into the history of the technological divide between whiteness and blackness, as reflected in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century world fairs and mid-twentieth-century films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, prior to assessing contemporary themes of race and technological surveillance in the late-twentieth century science fiction films The Matrix and Strange Days. I then connect these cinematic representations to the work of black artists, such as Keith Piper, Julie Dash, and Damali Ayo, who underscore the black presence in the realm of digital technology. Finally, I conclude by ruminating on whether or not social “revolutions” for racial equality and inclusion can, in fact, be “digitized” (114).

I’m excited to read this essay; I imagine it will provide me with some useful ways for thinking beyond/outside of a narrow vision of the “digital divide.” Here’s one more passage that seems helpful in complicating the “digital divide”:

As these artistic models suggest, the “digital divide” is less about “access” and more about the technological dominance of a privileged few with global repercussions that threaten all of us, especially now that we have become so closely connected in the information superhighway. Marginalized groups, in particular, feel the impact of the high-tech age in profoundly personal and political ways. However, they are not just acted upon by technology; they have a creative and dynamic role in shaping our digital culture (122).

I really appreciate how Hobson envision agency here: marginalized groups are acted on by technology, but they also negotiate/resist/transform it.

Okay, these aren’t the only sources that I found this week. Because I am running out of energy and time, I will list a few more sources that I reviewed this week without any commentary:

4. Commentary and Criticism on Social Media and Intimacy

This commentary on Feminist Media Studies provides a series of mini-essays, including: “The New Architectures of Intimacy? Social networking sites and genders” by Usha Zacharias and Jane Arthurs and “This is not a Blog: Gender, intimacy, and community” by Catherine Driscoll.

5. The Digi-active Guide to Activism for Twitter and The Digi-active Guide to Activism for Facebook

In addition to these two guides, the Digi-active website is filled with information about digital activism, including this youtube video:

Also, check out their mission statement. I might use this in future classes. Maybe a class on digital activism–the possibilities and limits of thinking, acting and reflecting online (and, in tandem with offline)?