Blogging: Self-Representation and Privacy

This article is actually very relevant to my research topic: social media and privacy. Blogging in particular is an interesting activity because on one hand, many people enjoy expressing their innermost thoughts and daily activities, but on the other hand, they desire a certain degree of privacy and know they need to be careful about what they share. McCullagh discusses that privacy is a complex idea; different people have varying definitions. She describes some of the privacy-related concerns of bloggers, and one survey question was about how well the bloggers felt they knew their audience. About 8% new their audience very well, 23% very well, and 32% quite well (9). Bloggers need to keep in mind that if special restrictions are not activated, anyone in the public can read their blog posts, and that once those posts are out in the open, anyone has the power to archive that or even distribute it elsewhere. Quite of these blogs are meant to be online journals, and many choose to write under pseudonyms and limit the clues that unwanted readers could use to tie their real-life identities with their online ones.

Virtual Death

The Kaycee/Debbie dilemma is certainly an interesting one. I had not heard of this particular case before, but I have heard of similar ones where a person decieves many others into believing that they are terminally ill, and worse, take advantage of donations from generous people. The Kaycee case brings up some compelling questions about online identity and community. Debbie's deception brought many people together in the concern for Kaycee, but her lies hurt these trusting and compassionate people once the real truth was revealed. And the revelation didn't just heart individual bloggers who sympathized with Kaycee; it profoundly effected people's notions of what to expect in online communities as a whole.

Before the truth was let out, some people who heard of Kaycee were skeptics. They looked for evidence to prove that Kaycee wasn't really who she said she was, and looked for things such as photos and other posts to prove their belief. Of the others that did believe Kaycee was genuine, some admonished these skeptics for being excessively cynical and "cheapening" Kaycee's experience and suffering. After Debbie's confession, online communities had to reevaluate themselves. With online identities, it is much easier to become someone you actually aren't. How much of what we see on these online forums and blogs should be taken to heart, and how much should be taken with a grain of salt? How much trust should be have in other online community members...how much is necessary to keep the community a community, and how much skepticism is needed so that similar situations don't happen again?

The perspectives given in this article were very thought-provoking and is certainly still relevant today. Unfortunately, some people do still try to pretend to be other people and take advantage of the compassion of others, only to turn around and say, "Haha, how gullible were they?!"

The End of Books

I am sad to think of the end of books and print-based media so this article was interesting to me. I, for one, just love physical books because it feels like you have something substantial, something you can touch and smell. There's a nostalgia I attach to printed books. When I try to read an e-book on my laptop, it feels less personal (and it's much easier to get sidetracked!)

Coover discusses some of the pros and cons of hypertext. I had never heard of this term used for online text or books, but then I saw the article was written in 1992 so that's probably why. He discusses that hypertext easily escapes the linear structure that printed novels are basically stuck with. This can be a benefit, allowing the reader to explore links within the text and choose their own options rather than following a structure that someone else pre-determines for you. However, there's a downside to this; that people may not know where to go next–that the lack of structure makes it difficult to navigate. I think these are all very valid observations and concerns.

Personal Dynamic Media

It was very interesting to read this article since it was published in 1977. Many of the concepts and tools included in the Dynabook were precursors to standard/popular applications for laptops, tablets, and smartphones of today. One statement that made me think was the worry that the Dynabook and future devices, might "collapse under the weight of trying to be too many different tools for too many people" (403-404). Concerns about storing all that data and maintaining fast processing speeds were a much larger problem then than they are now. Modern laptops and tablets have dozen of apps and programs to use, and I think most of us don't worry about having too many. And there are so many out there now ("there's an app for that!")–sophisticated tools for audio editing, such as Audacity, or drawing programs such as MS Paint, and Flash for animation. And all of these can run on the average laptop. We've come a long way from Dynabook.


There was another interesting idea in the reading, that "the computer, when viewed as a medium itself, can be all other media if the embedding and the viewing are sufficiently well provided" (393-394). I think this is becoming more and more true. Think of email; that can be analogous to snail mail, but now it's instantaneous.  Music: before we only created music through tangible instruments that depended on strings, valves, mallets, sticks, our voices. But with computers came the birth of electronic music, bringing forth new sounds like smooth synths and deep bass drops.  Even in the visual art world, digital media is becoming more and more relevant. Painters and illustrators are no longer restricted to pencils, inks, and pigments; many of them draw using digital drawing tablets in programs such as Corel Painter, and their work comes out just as awesome as traditional media. All this is pretty amazing when you think about how people come up with new and different forms of media.

Second Life

I thought this article was VERY interesting indeed. The researchers’ experiences in Second Life share some similarities with the Half Life study we read earlier. One of those similar observations was how people design their avatars. Female avatars were typically characterized by large breasts, small waists, and long hair, mirroring the real-life ideals of the female body. Male avatars often had large, muscular upper bodies. What I found fascinating was how self-conscious the researcher’s felt when they designed their avatars in less idealized ways, i.e. as an androgynous female, rather than what everyone else was doing. I would think that the ability to customize characters would bring more variety in the game, but I guess people are just too exposed to the same bodily ideas, and cannot help be influenced by them.

I also thought it was interesting to hear the researcher's fears when they first started playing. For example, that other Second Life players might only be interacting with them because of ulterior, sexual motives, and that choosing a male avatar felt safer than a female one. It was strange to hear how sexualized some of the actions and scripts were for the players, and how blatantly things like naked female and male body parts were displayed within the game for people to purchase. I found some of the experiences of the researchers rather amusing, but I can understand how shocking it could feel to be a total beginner in the game, and then suddenly having your character take shower in unexpectedly inappropriate way. I also thought it was fascinating to see how in some areas, scripts would make the female characters carry themselves in a clingy, sort of vulnerable way, while the make avatars would be acting laid back and “cool.” There seemed like a lot of examples of sexualization and gender stereotyping, and it is interesting to see how normal it became for the researchers as they continued to play.

The Technology and the Society

In the Technology and the Society reading, Raymond Williams discusses different ways to think about how technology has affected our lives. He talks about how everyone says and agrees that new technologies have brought about very significant changes in our world, yet that thought is much more profound than we realize. When I think about all the technological progress humanity has experienced, I am pretty amazed. Just think about how the telegraph, then the phone, and later radio and television must have revolutionized communication. It went from slow snail-mail. Then long distance communication became fast, faster, and here we are: we’ve got the internet and send messages to people across the world, practically instantaneously and with little hassle.

Another thing I thought was interesting in William’s essay was the theory of technological determinism. The main idea behind this theory is that it’s technology that “made modern man and the modern condition.” I have never thought of technology that way; I think most of the time we think the other way around, that man is modern because he made that technology. But I can see how man develops some new technology, and that new technology takes off in ways bigger than he expected, thus causing a significant impact on life as we know it.  For example, again, the internet!

Computer Power and Human Reason

I thought that some of the insights and reactions to the ELIZA program were quite surprising and thought-provoking. For one thing, the thought of a computer program interacting with the a person as a therapist is something I've never heard of. I know of chat bots that people chat with now, so I think it is very interesting to learn about one that has a further purpose than just amusement. I can see how ELIZA can be a therapeutic tool to guide thoughts in self-reflection, but I was very surprised to hear that some thought that the ELIZA program could replace the need for a human therapist. Personally, it seems like a computer program would inevitably have its limits, and therefore might not process and respond appropriately to a patient's complex problem. I believe Joseph Weizenbaum never expected or intended his program to be a full-in replacement for a professionally-trained therapist.

Weizenbaum also mentioned the dilemma of Michael Polayni in 1935, when Polayni was told by a Russian communist theoretician that under socialism, the pursuit of science for its own sake would be put to an end and instead, and focus on solving the economic problems of the 5 Year Plan. Polayni realized the profoundness of this notion, because it seemed to prescribe a "mechanical conception of man or history." I thought this was a powerful thought. One thing that separates humans form machines or programs is our creativity. We have a desire to push boundaries, pursue creative ideas, the ponder and solve the problems we are interested in. We are flexible in our minds and behaviors. In terms of science, one of the beauties of it is that we always want to expand our human understanding of things. It would be kind of ridiculous to impose limits to scientific pursuit and to expect scientists to be ok with only solving the problems they are told to solve. It kind of ruins the beauty of scientific pursuit.

On the other hand, and another thing I thought was interesting, was Weizenbaum's observation of some people's blind belief of science. He wrote that "scientific statements are never certain, they are only more or less credible." I agree with that too. It's not uncommon for scientific findings to contradict with other findings. Things get disproven, and there are exceptions to even the most well known theories that most people have accepted as scientific fact. So Weizenbaum reminds us that we need to keep our minds open.

Community Media

In the reading, we see that there is an important connection between community media and self-representation. I do not think I have heard of the term "community media" until I read this, so it was interesting to see why the author thought it was so important and how community media could play into politics and help overcome civic apathy. Some of the pros for furthering community media include ensuring the "public's right to controlled communication resources", "encouraging free speech" and allowing diversity of perspectives (186). Community media can be one channel that represents what the individual and their community wants–their "self-expression," a way for them to  participate (187). I think the ability to voice concerns about what people really need and the policies they agree and disagree with is very important. Later the article mentions that increasing numbers of people feel that their voices do not matter and they have very little say about how the government is run, so I see how community media might turn this around. One quote that I thought was very poignant was this: "[A]lternative media spin transformation processes that alter people's sense of self, their subjective positionings, and therefore their access to power" (188).  It's pretty amazing to think about just how empowering it feels to communicate your thoughts and ideas.

Just Like Me Only Better

This study about the connection between the appearance of online avatars and the creators' real appearance was pretty intriguing. I have never played Half Life, but I've heard of it and know that there are plenty of online games/communities that allow you to customize your character as you wish. I thought it was interesting to see that many avatars looked somewhat similar and leaned towards Caucasian aesthetics of beauty even if their creators were inhabitants of other countries or cultures. I would have thought that with so many options, people would want get a little wild with their character's appearance and have few boundaries, but this study shows that people tended to go for humanoid avatars that had similar features to themselves. And yet, many opted to create idealized versions of themselves, with larger breasts for females or larger muscles for men. I also think it is interesting that Half Life players recreate other things from their real lives, such as buildings and even following some of "real life's" social norms (i.e. the example of no sex in public places.)

As a side note, a digital media art professor here at SJSU once showed my art class some of his  projects, and some of them involved online gaming communities such as Half Life and World of Warcraft. Thinking back, his avatar did look similar to how he did in reality (bald and wearing all black.) He built a gallery in Half Life, asked other people online to contribute art, and held an art gallery for people to come in and see, all within Half Life. He did other things, and I thought it was very cool that this sort of thing you see in reality could be translated into the online gaming experiences.