7 posts tagged “readings”

Cultural Poesis/Ordinary Affects

We continued reading Shaviro this week and it was nice to continue the book after we had our discussion on the first part of the text.  I ended up making note on sections that dealt with Castells, memetic theory, and Cyberspace.  I must have found some overlaps with the texts on ebay...

Friction
An Ethnography of Global Connection.
Anna Tsing

Lots of interesting stuff happening in this book. A lot of concepts to remember but the ethnographic approach helps in understanding the emotion behind the sometimes heavy text.  I read the section on "knowledge" and really enjoyed the ethnographic qualities of the text.  Particularly enjoyed chapter four when Tsing discusses Nature Lover's.  That chapter took me through a journey...I started by understanding what a nature lover is and the reasons why these clubs started in the first place.  I got an idea in my head about the youth involved in these groups and how these groups worked both politically and personally.  I also liked how Tsing eventually takes the reader through the different changes that the term/image of a nature lover experienced.

This book took me through the changes of environmental issues and allowed me to think about concepts that are overshadowed (in my everyday life) but important.  Remembering the history behind things!  What makes something what it is?  Why is that important?

Ideas....humans, non-humans, species, youth, forests, plants, trade, rural, cosmopolitan, advertising/branding, politics, war, language, damage, ecology,tourists, adventurers, rural villagers, friction, universals, and global connections.

I noticed that while reading this book I often thought about Friction in SL.  Jeff wrote about this in his blog entry and everyone should check it out.  I tried to think of some examples too. SL activism, people on SL that go on there solely to create havoc...Comparing different types of friction that I felt from the beginning of my journey in SL to the present.

I found the readings to be really interesting this week.  I definitely feel like each week of readings creates a puzzle piece in terms of how to approach autoethnography for my project.  There appears to be many possibilities to create a project...I am still grasping them. 

From Use to Presence: On the Expressions and Aesthetics of Everyday Computational Things

Autoethnography, personal, narrative, reflexivity

There were many readings to cover so I am choosing to include a few.  I just want to jot down some things that I found interesting so I can refer back to them when I am doing my own research in SL.  I will begin with the readings on the Internet Research, 2 chapters from the cell phone book, and 1-2 readings from the readings on blackboard.

The first few readings we received dealt with Internet Research Ethics and had a lot of overlaps in terms of content.  I really learned a lot from these because I am new to ethnography and the ethics of Internet Research.  I am interested in developing guidelines that can assist me in my research on SL.  

Reading One:

Internet Research Ethics

Ethics of Internet Research: Contesting the Human Subjects Research Model

Internet as cultural production of texts

Interplay between space and text/develop models that acknowledge both

Regards of human subject as primary/aims of the researcher as secondary**

Internet ‘Space’-not a virtual space in which actors can be observed

Slippage between real and virtual**

Emotion/feelings/sentience of persons can be translated through computing technologies. 

Human subjects research model…Internet as published text, Internet as ‘site’ of 

community

Internet textuality-publication/form of cultural production

Global public sphere through Internet use

Issues of privacy, confidentiality, informed consent

Logging chats…informing 

3 models-text as reflection of the author, text as object, text as reader-response.  

Intentional fallacy-finding author in the work

Intellectual properyy-text belonging to owner

Ethical considerations when researching people/texts

Open exchange of ideas between researcher/author of the text/engaging in the text**

Case study of “gaygirls.com” people believing there is privacy but in reality no control over who is viewing the material. What is public and what is private online? 

User names with texts/protecting a user name

Educating about the conditions of Internet use

Reading Two: 

CultureCat Rhetoric and Feminism

Themes:  I like the idea of having my research be interactive, I need to include both text and space models, privacy issues, consent (proper way to get consent?), how will I recruit?  Categorizing people, faceless people? But are they? Setting a standard, revealing my identity,  Validity and paying attention to etc…Will I be only using SL?  Theories used to guide inquiry, potential sources of bias?, data analysis, informing participants of results, etc etc… 

There are so many considerations to keep in mind when I was reading about the ethical issues regarding online research.  I see that there are a lot of overlaps but I am still unclear as to the best way of guaranteeing that my research incorporates all of these elements.  I like the article that was from the ciadvertising.org site.  It was more concise in terms of what to consider and how to consider it.  Internet research appears to be an art form…An art form that I am trying to develop through my interactions on SL/my autoethnography blog.  

Reading Three:

The Cell Phone an Anthropology of Communication 

Lots of interesting stuff happening in Jamaica in terms of the cell phone.  Made me think a lot about my relationship to my own cell phone.  Something that I didn’t think about too much until I was living in South America this summer without one for a few weeks.  I didn’t really feel like I needed one but after some pressure I discovered that it was indeed nice to have one and did open up many doors for communication/exploration.  I just want to mark some key things I found interesting from chapters 4/5.  

Chapter Four: 

Posession

The lack of phone will come to signify no so much poverty as destitution. Cheapest models are sought after most, coordinating the phone with their fashion sense/creative ways to wear a phone (this made me think of SL), a larger phone can be seen as an embarrassment, ringtones feature/features that allow on to compose own ringtones, the function of the cell is a system of communication more than accessory, In Jamaica the phone is a small multi-purpose tool and can be used in place of computers, changing a profile on a phone and creating a photo, ringtone, and alert when someone calls (interesting.), cell phone as a way to alleviate boredom (have heard this in SL.), different types of conversation and the lengths of conversation, jealousy over the phone, talking on the phone as opposed to dressing up and talking in person, texting associated with young people/can express themselves through text in a way that could not be done through voice, can text during a class but cannot talk, picture messaging as a way of storing pictures, Using the web on the phone and having that be there first experience on the Internet, phone porn…

The contrast of landlines.  I found this section to be really interesting…

Experience of landlines looked at as negative, problems calling abroad when using a landline, not private, fees and expenses, being able to track calls, tensions arise around family when sharing a landline, can be an element of control in the household, cell phone cost s per second…cheaper…

Chapter Five: 

Link-up

Networked individualism, invigorating of social relations, cell phone as an “agent” or “moral force”, the cell phone being blamed for actions of deceit, cell phone as a way of connecting women/elderly with community for errands, cell phone circulating gossip/information, cell phone to obtain money, using the phone to maintain the transnational family, change in relationship between parents and children.  More communication, communicating with transnational family in order to move, storing phone numbers of family and friends, making connections via chance encounters, differences between communicating on a cell phone in Jamaica as opposed to the U.K. or U.S.A, extending social and financial support.  

When reading this book it was interesting to notice some differences with the cell phone but also a lot of similarities….Can discuss this further in class…

Reading Four:

Conclusion: What does it mean to be posthuman?

Literal sense…humans displaced as the dominant form of life on the planet of intelligent machines.  Instead posthuman can be looked at as getting out of the old boxes and opening up new ones.  It doesn’t have to be a hierarchy where humans are knocked out of top ranking and replaced by machines.  

Randomness creative ground from which pattern can emerge.  Bateson’s use of systems, metaphors, the difference that makes a difference.  Posthuman can end a certain conception of the human (not a bad idea.) Rethinking the articulation of humans with intelligent  machines.

Decisions invisible to human attention would be made by intelligent machines.  But this made me think of how everything is automated now and I really hate it…

The idea of control…human obsession with control

Posthuman as a tool for education

Bateson-thinking is done by both human and non-human actors.  

Hutchins-Ultimately make the entire world one system…