ubik /notes /Bell

Identities in Cyberculture

axes of identity: race gender class sexuality all of these are contested terms

has much to do with bodies in cyberspace as identity is said to be embodied

who needs identity? Stuart Hall the notion of 'essentialism' as some thing ordinary ,unified and integral.

identity has become de-centered by the academic inquiry: is there a real me? am I born this way? There is a crisis of identity destabilizing the individuals position in society.

posed to this view- contra essentialism has the self connected to time and place.

Jeffery Weeks calls identity a necessary fiction.

Foucault famously stated that homosexuality was talked into being by lawyers and doctors, etc. to create a set of behaviors that add up to gayness.

this exposes identity's historicity and arbitrariness.

Hall says its the result of discursive practice creating temporary points of subjective attachment.

the mailability of modern identity can be boundless on the internet while it is not connected to any embodied identity- no one knows you are a dog.

Hall says otherness/ exclusion is the root of identity -the problem with this is the hierarchy that overshadows exclusion. us and them.

Self Identity in cyberculture

dramaturgical account of the presentation of the self -Charles Cheung

websites he says are the "real me" because there are dimensions about the self usually not revealed. but there are also cases of self censoring.

Race in Cyberculture (Kolko et al 2000:5)

the notion of race is contested. Looking for a definition of race that is non essentialist -in other words, constructionist.

does race disappear on cyberspace?

How is the image represented on cyberspace in film and ads?

Do these images simply replay old stereo types?

Can there be new virtualities of race?

Gonzolaes says the avatar is a disregard for the histories that make a racial identity and turn race into a consumer object.

a new form of colonialism in the form of symbolic exchange.

identity tourism (Nakamura) how identity types are appropriated adopted and consumed

MOOscape makes race visible by electing to include it in a profile along with "white" as a choice.

internet normalizes american because it is the only country that does not require a code.

internet as a site of reterritorialization for racial identity that can close the technologhy gap -big challenge- can re wire the

gender of cyberculture

masculinization of cyberspace can be derived from the technical ineptitude labels given to girls in early education

sexuality of cyberculture

class of cyberculture