FINALE - FINALLY

1) I liked Villanueva's use of the word, "racelessness"; which he described as, "...the denial of other-cultural affiliation, a denial of the collective, of any collective; it is the embracing of America's dominant ideology, the ideology of individualism" (Villanueva, 39-40).

Villanueva uses the term racelessness to describe the success achieved by those that forgo their cultural ties in order to BE American.

Essentially, it is harder to become successful in America the more one associates with a particular cultural group (specifically, non-white groups). The more one hangs onto things such as; a foreign language or cultural mannerisms (hair, dress, food, etiquette, etc.) the less they will be accepted into American society.

To become a successful American is to become deplete of culture. America is the land of ideas both borrowed and new, of stolen land and hope, of opportunity and limitation. It seems that with each good there is a bad.

This, I think, is exemplified by the story of Villanueva's library extension being "borrowed". He was given the 'opportunity' to earn credit for his design, but was denied school credit which "limited" his academic career, then his idea was "borrowed" and he received no cash or recognition.

I went off on a tangent there. Perhaps had Villanueva been less associated with his Puerto Rican heritage, he may have been afforded more fair and fruitful opportunities. However, one should not have to give up their heritage to be successful or to be given credit where credit is due.

2) So, I am choosing the 'How My Dick Spent It's Summer Vacation' article, NOT because this is what I presented on but because I felt it was such an odd article to choose for this class. It felt out of sync with the rest of the articles we read in this course. However, I felt it was an important article in showing how both men and women are affected by the sex tourism industry. Men associate 'love' with sexual pleasure and women associate 'love' with money. This dynamic has become true in American in many instances; older, successful men with 'trophy wives', attractive women who intend to 'marry rich' so they don't have to work, men buying women plastic surgery procedures, etc.

According to Bishop and Robinson, the idea of the "disembodied male" is described as:

a. the inability of the male worker to experience leisure time due to the fact that they are continually bound to their work through mobile technologies (laptop, blackberry, cell phone, etc.), even when "off the clock".

b. the division between work and leisure time, the male worker must sublimate libidinal and erotic impulses while "on the clock." The industrialized leisure provided by the sex industry acts as an extension of their work lives.

c. The emergence during the Vietnam War period of a parallel set of institutions that were tailored to the needs and desires of U.S. and other foreign servicemen through leisure.

3) True or False: Bishop and Robinson believe that new technologies prove to be emancipatory and laborsaving to the worker

Villanueva, Victor. Bootstraps From an American Academic of Color. Urbana, IL:
NCTE. 34-50

Questions for race

While Nakamura touches on a number of points in regards to race and the web, I would like to focus on the 'Sorting People' activity of the Race: The Power of an Illusion site.

Nakamura writes about her frustrations with the US Census, in that it does not provide proper coverage of all possible races a person can be. There is no box for "native-asian-african american" or "white-puerto rican-american" but rather, just a box for "other".

In addition, Nakamura talks about the limitation of racial representations based on web searches.

"I entered the term racial and was directed to a page that

contained a list of clickable categories that i was encouraged to 'try first'. The list of ten categories reads as follows" African Diaspora, Asian American, Gay and Lesbian, Community Service, Latino Culture, Men's Issues, Native American Culture, Religion, Virtual Worlds, Womens studies" (Nakamura, 2).

So, based on the above example of how limiting the web can be on 'race identity', I turn to the 'Sorting People' game.

I proceeded to analyze the faces displayed and associate their physical characteristics with just one racial category. I made my selections as best I could, although it seemed some of the people were of mixed race, and went to see my results.

Well, I misplaced about 6 faces and at first felt a little ashamed of myself that I had incorrectly placed people. But then I thought....'this activity is meant to show you how stereotypes of physical characteristics associated with race can be wrong' but then I ALSO thought, 'but at the SAME time this game is forcing you to make assumptions about people based on a limited array of categories!"

How do you know one of those people was half black-half asian? And how do i know that this game didn't force me to define them as black instead of asian? And who decides which race gets to be the dominant one? FURTHERMORE, why do I even have to categorize people in the first place?!

It seems this activity was another example of how the web limits racial categories and only represents people based on limited categories, as Nakamura showed in her web search.

I would also like to touch on something that bothered me in the article.

Nakamura, makes complaints about sites like AsianAvenue and BlackPlanet and says that, "the visual style of portals tends to be flat, generic and undiverse" (Nakamura, 6). She is associating the LOOK of the sites with their ability to serve their purpose, which is to bring together a community of people sharing common backgrounds.

If she is going to tear apart "Ethnic Portals" then isn't she tearing apart the people who use them? How does she know people aren't gaining something positive by being a part of these online communities?

Nakamura, Lisa. Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print. 101-35

blog #7

The moment I saw that we would be playing Super Mario 2 to analyze the gender roles represented by the characters, I knew it would be difficult for me to do so.

I look at the characters in terms of how easy they are for ME to control and utilize. I know that, from gaming experience, different people find different characters more preferable to use. This is a combination of your personal gaming style and the attributes of the characters.

I personally prefer to choose Princess Peach and Toad for Super Mario 2. Peach hovers for a long time which allows you to float over enemies and gaps. Toad is simply easy to control in all aspects, his legs don't flail wildly (like Luigi's) and he isn't as bulky as Mario.

ANYWAY, this aside. I feel the easiest way to analyze the characters is to go one by one.

Mario: Although Mario is shorter and bulkier than his brother (Luigi), he is the most distinguished character - even if for no other reason than his history with Donkey Kong and the fact that the games are named after him. He is FIRST in the lineup of character selection, indicating perhaps that he is the "leader of the pack". His character is relatively easy to use, although I find him to be a little slow moving.

Luigi: Mario's taller, more oblong brother. If you squished Luigi and put him in a red shirt, he would BE mario. But instead, he is the 'goofy' older brother. I say goofy because he flails his little legs all over the place and seems to be hypersensitive to all button movements. This seems to allude to the fact that males are either Alpha (dominante; Mario) or Omega (subordinate; Luigi).

Toad: Obviously not human, but rather some sort of mushroom which we have anthropomorphised. How often do we remember that Toad is not human? How often do we remember that Toad is not a toad? And why is he wearing pants and a vest but no shirt? Honestly, I feel that Toad is almost a-sexual. Neither male nor female. He is dressed in sort of an Aladdin-esque outfit, which is male but other than that I see no defineable gender qualities. But I sure like to choose him because he is small and agile and easy for me to control!

Princess Peach: Ok, well this one is just FULL of gender stereotypes. She is female. She is wearing pink. She has long hair. She is wearing a dress. She is a PRINCESS. She has a crown. For some reason, in this game, the Princess is not in distress but actually a player in the mission. However, her attire remains the same. Whether she is in her Castle, in the enemy's grip, fighting bad guys with vegetables, or just hanging out she is STILL wearing her pink dress, her hair is STILL groomed and she still looks good. This makes me think that perhaps the creators of the game are saying that females should look presentable and pretty regardless of the circumstance, which is simply not true!

I would also like to note that it DOES seem to take the Princess more effort to pick up the larger vegetable/items than the other characters. As if to say that being female represents a lack of strength.

Square Pegs

1) In David Bell's article "Webs as pegs", he dicusses an idea called "peg communities". This idea was devceloped by Bauman who explained it as, "...coat pegs on which we choose to temporarily hang parts of our identities," (Bell, 254). I agree with this notion of online communities being coat pegs for the different aspects of our lives and personalities.

For example, in the meat space of the real world we become limited to identify ourselves through clothing, hair, personal belongings, profession, social activities, etc. These things are again limited to the area in which we live. Someone living in a sparsely populated community in the midwest may not have as many places to shop (to buy clothes), or places to work or hang out. You thus become forced to identify yourself within your immediate surrounding environment.

However, with virtual communities, you become able to explore different ideologies, technologies, social cliques, physical looks as well as things like movies, games, music, artists and books. I am no artist by any means however, I use photobucket to post and share photos and videos I have made (and photoshopped) and am able to share them among fellow amateur photo/videographers. While, in the Tri-Cities, I am not able to share these photos at say, an art gallery because I am not trained, do not have any professional equipment and am not a part of that community.

Obviously, that is just one example of how a person can express themselves or an aspect of themselves in a virtual community where they might not be able to in a meat space community.


2) The 3 sites I would like to choose for Assignment #2 are photobucket.com, deviantart.com and flickr.com. These are all sites which serve to build amateur and professional art communities and also serve those who simply want an easy way to manage their photos, videos, and art online. I have accounts with two of these sites and have friends who use these sites and I would like to compare the usability, uniqueness and set-up of each of these sites.

Burnett, Robert, and David Marshall. Web Theory: an introduction. 1st. New York, NY: Routledge, 2003. 81-104.

BL0G #2

1) The "digital divide", as discussed by Warschauer, is essentially the differing levels of access and/or literacy (or lack thereof) of technology within different communinites and populations.
In one example, Warschauer writes about an nitiative set up by the Government of New Delhi in 2000 to provide an outdoor kiosk consisting of 5 computers in a city street. The computers had internet-access (although, this was shoddy and unreliable access), joysticks, mouses and Windows operating system for the children to experiment with. While the children were able to teach themselves bare-bones computer operations (copy, paste, draw in paint, drag icons, etc.), there seemed to be no REAL redeeming quality other than VERY basic operations and a fun passtime.



"No special educational programs had been made available, and no special content was provided in Hindi, the only language the children knew. Children did learn to manipulate the joystick and buttons, but almost all their time was spent drawing with paint programs or playing computer games" (Warschauer, 2).



The ability of the children to teach themselves basic computer operations is a sign of their ability to quickly adapt to technological devices - but without proper literacy training (typing education, word/excel training, academic program trainining, web education, etc.) they will hit an inevitable plateua with the understanding and operation of computers/technology. To get the full benefits of technology, we must educate communities on how to utilize technology to their full potential.



The digital divide is marked by the lack of literacy and access of technology by various communities. This divide is a result of; digital, physical, human, economical and social resources.



2) I am going to be truthful here, this question made no sense to me so I had to really mull it over, and even asked my older (and wiser) sibling for some insight. After much thought and consideration, I feel somewhat prepared to tackle this question as *I* (and my brother) interpreted it.

Common metaphors used in "MSoffice" type programs such as; cut, copy, paste, insert, align, change font, etc. seem alligned with a "design office" set up. I believe the reason why the the "office" metaphor works is that these are productivity programs that rely on decades of office processes to be successful. For example; Carbon Copy (CC) comes from when memos were written on carbon forms in which several copies were made beneath the original.

One paragraph I felt was particularly key in supporting the universal effectiveness of Word metaphors is as follows:

"According to reports, children who flocked to the site taught themselves basic computer operations. They worked out how to click and drag objects; select different menus; cut, copy, and paste; launch and use programs such as Microsoft Word and Paint; get on the Internet; and change the background "wallpaper". The program was hailed by researchers (e.g., Mitra, 1999) and government officials alike [2] as a ground-breaking project that offered a model for how to bring India's and the world's urban poor into the computer age" (Warschauer, 2).

These children of New Delhi (presumably) knew little to nothing about Western "office" terms, yet figured out the purpose and meaning of each metaphor within Microsoft Word and Paint. When you "cut" a section from a Word document, it is easy to align this with "cutting" a section from a newspaper or book or magazine and then "pasting" it in a place you believe to be a better, more coherent fit.

I suppose you could change the metaphors. Instead of using words that we associate with images of physical actions, it might simply be a command word such as; "remove" instead of "cut", or "duplicate" instead of "copy".

However, I feel the system is fine as is, and clearly, if these children taught themselves the meaning of these metaphors with no assistance, than it should be entirely possible to TEACH people how to use these metaphors.

Ugh - I hope I answered this correctly! I am all mixed up feeling!

Warschauer, Mark. "Reconceptualizing the Digital Divide" First Monday [Online], Volume 7 Number 7 (1 July 2002)

BL0G #1

1) The definition of rhetoric, as described by Foss et. al, is captured within the first few paragraphs of the article, "...rhetoric is the human use of symbols to communicate" (Foss, Foss, and Trapp 1). I waded through the rest of the article and its historical outline of rhetoric, however, found that the most meaningful part of the article was in, as I stated before, the first few paragraphs. Upon thinking about this, I realized that my interpretation of the histories of rhetoric is a form of rhetoric in and of itself! For example, the article states, "...the symbols through which our realities are filtered affect and perhaps determine our view of the book and how we are motivated to act toward it" (Foss, Foss and Trapp 2).

I viewed the cataloging of rhetoric as dry and unfulfilling. However, I gained a greater grasp of the meaning of rhetoric through modern day examples and direct definitions given at the beginning of the article. What helped me in particular was the examples of how situations today can be rhetorical, "is someone an alcoholic or morally depraved? Is a child misbehaved or unable to concentrate because of an attention deficit disorder?" (Foss, Fossm and Trapp 2). To that end, does a chronological explanation of rhetoric provide clarity of its meaning or do examples of modern rhetorical situations provide clarity? While all the information in the article is relevant to the subject, its relevance to the individual may vary.

I sincerely hope I am understanding this concept of rhetoric correctly! If not, please let me know!

2) As a cell phone owner, user and texter, I am automatically entered into a realm of digital rhetoric. When texting, one must interpret typed words from the perspective of a "cell phone user". If your friend texts you, "I WILL BE THERE SOON" - it could be interpreted as an angry text (because of the upper-case letters), or it could be interpreted as a mistake (he/she must have accidentally had Caps Lock on) or it could be interpreted as urgent (urgency to be there soon marked by the upper-case letters), etc. The upper-case letters are the symbols with which we are interpreting the message. These interpretation of this symbol could be affected by; mood, time of day, relationship with the sender, place, etc.

Other symbols related to texting include; emoticons, acronyms, and picture/video texts. Each of these represent symbols to be interpreted by the receiver.

Again, I hope I am grasping the concept of rhetoric!

Works Cited

Foss, Sonja K., Karen A. Foss, and Robert Trapp. Prespective on Rhetoric. 3rd ed. Waveland Press INC., 1-9. Print.