Annotated Webliography

* Late due to flashdrive difficulties. I handed in the hard copy on time, but was informed it couldn't be marked without the virtual copy.

Guiding Question Three:

In order to properly answer the question; “Judy Waczman argues that Donna Haraway’s figure of the cyborg has taken on ‘a life of its own’ in popular culture, science fiction and academic writing. In what ways has it been taken up by feminists?” it must first be determined what the meaning of the term ‘cyborg’ is in this context. It can be defined as “a cybernetic organism, such as an animal with a human-made implant.” (Judy Waczman) In order to find sources suitable to answering this question, I searched journals on the library websites and also used Google Scholar. Throughout my perusal of online resources, it was important to take note of the date the sources were published and the credibility of the authors. More recent sources would provide information specific to the present day, but older sources would provide an insight into the evolution of the figure of the cyborg and its influence on feminism.

The first online source to be discussed is On the Matrix: Cyberfeminist Solutions [1], a book written by Sadie Plant which explores the acceptance of the cyborg by feminists and also how it has helped in equality of the genders. It indicates that the merging of human and machine, as seen with the internet, undermines “the world-view and the material reality of two thousand years of patriarchal control.” She goes on to indicate that women have been considered outsiders in society, foreigners in a male-dominated world. It is indicated that this is so because women lack the “equipment” that men possess, and masculinity attributes to identity. The introductions of the cyborg and such mediums as the internet were embraced as a way to shed the previous stereotypes regarding gender.

“Should Feminists Be Cyborgs?” [2] is a valuable source in exploring the feminist ideals depicted in science fiction television. The first television show discussed is The X-Files, in which the character of Dana Scully is a good example of a cyborg; she is both a woman and a scientist, which connects both the machine-like quality (science) with the female. The second television show analysed is Star Trek. Star Trek includes cyborg characters, perhaps the more traditional model that is thought of when thinking of science fiction, including Data. Sexual orientation is explored through these cyborg characters. Data is seen to exhibit emotions and actions more in line with the stereotypical way in which society views femininity; caring for children. Complimenting this, it is shown that the character of Seven challenges the stereotypical view of women due to her lack of sensitivity and emotionality.

In a more human and technology-based example, Wired magazine article “Women Power Web of Protests” [3] details how feminists in today’s digital age are able to express their opinions through new mediums of communication, such as the internet. The examples given (the donations made in George W. Bush’s name to Planned Parenthood, and apparent outrage at attorney general John Ashcroft’s connections with a conservative magazine) show that the success of such endeavours are in a large part thanks to the acceptance of the figure of the cyborg as a communicative tool today, ie. The internet and the melding of human and technology. As stated in the very opening sentence; “Instead of chaining themselves to a fence to protest the glass ceiling or vociferously picketing outside the studios of the Miss America pageant, today's feminists are taking a less visible route toward activism.” This quote clearly indicates that the internet has been enthusiastically adopted by feminists as a more widely accessible and influential tool in encouraging societal change and the exchange of opinions.

Similarly, Tracy L. M. Kennedy’s “The Personal is Political: Feminist Blogging and Virtual Consciousness-Raising” [4] delves into the internet as a medium of expressing opinions and forming “consciousness-raising groups.” In this scene, feminists are cyborgs in their own right, utilizing the power of the machine (the internet), which appears as an extension as the human body, an extra limb. The text attributes the oppression of women to societal ills, and the internet as an ever useful tool in ensuring the road to social change. It also brings up the valid point that the virtual world enables everyone, not just academics, to voice their opinions. However, it acknowledges that the blogosphere is primarily a male-dominated medium and raises four points as to the overcoming of this snag by female activists; self expression through diary-type blogs, sharing stories to gain a wider knowledge of women in different situations and interacting with fellow feminists. Overall, this source explores the difficulties faced by feminists online, but also the great effect the blogosphere can have on promoting and achieving social change by the voicing of opinions.

Another source from Blogging Feminism (Web)sites of Resistance, is “Blogging Was Just the Beginning: Women’s Voices are Louder Online” [5] by Chris Nolan, which indicates that the internet is a useful mechanism in spreading feminism. It discusses the theory of sexist distraction, and gives the example of Judy Dean and her husband Howard Dean as an example. The article states that Judy Dean “was criticized for not leaving her job and her two children—one in college and the other preparing to attend—to join her spouse on the campaign trail,” when Mr Dean ran for president in 2004. It indicates that it was of greater importance for the woman to support her spouse, than for her to support the family financially and have her own career. The article goes on to outline that blogging was predominantly a male-dominated means of communication and expression. However, this changed when it was realised that blogging and the internet were more accessible to a wider audience.

The sources proved to be useful in order to answer the question given. It is indicative that the cyborg has been a figure of empowerment for females in terms of sexist stereotypes and the sources I discovered, predominantly from different websites and authors, all supported this view through such analyses of science fiction shows and the internet. The introduction of the cyborg and such technology allows women more freedom and a more accessible way of expressing their opinions.

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[1] Sadie Plant, “On the Matrix: Cyberfeminist Solutions,” Social Research: Philosophy, Politics and Practice, 1992. http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=S9dCT23LSSEC&oi=fnd&pg=PA170&dq=sadie+plant&ots=BpqBMXjWVu&sig=lOuSde1sn9BMnn--dJVkfWttxrY

[2] Joan M. Blauwkamp and Nicole R. Krassas, “Should Feminists Be Cyborgs?”
http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/3/8/8/5/pages138854/p138854-1.php

[3] “Women Power Web of Protests” Wired Magazine
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/04/43063

[4] Tracy L. M. Kennedy, “The Personal is Political: Feminist Blogging and and Virtual Consciousness-Raising,” Blogging Feminism: (Web)sites of Resistance (Part I: Cyberactivism and Online Movement Making) 2007
http://www.barnard.edu/sfonline/blogs/kennedy_01.htm

[5] Chris Nolan, “Blogging Feminism: (Web)sites of Resistance,” Blogging Feminism: (Web)sites of Resistance (Part II: Women and Politics in the Blogosphere), 2007
http://www.barnard.edu/sfonline/blogs/nolan_01.htm

harooo?

I don't know if anyone still reads this, but picked up another thing on girls and the great pasttime that is video gaming.

Helpful for essays?

Kudos goes to Tama Leaver and his blog (http://www.tamaleaver.net/2008/10/29/interactive-australia-2009-report/)... here are latest stats on video gaming in australia... I'm quite happily surprised by the stats on female gamers!!

• 88% of homes have a device for playing computer or video games.
• 68% of Australians play computer or video games.
• 46% of gamers are female.
• The average age of an Australian gamer is 30 years.
• 84% of Australians aged 16-25 compared with those 50+ play computer and video games.
• The average adult gamer has been playing for 11 years.
• Half of all gamers play daily or every other day, a quarter play once a week.
• The average game play session is one hour.

So, in line with international trends, the majority of Australians play videogames, there is close to a gender balance, and far from being exclusively for children, the average age for a videogame player is well into legal adulthood at 30 years old. Moreover, most adults see videogame play as something that should be supervised:

• 70% of parents in game households play computer and video games, 80% of these parents play them with their children.
• 78% of parents say an adult is present when games are purchased for their children,
• 92% of parents say they are aware of the games played in their homes.
• 75% of all computer and video games classified in Australia are G or PG (Classification Board).

Also not necessarily surprising is that most adults in Australia presume that there is an R18+ rating for videogames (there isn’t):

• 63% of adults do not know that Australia has no R18+ for computer and video games.
• 91% of adults (including gamers and non-gamers) say Australia should have an R18+ classification for games.
• 17% of adults in game households admit to having pirated games in their collections with nearly 10% of all games in Australian homes being illegal copies.

final reflective post

so we have come to the end of this unit..my God, the semester went so fast..

okok..so what I have enjoyed about this unit...I really loved writing on the blog, althought I did forget at times...it made me feel cool and look 'knowledgeable'...

I also learnt about cyborgs, something which is completely new to me. I was really impressed by what I learnt in the unit and have been really informed. At times, I wonder, if I am a cyborg as well...then again, I ponder on the definition of a cyborg..and the conclusion is...yup, I am a cyborg in a certain way!!

lastly, I want to thank Alison for making this unit an informative and interesting one..and also my tute mates without whom the blog entries will be dry.

final reflective post

According to the blog instructions document, we're supposed to have made a final post this week reflecting on the unit and the blog. I thought it was next week, but it says week 12, so...

The blog: I enjoyed using the blog for tutorials. Having the conversation spread over a week or so gave us more time to think about and discuss the ideas that came up and pursue different lines of thought related to the readings and lectures. I liked having the time to think about what I wanted to say, carefully consider other people's points, look at the articles again and so on before I posted my comments.

A disadvantage, I suppose, is that without the immediacy of a live tutorial, people could forget to post or just not be bothered. Possibly some people were also intimidated by the technology. Most of the time there didn't seem to be many people actively posting - or they would make their one post for the week and that would be it. (I was guilty of this myself a few times.) Many weeks had very little that you could call a conversation. (On the other hand, I've been to plenty of face-to-face tutorials in various units that have been like this too...)

The unit: The tutorial blog was one of my favourite things about this unit. But I liked a lot of things about this unit: the workshops, the reader, the lecturers... and it was very well-organised, which is always helpful!

Am I a cyborg? To be honest, I'm still inclined to agree with what Liam said right at the start of the unit: it depends on how you define "cyborg". And since "cyborg" is a very politicised concept, just accepting one person's definition - Donna Haraway's, for instance - and running with it seems to miss the point.

But I love technology and I'm happy to consider myself a cyborg. I don't believe there's going to be a techno-utopia or anything radical like that. Whether technology's effects are good, bad or benign depends on the way we use that technology, and humans don't have a great track record there. But I'm excited about the possibilities that technology is opening up to us - new ways of communicating, new artworks we can create, new abilities to improve life for some members of society - and I want to be part of that. In any case, like Donna Haraway, I'd rather be a cyborg than a goddess.

reliability of Wikipedia

Relevant to yesterday's discussion: Wikipedia and the Meaning of Truth

Technorati: State of the Blogosphere

The website Technorati has released its annual report on the "blogosphere". I haven't read much of it yet, but I found the statistics on who is blogging interesting. I think there must be a certain amount of selection bias, as only bloggers registered with Technorati were surveyed. But it still shows how privileged an activity blogging is, despite the fact that we tend to think of it as a democratic practice. Two-thirds of the bloggers surveyed were male, and 70% had a college degree. Both education level and household income were higher than those of the average Internet user.

Woman jailed for 'killing' virtual hubby

Note: I've copy-pasted this article from ninemsn.com. Available at http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=652750

Woman jailed for 'killing' virtual hubby
11:03 AEST Fri Oct 24 2008
By Mari Yamaguchi

A 43-year-old player in a virtual game world became so angry about her sudden divorce from her online husband that she logged on with his password and killed his digital persona, police say.
The woman, who has been jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his ID and password to log onto the popular interactive game Maple Story to carry out the virtual murder in May, a police official in the northern city of Sapporo said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy.

"I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.

The woman, a piano teacher, had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.
She has not yet been formally charged. If convicted, she could face up to five years in prison or a fine up to $US5,000 ($A7,427).

Players in Maple Story create and manipulate digital images called "avatars" that represent themselves, while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting monsters and other obstacles.

In virtual worlds, players often abandon their inhibitions, engaging in activity online that they would never do in the real world. For instance, sex with strangers is a common activity.
The woman used login information she got from the 33-year-old office worker when their characters were happily married to kill the character. The man complained to police when he discovered that his online avatar was dead.

The woman was arrested on Wednesday and taken 1,000km from her home in southern Miyazaki to be detained in Sapporo, where the man lives, the official said.

The police official said he did not know if she was married in the real world.

Bad online behaviour is usually handled within the rules set up by online worlds, which can ban miscreants or take away their virtual possessions.

In recent years, virtual lives have had consequences in the real world.

When bad deeds lead to criminal charges, prosecutors have found a real-world activity to cite - as in this case, in which the woman was charged with inappropriate computer access.

In August, a woman was charged in the US state of Delaware with plotting the real-life abduction of a boyfriend she met through the virtual reality website Second Life.

In Tokyo, a 16-year-old boy was charged with stealing the ID and password from a fellow player of an online game in order to swindle virtual currency worth $US360,000 ($A534,760)

Virtual games are popular in Japan, and Second Life has drawn a fair number of Japanese participants. They rank third by nationality among users, after Americans and Brazilians.

Flash mobbing

Some examples from youtube:

From Japan

From America (mentioned in the lecture)

23rd

So... do we have a workshop this week? in outline it says "reflection: blog"... ?

due to popular demand...my tute discussion notes

For those of you who couldn't make it to the tute last Friday :)

Mia Consalvo’s article, ‘Hot Dates and Fairy-tale Romances’ takes a look at two popular games, Final Fantasy and The Sims, and discusses the construction of sexuality and gender within them. Discussion about Final Fantasy was mostly tied up around the idea that the game player automatically inhabits the male character Zidane, who engages in a romantic discourse with the princess Garnet, and who is ultimately responsible for ‘saving her’. Consalvo also discusses the interesting notion of the ‘erotic triangle’- which exists within FF and how it is weakened when the game player is female.
In discussion of The Sims, Consalvo focuses on the wording of the user manual which states things like ‘a same-sex relationship does not have the option of marriage’, but at other times goes to great lengths to use vague language in discussions about the characters- which is supposed to reduce pigeon holing.

Overall, I found the most interesting part of the article was when she spoke about how within the game ‘The Sims’, sexuality is considered an activity, rather than an unchangeable aspect of personality chosen when the character is created. Consalvo outlines that some gay activists have a problem with this- saying that by making sexuality ‘merely’ a choice, it gives weight to the argument that homosexuality is optional. On the other hand, some support the way the Sims game is structured in this aspect, because they believe that saying the body is ‘innately’ sexual is too essentialist.

The second article in this weeks reading ‘From Quake Grrls to Desperate Housewives: A Decade of Gender and Computer Games’ opened with (in my opinion) a very bold statement; “today, few worry about women’s access to cyberspace- the gap between the sexses in online participaton has largely closed… we scarcely think about [the web] as a male-dominated space”. As this is central to my research essay, I have done quite a bit of reading around this issue and the general consensus seems to be that the web still is considered a male-dominated space. Does anyone else find the above extract a bit unstable?
I won’t write any more on this article because my copy in the course reader is missing what looks like every second page and thus is very hard to get any sense out of!

Third article: ‘as we become machines’: talks about body as cyborg. Old Haraway argument.
Thinking like a computer
2D to first person perspective- making the body ‘grunt’ in pain etc... screen shudder, fade to red etc...
Occupy role of camera operator as well- shifiting postion.
Arcade games- actually sit on a replica motorbike.
Wii- extention of this idea. Using body as the apparatus, not a joystick.
While you can change skin colour in a game, your character and the world around still behaves in the same way.

What?? No discussion???

Just a quick note to remind everyone that this week we are back in the classroom for the tute (friday)- incase everyone was wondering why I haven't posted yet, as this is my week for presentation.

I had a beautiful blog all written out too, but now I have to come face to face with your ugly muggs instead! :)

I hope everyone has got something out of this blog- I think that althought it can be harder to remember to log-on every week, it promots much more considered and interesting discussion than you get in a classroom when everyone is just watching the clock and throwing the odd comment into the room :P. Depends upon the tute of course.

Anna xxx

facebook

hahaha..i remember last semester i was not a 'member' of facebook. it was like facebook added the wow factor to a person's life...so well, i joined facebook and ya was impressed for a while...why for a while..simply because i'm not a facebook person and wasnt able to fit it into my life...unfortunately for my friends and for me too!!

Response to Culture Jamming

Technology has played a huge role where it comes to the influence of culture jammers…well at least in my opinion! With the advancement of technology, information is not at one’s fingertips. Gone are the days where one has to meticulously look up the encyclopedia or dictionary. At the age of the internet era, the internet now allows one to put up one’s beliefs and activities so that others can read or experience. The world has become particularly small and literally all can be done, at the movement of the fingers. Gone are the days where one wrote journals (of course there are many who still do)….but when I was ‘trying’ to encourage my 9-year-old daughter to start journal writing, she suggested creating a blog instead…so that she can be seen and heard ‘all the time’. What advancement in technology

Of relevence

'Interview with pro girl gamer Ashley Jenkins'

'Over a third of Australian gamers are female'

an interesting feminist blog

I recently bought 'The Great Feminist Denial' (great read, I highly recommend it) and they do a chapter on feminist blogs that are available. 

I have had a quick look at a couple and so far this Australian one has been very interesting. 

 

Hoyden About Town

check it out!

Anna

Virtual Gender Bending

Following what was mentioned in the last lecture, I found the issue of gender bending quite interesting.

Out of curiosity has anyone ever pretended to be the opposite sex online? In my experience I've been mistaken as a guy a number of times, and a few times I have quietly let that assumption do what it liked without saying anything. The main difference is that people are far more forecoming with you if they don't think you're female.

Which leads to another question: what allures men to be girls online? (apart from the obvious sexual fantasies of some)

Has anyone found the claimed sex of someone's online persona unconvincing?

Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life

danah boyd's 2007 article “Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life” takes a look at the reasons why so many teenagers use social networking sites, in what ways are they using these sites, and what implications this has for youth identities. boyd specifically focusses on MySpace use amongst teenagers, with the majority of individuals she interviews for her research being between the ages of 14 and 18. The teenagers interviewed gave a general answer as the reason for using MySpace as “'cuz that's where my friends are” (pg 7) and boyd attributes MySpace's popularity to its support of “sociality amongst pre-existing friend groups” (pg 8).

Apart from “that's where my friends are”, or as in Liam's example of his friend, not being kept up to date with social events otherwise, what reasons do you think teenagers have to join these social networking sites? And what reasons do the conscientious objectors have – is their objection as much a part of their identity as those who do sign up to these sites?

boyd talks about the construction of a MySpace profile as an expression of identity and of making appropriate impressions on their peers. Teenagers can see what is socially appropriate and what details they should put on their profiles by viewing their friends' profiles. One can not only add details about themselves, their hobbies, favourite music, books, or movies, who they'd like to meet, and personal details, but can also change how their overall profile layout looks. All these changes allow teenagers to personalize their profiles to best suit their identity.

It also allows teenagers to learn how to manage impressions – how to “define social situations by using contextual cues from the environment around them.” (pg 12).

Teens want to present the side of themselves that they think their peers will look most favourably upon, and thus create their profile accordingly. They are acting for a perceived audience – who they think will be looking at their profile and thus judging it influences what they display on their profiles.

If you have MySpace/Facebook/etc, do you feel like you've consciously edited your profile in order to seem as, say, cool as you can? Do you feel that because of this aspect – users wanting to be seen in the best light & thus creating their profiles accordingly – these social networking sites are more limiting, rather than the liberating spaces they could be seen as (allowing people to open up to people all throughout cyberspace)?

boyd also discusses teenagers' privacies and publics, and stresses throughout the article the concept of multiple publics, rather than one single public. She concentrates on privacy issues between parents and their children, rather than the importance for privacy for teenagers in order to protect them from online predators, as is a big issue regarding the internet in today's society. However, if you consider the fact that boyd's article focusses mainly on the reasons why teenagers use MySpace and their development of their identity through it, this focus on parent-children privacy can be seen as reasonable as it's no doubt one of the main concerns for teenagers on MySpace, rather than online predators, which seems more of an issue that would concern parents instead.

In boyd's discussions of privacy, she also comments on the fact that what is on the internet is going to be publically accessible and easily searchable, and how this can arise as a problem, such as for university applications, as per her example.

Do you think it's fair, or appropriate, for potential universities or employers to check up people by googling them, or searching for their Facebook or MySpace? Like in boyd's example, their online persona could be entirely different to their professional persona, so is it fair to potentially write an applicant off based on this? Do you think anything you have on the internet could be used against you in such a way? Should it be your own responsibility to ensure there is nothing online that could be used against you, or do you feel that its not right for employers to judge staff on their online interactions and thus one shouldn't have to censor themselves?

Objection!

In relation to the 3rd reading and the issue of conscientious objectors, I have a little story to relate.

A friend of mine had refused to join any of the social networking sites. "lame, stupid, why bother?" etc etc. Until recently that is. A few months ago he joined facebook. Why? He wasn't getting invited to parties, as people were only sending invites out through facebook.

Oh how the mighty have fallen...

tutorial presentation - A Rape in Cyberspace

Julian Dibbell’s article “A Rape in Cyberspace” discusses a sexual attack, the Bungle Affair, that occurred in an online world called LambdaMOO, and what this attack implies about online ethics and identity. This attack, Dibbell says, “raises questions that ... demand a clear-eyed, sober, and unmystified consideration. It asks us to ... look without illusion upon the present possibilities for building, in the on-line spaces of this world, societies more decent and free than those mapped onto dirt and concrete and capital. It asks us to behold the new bodies awaiting us in virtual space undazzled by their phantom powers, and to get to the crucial work of sorting out the socially meaningful differences between those bodies and our physical ones. And ... it asks us to wrap our late-modern ontologies, epistemologies, sexual ethics, and common sense around the curious notion of rape by voodoo doll – and to try not to warp them beyond recognition in the process.” (p. 200)

The most obvious question to come out of “A Rape in Cyberspace” is: was it rape? What would qualify it as rape? Is rape even possible in cyberspace? The title Dibbell chose for his article is provocative. I remember reading (although it’s a long time ago, and I don’t have references, sorry) criticisms of “A Rape in Cyberspace” as sensationalist and perhaps even scaremongering. Common sense tells us that rape is physical, and MUD and MOO worlds are constructed entirely of text, so clearly Mr. Bungle’s attack wasn’t rape, right? But if LambdaMOO’s reality is textual, then isn’t textual rape as real as anything else that might happen there? The Bungle Affair brings into question the reality of all of LambdaMOO.

Perhaps the best way to think about Mr. Bungle’s attack is as a kind of crime that doesn’t quite exist in “real life”, not exactly rape but more than “just” sexual harassment. The LambdaMOO residents seem to have mostly felt this; Dibbell says that Mr. Bungle “had committed a MOO crime, and his punishment, if any, would be meted out via the MOO.” (p. 208) This touches on the ethics topics we looked at a couple of weeks ago. If Mr. Bungle’s attack was a MOO crime, rather than a “real life” crime, does that mean that ethics and/or morals are different in cyberspace? Does the medium change the ethical and/or moral aspects of an action? Could there be crimes such as rapes in cyberspace which have no “real life” equivalent?

Identity is a a theme which comes through strongly. To a certain extent, LambdaMOO formed a space for identity experimentation; but at the same time, it was not entirely fluid. The mapping of character to user was not one-to-one. Dibbell mentions that he sometimes took on different characters in LambdaMOO, and Mr. Bungle was reborn after his “toading” as Dr. Jest, but having more than one character per person was discouraged. Sometimes a character might also be controlled by more than one person. The version of “A Rape in Cyberspace” which is in the course reader doesn’t mention this (see p. 29 of My Tiny Life), but “Mr. Bungle” was in fact a group of university students, and the attack was a communal affair. At the same time, however, LambdaMOO was more than just a “vast playpen in which [users] might act out their wildest fantasies”. Dibbell describes a user’s “concern for their character’s reputation” as “mark[ing] the attainment of virtual adulthood” (p. 209).

Gender is also a factor in the attack. The software of LambdaMOO allowed for fluidity in gender – typing “@gender female” or whatever you wanted to be was all it took to change your sex – and there were many gender options that were neither male nor female. However, the users brought their offline gender biases into LambdaMOO with them. Dibbell notes that Mr. Bungle’s attacks were aimed at female-presenting and gender-neutral characters, and that many female-presenting characters had suffered sexual harassment on LambdaMOO at some time or another. He also quotes (in My Tiny Life, p. 126) the creator of LambdaMOO, Pavel Curtis, who pointed out that female-presenting characters were often challenged to “prove” that they were really women, although male-presenting characters were rarely asked to prove themselves men.

(If anyone is interested in following up on this article, Dibbell's book about LambdaMOO, My Tiny Life, is available online. I've read it - you could probably tell from my references to it - and it's a fascinating study. Well worth the read, if you're interested in the issues he raises.)