Menu-Driven Identity Workshop Response

1. Which categories are available for users to choose from when signing up for Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or in order to use the Second Life gameworld? What presumptions do these categories make about users, and what does the absence of certain categories of identity say?
4. Are any of the websites you've visited inherently racist? Why or why not?

When people want to sign up an email account, same kind of information they need to put in for registrant, so do in Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail. Both of the email services require similar data to sign up, such as first name, last name, gender, date of birth, and state/post code. However, are those information true? And are those information able to describe a person?

When people send me email, the data of the sender will be the name, the email and the ID (like the Yahoo ID, i.e. the name appear before the @xxx.com). A question raise up, why I need to fill in my gender and country code? Is that ‘male’ and ‘female’ already enough for all people? What about the transgender and intersex? Moreover, in those internet service, e.g. Yahoo, no matter you sign in to email, knowledge or some newsgroup, people are not represented by their name, but the Yahoo ID, then why I still need to input some useless data?

Furthermore, I think the email address had already indicate the race of the user, such as hk, jp, nz, au, and uk. I can say it’s a kind of racism but just separating different nation people, although what they do is trying to help different nation’s people to use the service more easily. One of the website Takarazuka http://kageki.hankyu.co.jp/ all in Japanese, they do have the English version, but it didn’t consist as many information as Japanese, I know those play might target on Japanese, then why translate it in English and lack of information?

How many email accounts you got? I got five, one from HKU SPACE, one from UWA, and three from Yahoo! Mail, beside the college emails which representing OiYing Man, those three email account are representing different ‘me’: Candy Man, Ying Man and also Pian. So, which one is representing me? All of them, but just different identity.

Reflective Post

Ruminations on Cyber-Race by Jerry Kang

In the tutorial presentation, I began with a question:
‘Have you being racial discriminated before?’
But seems like none of my classmate being raced by someone. In my presentation I did point out the major argument from the reading and try to explain to my classmate.
How we map each other into racial categories?
- Our law and culture provide a list of racial categories
- We collect data through our senses to map the individual to a category
- Mapping triggers meanings – cognitive beliefs about and affective reactions to people in these racial categories.
Moreover, I did explain those three racial mechanics. Abolition, Integration and Transmutation. However, after study this article, I think no matter which method we try to present the ‘RACE’ or re-define ‘RACE’, there is always have the racial unequal treatment, and keep reinforce the stereotype of the mediated race distinctions. The discrimination and unequal are also exist.

Workshop --- Menu Driven Identities

Qusetion 1

When signing up for Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, we have to type our birth, name and mail's address. Besides, we also have to choose which country we are living in and our gender. There are limitations when choosing the country and gender. Most of the choices are name of countries but we can see Hong Kong is also a choice for choosing beside China. If Hong Kong, a tiny place, can be counted should Beijing and Shanghai or other regions of China also be a choice for choosing? This show that the webs assume Hong Kong like Taiwan that is separated with China Although Hong Kong is part of China’s. And the gender section is also in narrow limitation. The choices is only male and female which is seen as normal as we get used to it in filling form for identity cards, passports or other identity form. The form does not expect other type of people to appear on the net for example transgender. It also appears in Second Life gameworld. There are limitations when choosing different characters in only male or female gender.

Question 2

In Lavalife, although we are allow to choose different countries and regions to show where we live, when we start searching for friends, all of them show their countries as living in Australia. It seems that this site runs base on Australian and other countries seeker is invisible or seen as others. There are similar problem of narrow limitations of the gender selection that only has male and female to choose from.

Reflective Post for the Use of Weblogs and Self.Net

The literal meaning of the word "Weblogs" in Hong Kong is online dairy. The translation of this word is really bad. In general, the use of weblogs functions as online dairy in Hong Kong. I am not sure whether it is relate to the bad translation or not. In fact, the use of weblogs is not only function as online dairy. The functions of Weblog are highly specified: for example, online daily, politic, journalism, academia and so forth. As we required posting the six mandatory posts on the Weblog, it offers us an opportunity to practice the use of Weblog. We can see others classmates' posting in the Weblog. It is great. Their posting can be given more than one interpretation, so that I can get some news idea from their posting. In addition, I can made response to them.

The idea of cyborg made a great impression on me. Initially, I interpret cyborg as robot. After the class, I realize that cyborg can be defined as a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. At that time, I also did not believe that I am cyborg. However, Verdy has explained that if someone who wears glasses, the person is regard as the cyborg too. I wear glasses and contact lenses. I use skincare product. Thus, I am a cryborg. I seldom put on make-up and I uphold nature. I think I am nature, but, in fact, I am not nature. Actually, the skincare brand, NATURE'S, is not nature.

All in all, I enjoy this course. I think it is worthwhile to study this course. I liked the topic of playing game most about the unit in general. I also liked the topic of digital gender. It offers me a chance to understand and rethink about the relationship between the identity, gender, race in the digital age.

Reflective Post for Self. Net/Identity in the Digital Age

In this class, I studied about practice relating to the way issues of identity and diversity interconnect with are constructed by communication online; and they are connected to sexuality, race, class, gender and other markers of difference.

On the other hand, I liked topic is about Weblog or Warblog. Before this class, I know blogs is personal and online dairy. But, when I know that Weblog or Warblog is comprises a lot of things. For instance, that often updated websites with the most new items at the top of the website have recently paying attention a great deal of media attention, ranging from proclamations that they transform journalism and the media more broadly. In addition, Weblog or Warblog is a new form of news, although it does not change place traditional news sources by creating an altogether part to them. As a result, there is little foundation for the view among some that Weblog or Warblog will supersede professional news.

Menu-Driven Identity Workshop Response

Response to Question 1

Hotmail has a similar system to the Yahoo! Mail. The user must fill in users' first name, last name, sex (male or female), date of birth, when signing up for these mailboxes. Regarding to the sex, this system presume that users are either male or female. Any user, such as transsexual, who did not fit this category was ignored by the system.

Besides, there some questions differ from each other. The user must fill in their country (region) when signing up for Hotmail, and there are lists of categories for them to choose. The setting limits other possibilities. The categories this system provides might not cover any country or region all over the world. Moreover, the setting disregarded the users who are mixed nation. I remember that once I try to signing up something else, the system offers me a list of country to choose, but it does not contain Hong Kong. So, what should I do? Eventually, I force to choose China. This experience is similar to the situation I mention above. On the other hand, users must fill in the ZIP/Postal code and preferred content (ask you to select the local yahoo site from this list that best meet users’ content needs) when users signing up for Yahoo! Mail. I think this setting is better than the Hotmail system. It did not contain the question I have mentioned above.

Second Life has different system to the sign-up for Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail. Users need to creating their first name, and choosing the last name from the list provided. The system emphasizes that users should provide an accurate birth date and uses a real email address. Interestingly, this system presumes that users will provide false information in order to use the Second Life gameworld. In this sense, the users can create an identity they want and broadcast in the Second Life.

Response to Question 2

People categorize and present themselves from sex, age group, ethnic background, and body type. These various categories make their online identities are presented in the Lavalife. The categories of age come first and then there are race and body type. The profiles displayed in Lavalife presume that all users will want to know about the age of potential partners first. Then, users will want to know the location and ethnic background of their potential partners. I have try to searching for different users profiles. I have chosen I am female and searching for female too, and the age group is within 18-24. There are 12 result located. Most of them are western and write women. There are one mixed, one black and one Asian. Noteworthy, the black woman did not locate her ethic background. It shows that the majorities of users for Lavalife is western and write people.

Sing's Reflective Post

Nowadays, we're all living in the online community world. The possession of a computer set is no more a source of pride for a family in all over the world. Most of the families, own a computer set. Everyday, we have an internet access in order to get the information, playing online games, share ideas and chat with others. Besides, after we have watched some popular TV programmes, we have plenty of talking points to discuss when we meet our friend on the internet. It's one of the reasons why many of the forums and online community being established.

In the presentation, I want to ask some questions which related to the theme. E.g. does it still exist the gender or race inequality on the online community? Online community is just like a Utopian aspiration or we can only treat online community as a chat room for us to share and exchange the ideas and knowledge. To conclude, we can say that online community has its own advantage or function and it's now still developing in an unstoppable rate in our daily life.

Workshop --- Menu Driven Identities

The sign up of Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, the categories are available for users to input the essential information such as first name, last name, preferred content, country, gender and date of birth. In addition, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail are explains the real identity. It needs to input the real information such as name, gender and country etc. On the other hand, the Second Life gameworld‘s just available for users to input the first name. The Second Life gameworld is dissimilar to the Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, as the Second Life’s users can to input the false information such as name for the gameworld. So, the Second Life is the absence of real identity in gamewould.

In the website of the Lavalife's, if we want to be a member, the users need to input fulfill on the essential information such as country, city, gender and date of birth etc. This website can see the majority of the background photos are western men and western women. Also, the members are the most of western people and simply a few members who come from Asia. So, this website should be improves more members for the Asian users choose.

Tutorial Presentation: Online Community/ Interactive Audiences?

I have chosen Henry Jenkins's 'Interactive Audiences' to my tutorial presentation topic. Nowadays, the new media constitute and develop quickly through the telephone, satellites and computers that allow the messages and information spread globally at an unstoppable rate. Pierre Levy offers a compelling vision of the new knowledge space which called‘the cosmopedia' to explain the tendency of online community.

Online fan communities are the most fully realized versions of cosmopedia. As a genre of Science fiction online community, it's fostering popular awareness of contemporary scientific breakthroughs at a moment of accelerating technological development. Many significant science-fiction writers and film-makers emerged from fandom such as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. They create forums for debating interpretations, sharing their ideas and expanding a community’s productive capacity. On the other hand, amateur film-makers have used this digital technology to achieve fan cultural production. Amateur film culture has already made an impact on the commercial mainstream. It may also initiate many innovations in popular culture in the future.

Lastly, I agree with the online community now is taking replacement of the older communication technology such as postal service. By going online, it can demonstrate timeliness and responsiveness and the other social problem like race.

Workshop - Menu Driven Identities From Sing

Lavalife is a dating site from Australia. As we can see in the cover page, we need to input some basic information such as sex, purpose, gender and country so on. If you want to be a member, you have to fulfill on it. Members should put their photos and write down some notes in order to attract more visitors. Dating/Relationship/Intimate look like a slogan of this site.Through this slogan, members can search their target more directly.We can see most of the background photos and display of lavalife are men or women. It seems that homosexual or others are not accept in this site.I have tried to be a homosexual and searching a man in the site. but there is only a few members for me to choose. It should be improved and increased in the future. Also, there is only a few members who come from Hong Kong on the site because this is a foreigner dating site. As a result, Asian is not the dominant group in Lavalife.

Workshop IV - Menu Driven Identities

Through MSN and Yahoo, the categories of countries and passwords, name and birthday are available to user to sign up but the Second Lifegame world only available to choose the user first name. There is no choice for Last name categories. The second name section was compulsory to fill but no suitable choice for me. There is no choice for different races. It seems has a racial discrimination as the site presumed the users are western. Otherwise, according to yahoo, there are some assumption for the user, for the section of preferred content it assume that the relation between countries and language, that means if you are certain countries you are suppose to know the certain kind of language.

Through the website of Lavalife , it categorize people to only female and male. The sorts of identity present on Lavalife are categories by the design of the site. Identities are constructing by the division of races, age group the location, language they speak, hobby. Further, there are 3 kind of relationship presumed for the people, for the choice of relation, then the more information is required such as income, children.

Presentation on Self.org II: Playing Games, Sim(ulating) World & Having Divine Powers

I have chosen Mia Consalvo's "Hot Dates and Fairly-Tale Romances: Studying Sexuality in Video Games" selected from week 11 for tutorial presentation. As the popular attention to games is make broader from only considering violence to thinking about sex. The main theme of this tutorial reading is talk about the sexuality in video games. Consalvo's has used different theoretical approaches to studying sexuality in video games. Consalvo pointed out that it is important to see both representations and game-play in studying sexuality in games. She quoted from game theorists such as Janet Murray and John Banks, "a game is not simply a text to be read, but an experience to be had." Thus, we have to consider the performative level of game play.

Consalvo indicated "while heterosexuality is often the dominant sexuality portrayed in games, this 'representation' or 'performance' can be subverted both through the actions of the player and the structure of the game itself." Consalvo has examined two games in this reading, which are Final Fantasy IX (2000) and The Sims (2000).

In the Final Fantasy IX, the heterosexual nature of the theme was implicit. It is a very traditional "fairy-tale". When taking game-play into account, sexuality in this game might probably allow for homosexual readings. The exact happen is depending entirely upon the game player. It all about somebody else desire what the story should be.

In The Sims, on the other hand, players can test the sexuality of their Sims in the game world. However, if players do not wish to challenge the heterosexual nature, players will likely to take no notice of these potentials. Consalvo has argued that this game in some ways challenges the norms of heterosexuality, and however, in the other ways reinforces them.

Workshop - Menu Driven Identities

When we want to sign up for Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Second Life gameworld, there are some basic information we need to provide unless we cannot continue. For instance we need to input the surname, name, sex, date of birth and country. Secondlife have two parts for register, the different between Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail is user needs to input the real self’s information and the name for the game. It can be illustrates that the real identity and the “net” world identity are different supposedly in Secondlife. This reinforces the “tradition” in the virtual community that people would not use the real name to meet other.

Furthermore, there is the interesting thing about the category of “country” that user needs to input. For the category of “country”, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China are provided also, but how about Tibet, Inner Mongolia? As Hong Kong is not a country, but it appears in the list, then why those minority group are disappeared? Besides, when we need to input the first name and last name, the last name one is the list that we need to choose and all of them are the westerner name, if I am Chinese, what can I choose?

Also, in Lavalife's, as we need to fill the categories: sex, seeking target and their age range, and the purpose (casual dating, relationship and intimate encounter). The result is they are westerners and Australian, as I select different purposes, there is the same result. It seems that what even you choose, “they are” what you can choose.

Comment on Yahoo Mail and Hotmail Service

Yahoo Mail
Yahoo Mail provides the choices for the register to choose the specified region for their Yahoo sites. For example, if you are located in Hong Kong SAR, you are able to choose this option to immediately modify your Yahoo IP to the Hong Kong IP. Hotmail does not provide this option.

Hotmail
Hotmail, possibly embodied the service for providing business information for users, provides a checkbox for the register to choose whether they have the intention to receive the information by checking “I won or work with a small business”. Additionally, the time zone is required to choose according to the register’s situation. If you are in the biggest country such as U.S. or Japan, you have also to provide for Hotmail what county or state you are located, while Yahoo Mail does not.

Brief Conclusion
Both Hotmail and Yahoo Mail require registers to provide some privatized information including birth date, gender, first name and last name, etc. Similarly to Lavalife, although the register is not necessary to faithfully fill in the information to reflect their truth identity for convinience or making friends, this does constitute the grounds for the mail service provider to make use of the information in order to have their usage, possibly not in the willingness of the user. But the user does not have choice to choose because once they desire to have access to the service, they have to firstly click the button to agree all the terms or conditions presumed by the service provider. Once the user uses the mail service for serious intention such as business interaction with clients or partners, all the parties within this user’s circle will be influenced by, for instance, e-mail forwarding, virus, advertisements, etc., but at the same time, the information provided should not be untrue. Indeed, no protecting mechanism is now workable for this situation to avoid any kind of disturbance unexpected by the user.

Reflective Post for Self. Net

At the beginning of this class, it is full of confusion. Before I study, I assume it is similar to computer application course. However, it is talked about identity, cyborg, virtual space; and they are related to gender and race also. The most impressive topic is about cyborg. When I know that cyborg is includes many things, for example, as I wear eyeglass, I am a cyborg too. Besides, I am surprise that technology is around us everywhere. Through the technology development, we develop an Internet space, I think everyone should be equal as they will not know the others nationality. But, actually, it would through the name and language reveal his/her nationality. This is the thing that I had never thought. As we start to use the blog to post our assignment and reflective post for our presentation, I practice the use of blog. The function is different with the online dairy. I can through the blog to get some new ideas through other classmates' posts.

Reflective Post

This tutorial presentation is deepens for us to understand about the similarity concept of weblog, warblog and news media. I’m agree with Lasica said blogging is the beginning of a new form of journalism. In addition, weblogging will drive a powerful new form of proletarian journalism as millions of Net users, young people specially, take on the role of columnist, reporter, analyst and publisher while fashioning their own personal broadcasting networks. Moreover, warblogging is too the role of reporter as their own personal broadcasting networks.

On the other hand, blogging is a new form of news, but it does not relocate traditional news sources by creating an altogether separate to them. Therefore, there is little foundation for the view among some that blogging will supersede professional news. In this tutorial, we had to share about related to blogging and warblogging in particular build credible oppositional voices to mainstream news media. As the result, more classmates were think news media in particular build credible.

Tutorial Presentation: Resistance is Fertile - Consumption in the Everyday

My tutorial presentation makes us to understand the construing of advertisement. It could be found everywhere. We are surrounded by the messages from billboards, store signs, huge electronic monitors, which have been embodied much means for causing passers-by attention to achieve the most effective willingness of consumption; therefore, the individual is labeled as the consumer. Some parts of the populace would get used to it by filtering out them, but others would be annoyed by the radio or television commercials and, most objectionably, the calls from telemarketers.

Media is the most crucial way to activate the activity of consumption. Two main areas are to be considered from the media according to the consumer theory: the democratic nation state and the industrial economy. Concerning the values or equality in family life, gender relations, sexual preference, consumer patterns and emotional dynamics, consumption is considered for the reproduction of labour and the satisfaction of needs. It controls our mind to distinguish reality, in which a city is just simply like a real ‘imaginary museum’. The people in the city are bounded by a language system, which is a production of meaning and a sort of speech, from the advertising media restricting the freedom of the individual and group to choose rather than offering more varieties for the consumer’s benefits: ‘Consumers are transformed into immigrants’. Different types of consumers in different sex, age, class, gender, ethnicity, race and region form specific types of consumptions are varied by four aspects: the social relationships to catalyse consumption, the consuming act to the goods, the participation of the consumer in the research of designing products and the frequency of consuming activity. Consumption in the modern world increased spectacularly with the help of the advertisement in several media.

Mark Poster finally concluded that media in the consumption are ‘as old as culture, influencing, constraining, enhancing and generally making possible from the beginnings of human society the practice of culture.’ No matter how the political or economical condition could be developed, media could transmit messages to the populace through their infinitive strategies made use of in order to let us be addicted without remedy by the typical patterns of consumption.

Finally, the presentation will be concluded by the colleagues expressing their daily experience of viewing advertisement in different places to let them bear in mind that how media could practically influence our habits of consumption and how it becomes the main part for constructing our daily life.

Tutorial presentation -- Ethics

This presentation is based on Marco Kingsto's Diary of a Webdiarist: Ethics Goes Online, published in Remote Control (2003).

The author Kingston is the journalist of a Webdiary. He started by posting his own opinion on his webdiary, and posting his readers' ideas, comments and complaints on the internet upon the receival of readers' emails. So he posted online ethical codes on his site. The codes were drafted according to the hardcopy journalism but with amendments made according to the immediacy of online postings. He then draws on some points

First, unlike hardcopy journals, webdiaries are able to interact with the diary's readers. Once Kingston made posting on his webdiary, the readers will provide their opinion to his post. The interaction between the two sides could influence their attitude towards the subject, like the author has admitted that he is being inspired by some of his readers' ideas. Also, the topic of discussion will not be dominated by one side, as other readers will post their ideas and hence balance the webpage.

Second, those who post their ideas on the net, including the web owner, are responsible for everything they posted on the internet. This is because their comments are posted under their own name. This could also increase the accountability of the postings, and hence the liability of the webdiary. However, some people might want to comment anonymously due to their social status or having conflicts of interest. The author thus strongly recommends them to provide a Nom de plumes, which give reasons of why they do not want to comment under their names.

And in the online ethical codes he also includes some points which is same as hardcopy journals like the banning of posting offensive materials like discriminatory words, or plagiarism on others' work.

At the end of the presentation, a piece of news and its discussion forum is shown for further discussion on the topic.

Tutorial Presentation: Resistance is Fertile

In tutorial presentation, I choose the reading is “Warblogging as Critical Social Practice”. This reading has including the four aspects: ‘Defining the Weblog’, ‘Weblog Developments’, ‘Warblogging and Journalism’ and ‘Weblogging and New Media Theory”. It has been about the potential for alternative and democratic forms of communication on the Internet. In contrast to traditional mass media inherently biased towards open, egalitarian expression.

This article investigates how warblogging, a particular way of using weblogs to cover international current affairs, has emerged as a ‘popular alternative, but in such a way that it is contingent upon broader cultural and political trends and the influence of mainstream journalism.

Finish in my presentation, I will ask the short question to our classmates for discussion. The question is related to blogging and warblogging in particular build credible oppositional voices to mainstream news media.

Reflective Post

Regarding to the tutorial presentation is effectively for us to understand the problem of race, privacy, and discrimination really exists in internet. ICERED is a good example for us to prove the condition of virtual world.

Internet is a “racialized space. Tal didn’t agree with “color –blindness” of the internet and Bailey think that whites are the domination of cyberspace as the adoption of knowledge and language of the white and excluded non-white.

Moverover,“Peaceful and humanity exits without restraints” seems impossible in virtual world.Classmates contribute the opinions and agree with that internet as a “racialzed space.”Race is through online interaction racial identity spring from participant’s perception rather than psychical cues.

Reflective post

This tutorial presentation is good for us to understand more about the JenniCAM and how she breaks the binary opposition of public and private; body and machine; real and fiction. As she questioning the representation of woman and gender subject, no body denies her positive influence. We agree JenniCAM is expanding the use of technologies; and she is a courageous girl who represents the “real female” image and redefine the definition of voyeurism. In this small tutorial group, I think is great for classmates to share their comments and opinions.

Presentation on Tutorial Reading

Rumination on Cyber-Race by Jerry Kang

This reading is talk about the Race problem in the cyber-space.

Jerry Kang is a Korean-American law professor also we can see him as an immigrant and racial minority in USA. He did provide two examples: ‘fighting words episode and car purchase’ to explain how he did discriminated by the other people. And in his reading, he did point out several things:

• How can we map each other into racial categories?
  
• Racial Mechanics.

Cyberspace provides a space for people to interact with each other and form a group, although they are at great distances. (e.g. real time chat, weblogs…etc)
Cyberspace not only help people maintain social relationships originally constructed in real space but also facilitate new relationships originally formed in cyberspace.
Cyberspace become more and more ‘real’ like the TV game, we can see that it have the potential to change everything, including racial mechanics.

ABOLITION

Most cyber interaction are based on text, which don’t need to disclose morphology
Race is not signalled in cyberspace but doesn’t mean that race ceases to matter in cyber or certainly, in real space. ‘Text’ will also permit racial mapping, explicitly (I’m Asian) and sometimes implicitly (consider cues from language, grammar, dictions, names).

INTEGRATION

• Cyberspace can help to reform racial meaning by promoting social interactivity?
• In real, we will imagine experiences, provided by mass media – stereotypically
• In cyberspace, we navigate less segregated communities, which means that we will engage in more direct experiences with actual people, not mediated by third parties. And direct experiences are less stereotypical than vicarious ones because there is less economic pressure for racial minorities to perform stereotypically for any audience.
• Also, there have a more equal social status in cyberspaces.
• Cooperation toward a joint goal is another important requirement. This defuses competition and highlights a common project rather than a common racial identity.

TRANSMUTATION

In a cyberspace, we can simply broadcasting a different racial signal than in a real space – cyber-passing. (racial masks) Moreover, the transmutation had given a reason for people to understand more about other’s race and identity. But in what way? Mediated stereotype. In the end, we may all unwittingly consume black/red/yellow-face, while believing it to be an “authentic” direct experience.

Presentation - Cyberstalking: gender and computer ethics

Internet is definitely breaks through the boundaries between public sphere and private sphere; we can have our "say" from home (private sphere) with the computer reach the internet (public sphere) where everybody can have their own "say". Traditional thinking / Mainstream people think of the internet seems provided a virtual public sphere for people to have their "freedom of speech".

But in the reading of "Cyberstalking: gender and computer ethics", the reading counterpart problems including
- computer ethics (“self-protection”, Spam report)
- cyberstalking in Internet (sexual harassment, defamed)
- different place/country with different law/restriction of the practice using the internet
- gender inequality (feminist ethics with the liberal arguments)

I will then show an e-mail that I have received for discussion and to see what our classmates seeing the situation in Hong Kong.

Tutorial Presentation of Racing Markers of Difference

My presentation is base on the e-journals which called HK cyberculture: a case study.
Through the journal, it mention that internet is a place where is peaceful and humanity exits without restraints. And it associated with Habermasian ideal world of true participatory democracy in the virtual world.

The article is focused on research of cyberculture, using ICERED as a case study. This English community is established in HK. There is the bulletin board and it divided into 3 parts which included work, play, and school. Through ICERED user, they have to log onto the site with a fake name (make up a name for themselves).Through their communication as they just to find the chartroom buzzing with gossip, conjecture, unfounded speculation, and everyday peoples like you and me who are lucky or unlucky to have become the topics of discussion. They seem like defender of freedom of speech. However there is the conflict between freedom and regulation, between the right to speech and the right to privacy. As there is the case of “E-silk road Holding, an online exhibition, it sued ICERED for libel and ask to know who is posted these offensive comment of against their company.

The unbearable “whiteness” of ICERED

Through the journal, it point out that internet as a “racialzed space. Tal didn’t agree with “color –blindness” of the internet and Bailey think that whites are the domination of cyberspace as the adoption of knowledge and language of the white and excluded non-white.
Through the ICERED case, most peoples are “yellow”, the radicalized exist through how “yellow” marginalized the “white” and “non-yellow”. As the site is an English language site so it can be attract some white or racist white people to join it.
There is dialogue which posted in ICERED and it is reflected the racial problem in internet.
A white user called “RATMAN” posted the report result “86% Chinese people have only 70% peripheral vision compared with westerners.” As a result, a conflict was take place between the white and yellow through the dialogue.
Another scholar claim that the sense of “race” is still exist in internet as the relation between racial identity and physical body is very strong. It is through online interaction racial identity spring from participant’s perception rather than psychical cues.

Tutorial Presentation of Digital Gender

For this tutorial presentation, I choose the reading about JenniCAM.

Jennifer Ringley established the JenniCAM since 1996, it recorded her daily life through the digital camera. JenniCAM seems fulfilling the male audience’s voyeuristic desire. Actually, it is the show about the life of Jennifer, who is not desirable at all time. But it represents the real life of a girl. JenniCAM is redefines the definition of voyeur, and it raises the question of representation and the gender subject. She creates the new definition of “to be a subject”, since Jennifer is the object and also is the subject in JenniCAM.

From the reading, as Judith Bulter theory of identity-forming category is “both produce and destabilized in the course of this reiteration”, through the JenniCAM, which reveals the contradiction of gender identity and desire. It tells that JenniCAM shows the cyborg subjectivity; also a hybridized identity through the development of technology, such as the name of JenniCAM, is the hybrid of woman and technology.

Moreover, she breaks the binary opposition of public and private; body and machine; real and fiction. JenniCAM also reinforces the discussion of “human as computer” metaphor, this is because beside the upload images of Jenni’s, there are narratives that typed by her, this makes her life become more mechanized.

From JenniCAM, it denies the necessarily connection between sexual pleasure and women. Her images with narratives constructed by Jennifer herself, it challenges the traditional definition of woman must be the “object”. As there are male and female audiences watch it, it questionings the male gaze.

As the fort-da game introduced by Sigmund Freud, there is the promise of return of Jennifer in JenniCAM. This explains why people keep on to check whether Jennifer’s body in there or not. JenniCAM also examines the pre-oedipal, she acts as the mother figure, as the source of pleasure and unity.

Critical Annotated Webliography

Question
Cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction that literally imagines our future. Identify some of the associations between (written or cinematic) cyberpunk and technological innovation in the popular imagination.
Introduction
The websites in this webliography are searched by Yahoo Search (http://hk.search.yahoo.com/?fr=FP-tab-web-t-ac), Google Scholars (http://scholars.google.com) and some online libraries. When I first started to do this assignment, I use “cyberpunk” as my keyword to search and received more than 3 million results. So I narrowed down the searching criteria by searching keywords like “cyberpunk”, “technology” or “science fiction” together. After reading a few of them, I have chosen the following websites to analysis. I will first give a brief introduction to all of the websites, then criticize whether they are good or bad and whether I agree with these websites or not.

What is Cyberpunk?
I will start by explaining what cyberpunk is. According to Dictionary.com (www.dictionary.com), I have got the following explanations. Cyberpunk is a term invented by a science fiction writer Bruce Bethke. It is a subgenre of science fiction which settings are always in a futuristic society with all illegal activities and people are dominated by computers. I traced the writer’s name and found in his personal website, Bruce Bethke has posted The Etymology of “Cyberpunk” (2000). He claimed that he has not invented the term cyberpunk. It was invented by writers like William Gibson, Pat Cadigan, Rudy Rucker, etc. He also mentioned cyberpunks have achieved its goals because all the contemporary science fiction has to mention cyberpunk, the Internet or computer technologies brought forward by the above writers. Finally, he wrote that the reality of cyberpunk has not differed from the one he coined. He gave his own definition towards cyberpunk at the end of the essay: “a young, technologically facile, ethically vacuous, computer-adept vandal or criminal.”
After knowing what cyberpunk is, I begin to search for the writer who contributed much effort on cyberpunk and is always being quoted when talked about cyberpunk – William Gibson. I first come across an online essay, Cyberpunk Revisited: William Gibson’s Neuromancer and the ‘Multimedia Revolution, written by Nobuo Kamioka from Meiji University. She first pointing out that William Gibson published Neuromancer in 1984 had made the term cyberpunk popular. However, she later suggests that Neuromancer has its own weakness. She wrote that “the autor does not have enough insight into the physical and social context concerning the newest technologies and our bodies.” It is because in the later work of Gibson, personal computers and Internet had already been used by the majority. While Gibson had written something really exists in the reality. Furthermore, “cyberspace is much less often depicted sur-realistically in geometric design than it was in Neuromancer” in Gibson’s late novels. As a result, his later work, though easier to understand than Neuromancer, is not as readable as his first one. Towards the end of her essay, Nobuo Kamioka concluded that Gibson’s later novels clearly lacks of ideas against the virtual world, for “he cannot break out of the traditional structure of popular novels”.
William Gibson himself, on the other hand, has posted a piece of writing called My Obession. Gibson had gained famous by Neuromancer because he never laid his hands on computers or modern technologies, which enables him to write something innovative during the 1980s. However, his later novels do not make a hit. Gibson had noticed this as well. W hen he published a journal online for Wired, he started by “I thought I was immune to the Net. Then I got bitten by eBay”. (Jan, 1999) In the essay, Gibson confessed that he knows the reason why his writings, apart from Neuromacer, have failed to catch the attention of the audience. In the 1980s, Internet has became common for the masses and they can get access to Internet easily. At the beginning, Gibson did not like the idea who even did not want to have an email account. Later, his addiction to buying watches brings him to eBay. He has to get started with an email address. He started to become addicted and eventually the first thing he do every morning is checking his own account in eBay. This dependence on Internet or computer technologies has made him unable to remind his mind as pure as he was when he wrote Neuromancer. Like he stated at the end of this essay, “crazed environments of dead tech and poignant rubbish turn up in my fiction on a regular basis, where they are usually presented as being at once comforting, evocative, and somehow magical.”
After reading this article, I began to realize that technological innovation will led to the fall of cyberpunk. However, the technology nowadays is so advanced. Does it mean that cyberpunk no longer exist? In what form does it exits? Then I come across another article, Mapping the Body in Cyberpunk Fiction and Science. Written by Mischa Peters, she said that “in cyberpunk we find heroes who want to enter the dispersing space of cyberspace, their minds merge with various spaces and technologies. Their bodies are ‘invaded by technology – by implants, by neuro-circuitry – electronic parts take over the role of organic parts. Technology seems to take over the role of biology.”
Bodies seem to be a very important issue in cyberpunk. With this issue in my head, I begin to search for another website. Technology as Extension of Human Functional Architecture is what I came across next. What makes me interested in is at the end of this essay, there is a section predicting the distant future of technology and human. The writer predicted that, “intelligent entities will be extremely fluid and highly independent from the physical substrate of the world.” He further predicted that the world in the future will become “a mix of superliquid economy, cyberspace anarchy and distributed Artificial Intelligence.”
The prediction of future seems horrible. However, as Joachim Schummer suggested in his essay, instead of conveying a simple moral message, it is rather up to readers to make their own positive or negative judgment on the fiction technology’s impacts on society. While many readers might feel uncomfortable with such visions, Cyberpunk has… inspired many, if not all, visions of transhumanist utopia..”
To sum up, like what Alexander Chislenko had mentioned at the end of his essay, “To current humans, it may look like crazy functional soup.” Yet, we should have our own vision towards the future.

Bethke, Bruce. (2000). The Etymology of “Cyberpunk. Bruce Bethke: Freelance Writer. Retrieved March 23, 2007, from http://www.brucebethke.com/nf_cp.html
Kamioka, Nobuo. (1998) Cyberpunk Revisited: William Gibson’s Neuromancer and the ‘Multimedia Revolution. Meiji University. Retrieved March 21, 2007, from http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/jaas/periodicals/JJAS/PDF/1998/No.09-053.pdf
Gibson, William. (Jan 1999) My Obession. Wired. Retrieved March 25, 2007, from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.01/ebay.html
Peters, Mischa. (September 29, 2000). Mapping the Body in Cyberpunk Fiction and Science. Universiterit Utrecht, Retrieved March 21, 2007, from http://www.let.uu.nl/~Mischa.Peters/personal/bologna/paper.html
Chislenko, Alexander. (December 11, 2003). Technology as Extension of Human Functional Architecture. Extropy Online. Retrieved March 25, 2007, from http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/technology_as_extension.html
Schummer, Joachim. (2004). Societal and Ethical Implications of Nanotechnology: Meanings, Interest Groups, and Social Dynamics. University of Darmstadt. Retrieve March 26, 2007, from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v8n2/pdf/schummer.pdf

BEAR's

[cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction that literally imagines our future. Identify some of the associations between (written or cinematic) cyberpunk and technological innovation in the popular imagination]---BY BEAR, Kwong Hoi Leung

In this essay, I have used google.com and the yahoo.com to search the relate document. In the search process, the most difficult is hard to discover the well-known author's article. But in the result of searching, it has many website which is about the cyberpunk, but related topic paper are less, and some foreign author's paper must pay money only then may watch.
This essay topic is: [cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction that literally imagines our future. Identify some of the associations between (written or cinematic) cyberpunk and technological innovation in the popular imagination.]. I have looked for six websites articles, the most early article which published on 1948, it took the comparison until the recent years paper.
In the website [Mapping the Body in Cyberpunk Fiction and Science][2] which written by Mischa Peters, it defined what is cyberpunk. [...Cyberpunk, for those who do not know the genre, is a sub-genre of science fiction. It is used to describe writers like William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Lewis Shiner, Pat Cadigan, Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear (among others). It often sketches a dark vision of the future: in this future information technology has penetrated every aspect of a society where corporate, multinational companies and the 'mafia' seem to be ruling, and which is populated by a range of (post-)human forms].
In recently years, story or movie which relate to cyberpunk style which always appears that [sketches a dark vision of the future], such as Matrix,Robot Cop or other.
In Matrix, the computers control the world, and a part of human try to fight back. In Matrix, most of the human are roiling as the battery to provide power for computer. This paper is suggested that the human is complex in cyberpunk fiction is very common. In this paper, it had talk about the charter in the cyberpunk movie how they mapping the bodies with technological. The re-make human is simple, or the human without re-make operation can not be alive in cyberpunk fiction. But, there is less a statement to talk about the humanist. The old form of humanist is seeking for the nature body, the cyberpunk fiction is opposite to the moral.
In another website [Cyberpunk in the Nineties][3] is written by Bruce Sterling support this point. Bruce think that the group of Cheap Truth blind to follow to write the cyberpunk fiction, and the cyberpunk story a dark vision, the human in the fiction is re-build ed, it is the crash of the moral. But, the re-build of human body is not create in the cyberpunk fiction, but the cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction, it seems to prove the tech. is not humanity.
[This "anti-humanist" conviction in cyberpunk is not simply some literary stunt to outrage the bourgeoisie; this is an objective fact about culture in the late twentieth century. Cyberpunk didn't invent this situation; it just reflects it .][3].
Also, Bruce think that the cyberpunk fiction is outdated. It is because in 50's, the technological is not well at that time, people had great expectation for it. It was a fresh category of fiction, it made crash in it. But in the late 80's, the technological developed and the people started to think the technological crash the moral and would be calamity.
[SF's struggle for quality was indeed old news, except to Cheap Truth, whose writers were simply too young and parochial to have caught on. But the cultural terrain had changed, and that made a lot of difference. Honest "technological literacy" in the 50's was exhilarating but disquieting - but in the high-tech 80's, "technological literacy" meant outright ecstasy and dread. Cyberpunk was weird, which obscured the basic simplicity of its theory- and- practice. ][3]
Another definition of cyberpunk which write by Illusivemind ,[Cyberpunk is about expressing (often dark) ideas about human nature, technology and their respective combination in the near future.], the negative image of the cyberpunk is permeated in the people mind, such as the feeling of cyberpunk is cool, the corruption, the dirty city, and the machine and human integrate, those are opposite to the moral in now-days. It makes the human to wake and introspection.[ In a cyberpunks near-future, technology runs rampant, and usually manipulates most societal interactions. Dystopian near futures are very common, but so are futures where the impacts of specific technologies are played out in a world only slightly different from the present. Sacred societal boundaries are often crossed with regularity. Often the earth is severely damaged. Crime and drug use are often key supporting themes .][4]
Mike Featherstone and Roger Burrow's book[Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk: cultures of technological embodiment][1] quoted Norbert Wiene idea. The cybernetics was conceived as a communications network function, in 40's, it is a new study topic of the automata, whatever it is metal or in the flesh. The automata is impressions, the people was imaginably that the automata's the incoming message and the action if the outgoing message process. The people in 40's was joy to see the technological in the cyberspace, but there was no cyberpunk fiction in that time.
For my views, the cyberpunk fiction is a fibbing story which create by a writer. The story forces on the technology and the future. As Bruce ideas, the Cyberpunk story is against to the moral, such as the re-building body. And the Cyberpunks world is negative, it let the reader in bad impression. But in fact, the technology always against to the moral, and the world is towards to the "cyberpunk" world! For example, the power shortage is the fact and problem, and the pollution problem affect to our earth. If there is no another resource to replace and solve the pollution, there will be a reality "cyberpunk" world in future. The writer is foresee the problem in now-days world. Also, the new technology always against to the moral, for example the "human cloning", it is also against to the bible and the moral.
In 40's, the people were happy to see the technology improvement, beside the technology was outdated at that time, the topic of the story is fresh! Now-days the cyberpunk story is too many! It is not attractive anymore.
In the Michael Heim views, there is no reality in the cyberspace. The people living in the fake world- Internet. The cyberspace is imagination and create by people that has no wall to block each country and community. The Internet is a communication tools. [ If the people who make simulations inevitably incorporate their own perceptions and beliefs, loading cyberspace with their prejudices as well as their insights, who should build the cyberworld? Should multiple users at any point be free to shape the qualities and dimensions of cyber entities? Should artistic users roam freely, programming and directing their own unique cyber cinemas that provide escape from the mundane world? Or does fantasy cease where the economics of the virtual workplace begins? But why be satisfied with a single virtual world? Why not several? Must we pledge allegiance to a single reality? Perhaps worlds should be layered like onion skins, realities within realities, or be loosely linked like neighborhoods, permitting free aesthetic pleasure to coexist with the task-oriented business world. Does the meaning of "reality"--and the keen existential edge of experience--weaken as it stretches over many virtual worlds?][5]
The cyberpunk fiction is genre of the science fiction, and those of the technology is not reality. But now-days, the Internet create a cyberspace, it build a fibbing space for the user to make their own community. They can earn the money or buy the stuff on it. For my own view, the trade on the Internet is not real, and the world of the cyberspace is not reality. The Internet is a tools to let the people communication between different community, but the community is not really exist. The really exist is the server only. And those of the web or cyberspace are the program or symbol in a computer, we can't call the symbol to be reality.
William Gibson, on his writing say that it is because he know how to use the Internet, it affect the sales of his book. It is because the first book is create by himself. The reader think it is fresh. But the second, it is because he know how to use the Internet, he started to read other author's story. It make him into the "Cheap Truth".
[I thought I was immune to the Net. Then I got bitten by eBay.][5].
References
[1]
Mike Featherstone, Roger Burrows."Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk: cultures of technological embodiment".1996. Retrieved 19, March 2007,
http://books.google.com/books?id=wjtm5I1XUd8C&dq=Cyberpunk&hl=zh-TW
[2]Mischa Peters . " Mapping the Body in Cyberpunk Fiction and Science".September 29 2000. Retrieved 21,March 2007,http://www.let.uu.nl/~Mischa.Peters/personal/bologna/paper.html
[3]Sterling, Bruce. " Cyberpunk in the Nineties". Retrieved 23,March 2007,http://www.streettech.com/bcp/BCPtext/Manifestos/CPInThe90s.html
[4] Illusivemind. "What is Cyberpunk?". Retrieved 17, March, 2007
http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/what-is-cyberpunk/
[5]Michael Heim."The Erotic Ontology of Cyberspace". Retrieved 17, March, 2007
http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/erotic_ontology_of_cyberspace.html
[6]
William Gibson. "My Obsession". Retrieved 21, March, 2007
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.01/ebay.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=

Sing's Webliography

Q1. In Haraway's“Cyborg Manifesto”, she strategically assigns her cyborg a female gender. In what way is gender significant in the representation of cyborgs in popular culture and technoscience?

Cyborg, the full name is Cybernetic organism which is a hybrid of machine and organism and a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. In this webliography, I have chosen 6 online resources to elaborate the gender significant in the representation of cyborgs, created by Donna Haraway. Firstly, I use “Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto” these key words to browse in the Google search engine. I want to find some of the related articles in order to know more about the aspect of cyborg in the gender way.

Let's start with my first source, “The Female Cyborg”, Luciano Duran has written some explanation of “Cyborg Manifesto” in the first paragraph. The author tries to use a feminist angle to explore many ideas of cyborg. Also, this article is mainly talking about the Feminism cyborg as we can see in the “Feminist cyborgs are the agents of US Third World feminism and the illegitimate offspring of ‘patriarchal capitalism.’” This feminist cyborg is able to be understood as the technological embodiment challenges the patriarchy society and values.
Why did Haraway create this cybernetic organism? The answer we can be found in the second source, “Power and Invisibility” by Andrew Arsham. Create or being a cyborg becomes a new way to survive in this post-modern society. (The word has come to mean a combination of man and machine) Also, it contains another definition of cyborg we have never seen in the other article.

I have chosen Theresa M. Senft's articles for my third source. Unlike other articles, it has a simple introduction and conclusion. The author has using many short sentences instead of some complicated long sentences. It’s a very useful tool in order to let the readers know more clear about what the definition of cyborg is and understand the background information of Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto”. In the articles, the author is using a metaphor to introduce cyborg as a monster and discussing three current “border crossings”. On the other hand, there are some headlines which related to the gender thinking. Like Haraway argued that the feminists have deployed some ideas of women experiences and the cyborg will "change what counts as experience" for women in the late twentieth century. Also, Haraway deals specifically with the issue of feminist political organizing in light of cyborg politics. Indeed, she suggests that feminist might be better served, Haraway notes, by considering “woman” to be a socially constructed category, deployed in a communications network, along the lines of “homosexual” and “youth”.

The cyborg always comes across in the aspects of popular culture such as science- fiction films. In the third source, “The Cyborg Self”, the author tries to use a type of cyberpunk films, Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell to mention about the sexuality features of cyborg. Cyberpunk is a sub-genre of science fiction film which is usually set in near future and focuses on the technology, computer and dystopian world. Some of the characters are treated as the sexual objects in the films. In the first paragraph, the author suggests that female cyborg is “the mix of masculine, rational, mechanistic technology with the feminine, conflated in the Western imagination with nature, emotion, and sentimentality embodies the cyborg's transgression of the human/machine distinction.” As a paternalistic authority or father-like leadership style, women or femininity is associated with passive, dependent or weakness. Women were often treated as a second class people and women had to follow “the rule of man” in the society. “Female cyborgs are endowed with hyperfeminine, sexualized traits”. For example in Blade Runner, Major Kusanagi and the Knight Sabers have large, feminine breasts that are often the focus of the camera's gaze that means to fulfill the male gaze by the focus of the camera.

Let's talk more about Blade Runner from, “Finding the Cyborg: Blade Runner”. In this article, Andrew Ross introduces the idea of Haraway’s manifesto being “a kind of ‘bad girl’ manifestoes because the film is talking about the female characters “pleasure and danger”. He refers to the dangers of burgeoning technology of women leaving their historically assigned realm of nature and engaging in a risky embrace of science, the mechanical, everything supposedly foreign to them. Destroying this old boundary is the task of a bad girl, “oppositional.” This move towards cyborgicity must begin with the feminine if it comes cross a gender line and become postgender. For a boy to embrace technology is nothing transgressive or new, it does nothing to help him transcend gender. So it is the female replicants that will occupy the center of this discussion, not Roy, Leon or Deckard, in his ambiguous humanity. Obviously, Pris, Zhora and Rachael live on a more distant fringe and contain the greatest transgressive potential. The film’s treatment of them provides the most meaningful insights into gender cyborgicity.

At the beginning of my last sources, “When Technoscience Rewrites Biology”, the author asks a question instantly. “What’s the difference between man and woman, in a world where technoscience is rewriting biology?” Some of the points in this article are very closely with Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” which emphasis the oppression against binary opposition of gender. To answer the question, the article mentions that cyborg is woman as female in gender are culturally constructed as emotional, sexual and usually as naturally maternal. These stereotype characteristics just like the traditional women traits and it also mentions that women need to use our own powers from whatever sources we can gather them to create new meanings and better worlds in the post-modern period.

In conclusion, I think cyborg is always created as female gender no matter in the popular culture such as the science fiction films like Blade Runner. Female characters in the films being an ideal female figure, project towards the men character or audience. It is the same as the characteristic of traditional women. Most of the authors suggest that women need to use their own powers to create a better world in this post modern society. It's also the worthiness of the shown of cyborg.






Reference:
[1] Duran, L, ‘Female Cyborg’
http://mjbarias.com/scifi/femcyb.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[2] Andrew, A, ‘Power and Invisibility’
http://www.knoi.ch/cyborg/cyborg.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[3]Senft, Theresa M. “Reading Notes on Donna Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto’” (21 October 2001)
http://www.echonyc.com/~janedoe./writing/manifesto.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[4] Nagle, P. ‘The Cyborg Self’
http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/cpace/cyborg/nagle/7.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[5] Hannah, K, ‘Finding the Cyborg: Blade Runner’
http://girl_type.tripod.com/papers/bladerunner.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[6] Radin, P, ‘When Technoscience Rewrites Biology.’ (June 1997)
http://www.easst.net/review/june1997/radin (accessed on 23 March 2007)

Critical Annotated Webliography on Haraway's 'Cyborg Manifesto'

Guiding Question:
In Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto’, she strategically assigns her cyborg a female gender. In what ways is gender significant in the representation of cyborgs in popular culture and technoscience?

Introduction

In researching on the guiding question one, at the beginning, I used the Google Scholar search engines searching for “Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto, gender significant in the representation of cyborgs in popular culture”. This search produced hundred of results, but many of them are books or some resources that I cannot directly link them. Thus, there are not useful for my webliography. Therefore, I switch to used Google search engine. After perusing the first ten pages of the results, I was able to locate seven articles that I believed would be closely related and useful to answering the guiding question. These articles are as follow:

Donna Haraway first published the essay “A Cyborg Manifesto”[1] in 1985. At that time, the manifesto was promptly causing controversy. The manifesto is characterized by Haraway as the femaleness of the cyborg. The cyborg in Haraway’s manifesto has always been discussed in the context of techo-science and popular culture. I will first examine a variety of interpretations on Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto’. And I will then examine the way in which gender is significant in the representaion of cyborgs in media text.

Theresa M. Senft’s article[2] offers a useful introduction to Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto’. She demonstrates her interpretations of Haraway’s text. The article was well organized and comprehensive. It is a helpful starting point to understand the manifesto. Susanna Paasonen’s article[3], on the hand, explores how the manifesto has been read and defined by other scholars. She point out that the cyborg in Haraway’s manifesto was a theoretical figure, a rhetorical strategy and a political method for reconsidering hierarchical binary thinking and binary divisions, i.e. the boundaries between male and female, organic and inorganic, natural and artificial. She continues, the cyborg is breaking boundaries of gender, race or sexuality. In this sense, it becomes an alternative figuration for us to think and speak about the relationship between women and technology, and the possibilities for change and multiplicity. Susanna explains that the manifesto call for women’s active participation in techno-scientific research, feminist appropriation and incorporation of the technology. In short, it strategically functions in rethinking feminist agency.

Hari Kunzru’s article[4] on Donnaway’s ideas proved to be a very useful. Kunzru further explain Susanna’s interpretation that the purpose of the manifesto is to encourage us to rethink about what is natural today and possibility to change. Kunzru illustrated his point with example. Women were told that they were “naturally” weak, emotional, dependent, submissive, and so on, whereas male is strong, aggressive, independent, and so on. Thus they should stay at home and take care of children. If they think that these things are natural and it is what they should do. Their situation will never change. But, if these things are not natural but constructed, like they cyborg, both men and female can be reconstructed with the right tools. In addition, he suggests that modems are the center of cyborg politics. It is because cyborg not just about the freedom construction of yourself, it is about the network too. Meanwhile, Kunzru argued that we are all cyborg. He details the evolution of cyborg to clarify his thesis. In the initial stage, cyborg can be transcending human’s bodily limitations. The typical example of cyborg is Superman. Then we have robots, automata and artificial people from the western culture. Kunzru points out the difference between automata and today’s cyborg is “information”. In 90s, cyborg is accomplished creature and more domestic than 50’s ancestor. Retinal implants, cochlear implants, cosmetic surgery, and so forth. All of them are technology or machine work on our body. Make it simple, people who wear glasses can be considered is a cyborg, because people make use of glasses to help them seeing. Thus, I highly agree with Kunzru that we are cyborg.

Theodora-Eliza Vacarescu[5], on the one hand, argued that Frankenstein’s Monster initially is a cyborg, and, consequently, Donna Haraway’s cyborg is the modern version of Frankenstein’s monster. According to Haraway, the cyborg is a creature in a post-gender world; it is neither female, nor male, or both. Frankenstein’s monster is obviously a man. Can we consider it is a woman? It is transgressed of gender boundary. Vacarescu claim that gender uncertainty of the monster makes him a monster. In this sense, Vacarescu use Frankenstein as a metaphor to challenge Haraway’s ideas that the cyborg was crossing the boundary between male and female. She argues Haraway’s idea confused the gender boundaries and definitions.

In Rochelle Rodrigo’s article[6], she mentions that Haraway, on the other hand, emphasizes that the cyborg difference from Frankenstein’s monster. Rodrigo indicated that The Terminator (1984) was released when Haraway just published the “Cyborg Manifesto”. Some of the most notable bad images of cyborgs also include Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Star Wars (1976), Blade Runner (1982) and Videodrome (1982). Haraway's choose to use some texts, such as Blade Runner, Anne McCaffrey's The Ship Who Sang (1969), Joanna Russ's The Female Man (1975) and Vonda McIntyre's Superluminal (1983) which have a good image to demonstrate her ideas on the manifesto. Haraway’s good cyborg image is an amusing contrast to bad cyborg image.

In popular culture and many science fiction films, female cyborgs are always depticted as objects of pornography, iron maiden, innocence and being control, on the contrary, male cyborg is smart, intelligent and rebel. Ulrich Scheck’s article[7] examines gender relations in science fiction film and television from 1980 to present in popular culture in general. Scheck notes that female characters took the peripheral and unimportant roles in the science fiction universe in 60’s to early 70’s. However, representation of women has change start from the first movie of the Alien (1979) to the Star Trek Enterprise series (2001). Women, in this decade, have been depicted as scientists, explorers, mission leaders, and starship captains. Representations of women become more equal even surpassing men in traditional male-dominated roles. Scheck claim that gender roles become more fluid and less restrict to the binary concepts, like what Haraway has suggested. Moreover, the relationship between male and female should take some turns. Indeed, the representation of women has seemingly changed. However, I doubt that women can be surpassing men-dominated roles in science fiction universe. Moreover, the portrayal of cyborg characters reinforces gender binary. For instance, the Borg Queen in the Star Trek seems strong and powerful, but eventually, she loses to Data and the caption.

Conclusion

Donna Haraway's boardly referenced and dicussed "Cyborg Manifesto" has inspired researchers to rethink the hierarchical binary thinking and binary divisions, the boundaries between organic and inorganic, natural and artificial, and in particular, male and female. In addition, it encourage us to rethink the relationship between women and technologies. The ways in which how women are represent in film and popular culture, are seemingly change. I argue that the portrayal of cyborg characters in popular culture, to certain extent, still reinforces gender binary. Female characters still took the peripheral and unimportant roles in the science fiction universe. For instance, the female characters depicted in Matrix.

References:

[1] Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century" http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html, accessed 20 Mar 2007.
[2] Senft, Theresa M. "Reading Notes on Donna Haraway's 'Cyborg Manifesto.'", 21 Oct 2001, http://www.echonyc.com/~janedoe/writing/manifesto.html, accessed 20 Mar 2007

[3] Susanna, Paasonen. “Cyborg & Cyclops: the vision of a man-machine” http://www.translocal.net/susanna/cyborg_cyclops.pdf accessed 20 Mar 2007

[4] Hari Kunzru. ‘You are cyborg’, Wired Magazine, 5.02, (February 1997) http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffharaway_pr.html, accessed 20 Mar 2007
[5] Theodora-Eliza, Vacarescu. “From Frankenstein’s Monster to Haraway’s Cyborg” http://www.feminism.ro/book_gender_post/part4/Theo_Vacarescu.pdf, accessed 20 Mar 2007

[6] Rochelle Rodrigo. “Rochelle Rodrigo’s “Cyborging: Rhetoric Beyond
Donna Haraway and the Cyborg Manifesto”, The Journal of Advancing Technology, Volume 2 (Spring 2005) http://www.information-technology-college.com/subPages/insideTheTechnology/subpages/inthefield/subpages/journal/content/spring_2005/UAT_Journal_spring2005.pdf, accessed 20 Mar 2007

[7] Ulrich Scheck. “Where No Woman Has Gone Before: Humour and Gender Crossing in Star Trek’s Voyager and Enterpris” http://www.german.ubc.ca/GLM/bronnbach/WS1_Scheck_Web.pdf, accessed 20 Mar 2007

Webliography on cyberpunk by Shelia

Question 3: Cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction that literally imagines our future. Identify some of the associations between (written or cinematic) cyberpunk and technological innovation in the popular imagination.

As a sub-genre of science fiction, the settings of cyberpunk are always related with a dark, polluted urban area, advanced technologies and criminal activities. Yet these settings have made its readers to associate cyberpunk with the unknown future. There are six online sources used in this webliography, located mostly from searching engines like Google Scholars and Yahoo with keywords like "cyberpunk", "technology innovation" and some cyberpunk movies or novels like "Martix" and "Neuromancer". In this webliography, the nature of cyberpunk will first be discussed, followed by different writers' viewpoints towards cyberpunk. A compare of their writings will be provided and followed by a summary.

What is cyberpunk? Christian Kirtchev has provided a detailed description of it in the website The Cyberpunk Project. (1999) The writer indicates that cyberpunk is an attitude how people react to the technological innovations in the future, when computers' are no longer fully under control of people. The computers begin to have their own feeling, the artificial intelligence.

In Cyberpunk in the Nineties, Bruce Sterling has pointed out that "... the cultural terrain had changed, and that made a lot of difference. Honest "technological literacy" in the 50's was exhilarating but disquieting - but in the high-tech 80's, "technological literacy" meant outright ecstasy and dread. Cyberpunk was weird, which obscured the basic simplicity of its theory- and- practice." (1998) He has made it clear that cyberpunk, according to his own opinion, has been a bypast. Human beings who have always tried to lay their hands on developing some imagined technological innovation are bound to fail. He used Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley as an example to explain that human's curiosity on technology and invention is mistaken since "there are Some Things Man Was Not Meant to Know", as "there are no mere physical mechanisms for this higher moral law - its workings transcend mortal understanding, it is something akin to divine will."

Apart from Sterling's view on the past of cyberpunk, another writer, Nobuo Kamioka in Cyberpunk Revisited: William Gibson's Neuromancer and the "Multimedia Revolution", provided her viewpoints on cyberpunk and future technologies. She used Gibson's Neuromancer as an example to indicate that the science-fiction genre is a prediction of the technological innovation, namely "the coming 'multimedia revolution'". (1998) The fourth part of her essay points out Gibson's weakness. When Gibson first published Neuromancer, it became popular more or less because of the imagination on how technology and future would be. However, during the late 1980s when Gibson publishes his second and third novels, "personal computers had spread widely and the Internet had started to be used by the masses. Gibson, at the same time, seems to bring the technologies in these novels closer to those which actually exist." It is found that his second and third works are not as creative as Neuromancer. Therefore, these works were not as popular as his previous one.

Another post, Mapping the Body in Cyberpunk Fiction and Science was written by Mischa Peters and found in University Utrecht's website. Although this essay is a PhD Paper of the writer, she wrote something reflective related to cyberpunk and technological innovation. By first explaining what cyberpunk is, she stated that "cyberpunk novels are influenced... by the contemporary developments in science and they often display visions of the new technologies of today." (2000) And technology in cyberpunk has taken over "the role of biology" by means of using machineries as substitutes of human organs. She used William Gibson's novel Neuromancer as examples to explain that human bodies in this genre are often in conflict with the virtual body, or the imaginative body in cyberpunk novels or movies. By quoting Hollinger's writings (1991) about human beings in cyberpunk will soon lose credibility, she suggests that "New technologies are continually crossing once stable borders and are blurring familiar boundaries". This essay has posted a reflective warning that what could be seen in cyberpunk will eventually lead us to the foreseeable dead end – the dark, polluted urban area with advanced technologies fully or partially controlling human beings.

Gustavo Lins Ribeiro has posted the fear of human beings towards cyberpunk. The writer wrote in Bodies and Culture in the Cyberage. A review Essay (1997) that technology is crucial because "man's internal and external conditions is blurred". In cyberpunk, which is being connected to the world's technological future, human beings faced a complicated relationship with technology for their biological bodies will be "engineered, rebuilt, reshaped, and reconfigured" by machineries. On the one hand, human beings are waiting eagerly for the age of cyberpunk to come and wishing for technological advance. On the other hand, they are feared of "loosing memory, identity, integrity, agency, power and control".

With all the positive/negative connotations of the cyberpunk on movies and literatures, people might either be fear of or admire the future technological innovation. In Societal and Ethical Implications of Nanotechnology: Meanings, Interest Groups, and Social Dynamics, Schummer has provided that the dehumanized world is a human alienation and is qualified as dystopia. Cyberpunk has always provided advancement in technology even if the technology innovation threatens the human beings. And people should have their own viewpoints towards cyberpunk. As he suggests, "Instead of conveying a simple moral message, it is rather up to readers to make their own positive or negative judgment on the fictional technology's impacts on society. While many readers might feel uncomfortable with such visions, Cyberpunk has... inspired many, if not all, visions of transhumanist utopia."

It is true that people should have their own understanding towards cyberpunk and not just believe in what the movies and literatures bought to them. As Kirtchev (1999) explained in the last few paragraphs, cyberpunk should be controlled and used for good. The writer brings out the idea that "it is not tech that makes your chances in the future world, tech just enhances them, if you use it right."

Sterling stated that cyberpunk is a reflection of the reality early in 1988 by pointing out that ""anti-humanist" conviction in cyberpunk is not simply some literary stunt to outrage the bourgeoisie; this is an objective fact about culture in the late twentieth century. Cyberpunk didn't invent this situation; it just reflects it." We have to understand that cyberpunk is nothing but a science-fiction genre, which should not hinder the future technological developments.

References

Sterling, Bruce. “ Cyberpunk in the Nineties”. Street Tech, 1998. Retrieved March 20, 2007, http://www.streettech.com/bcp/BCPtext/Manifestos/CPInThe90s.html

Peters, Mischa. “Mapping the Body in Cyberpunk Fiction and Science’. Universiterit Utrecht, September 29, 2000. Retrieved March 21, 2007, http://www.let.uu.nl/~Mischa.Peters/personal/bologna/paper.html

Kamioka, Nobuo. “Cyberpunk Revisited: William Gibson’s Neuromancer and the ‘Multimedia Revolution”. Meiji University, 1998. Retrieved March 21, 2007, http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/jaas/periodicals/JJAS/PDF/1998/No.09-053.pdf

Gustavo Lins Ribeiro. “Bodies and Culture in the Cyberage. A review Essay”. Brasilia, 1997. Retrieved March 21, 2007, http://www.unb.br/ics/dan/Serie217empdf.pdf

Schummer, John. “Societal and Ethical Implications of Nanotechnology: Meanings, Interest Groups, and Social Dynamics”. University of Darmstadt, 2004. Retrieved March 23, 2007, http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v8n2/pdf/schummer.pdf

Kirtchev, Christian. “Cyberpunk Understood”. The Cyberpunk Project, December 5, 1999. Retrieved March 24, 2007, http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/cyberpunk_understood.html

Isabel: Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto

Introduction

To this critical annotated webliography, it is talking about Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” for her declaration of “cyborg was female”. I have read the relevant material of Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” before to search the online resource. Then I focused on the most important terms which appearing in the reading such as “female cyborg” or woman cyborg,” to search via the google .com, then I went through the source and chose the source which were most relevant my topic and after reading and confirm the resource, finally I located on the article such as “the world with out gender”; “Feminism and the technology of the body” written by Anat Tesler Mesika. These sources were useful to prove and use as to criticize of “cyborg was female”.


The cyborg always comes across in the aspect of popular culture such as science fiction, movies as well as artwork. In fact, both “cyborg” and the popular culture were mutually influenced. For instance, the article “When Technosicence Rewritten Biology” mentioned the science fictions which arise in 1970s such as Female male written by feminist Joanna Russ. In the fiction there are four female and three of female were living in the future world in an all female world. It was very closely to Haraways’s manifesto which emphasis the burring the binary of gender as it gives possibility to oppress the gender binary. To prove Haraway’s declaration of “cyborg is woman”, Ann Blasamo concluded in her study that differentiates between images of Cyborg-man and Cyborg-woman. The article mentions that cyborg are woman as female in gender are culturally constructed as emotional, sexual and usually as naturally maternal; these stereotype characteristics enable a more radical blurring of an organic-mechanic hybridization.


Moreover, the article “He, She or It: The Cyborg De-Constructs Gender in Post Modern Science Fiction” also point out that on the 60s and 70s, there were many women science fiction writer. Through their fiction, the female characters were masculine, touch and have ability to lead. Gender was reverse as the character of female are in more important position within the story, such as women could pilot a starship just as well as a man. The author believed that the new wave of women science fiction writer were question the male dominate constructed social and the nature of gender. Author utilized Marge Piercy and Joan Slonczewski’s science fiction, to examine how the cyborg used to be a new representation of gender and question, redefine gender. Though Marge Piercy and Joan Slonczewski’s story, the cyborg’s characters such as Malkah and later, Shira, program Yod to be the best of both genders. It was precisely, boundary between female and male was disappearing. These fictions have been linked with Donna Harraway's"A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century."


Cyborg appeared in the science fiction movies frequently as well, it was useful to have critical analysis towards the concept of Haraway’s woman cyborg which represent in the film. For Dichotimic patterns and the Cyborg, Anat Tesler Mesika used haraway’s woman cyborg to find a possibility to escape from the binary opposition hierarchy society through the popular movies literature. However, these possibilities seldom appeared in the most of science fiction through author’s point of view. Through the “star trek”, the author analyzed three characters in the film just like woman “borg”. Her face was a mixture of animal, goodness and woman. It seems that it reflecting what have Haraway said, it is burring the boundaries of human, animal and machine. However, the author depicted it as a stereotyped woman as her female body was a cultural given. For the other character, the captain was a complete human man, and “data” was a complete technological robot. The movie was present the Woman “borg” battle with the human man, as a result the pure man and machine won. The woman “borg” who crossed the boundary has to destroy. It seems that the gender representation still in the situation of male dominated society. It can’t prove “Cyborg manifesto” which haraway mentioned “the Cyborg is a place where new images are not been build by fragments of old images. Anat Tesler Mesika couldn’t found any images in the texts and she emphasis that the hierarchy culture is not allowed the “other” existence.

To prove Haraway’s declaration of “cyborg is woman”, Ann Blasamo concluded in her study that differentiates between images of Cyborg-man and Cyborg-woman. The article mentions that cyborg are woman as female in gender are culturally constructed as emotional, sexual and usually as naturally maternal; these stereotype characteristics enable a more radical blurring of an organic-mechanic hybridization.

Gender was represented through cyborg in art by the feminist. Through the article of The World without gender 1, author introduced many feminists as well as some feminist project, most of feminists are argue the how the gender/man being constructed under the patriarchy society. Through The World without Gender2, the idea of cyborg gives a possibility to resist the binary opposition.
The author also mentioned that, technosicence as a great impulse for Haraway’s cyborg. It provided a space for re-constructed history and writing woman. The artists find the inspiration through the new notion of the cyborg in their own works. Therefore, new technology created a new future in new histories that article mentioned.

Regarding to Stefan Marti’s Identity and Cyborg Body , he introduced a virtual game called MUD. We categorized this virtual game as a kind of advanced technosicence. Through the virtual world, the game players were cyborg, they can change their gender and identities easily. It seems that the gender boundaries were disappear but the fact that the female role still being stereotyped. Therefore, “cyborg manifesto in that way was invalid.

On the other hand, according to Wendy Harcourt through The World without Gender2, author remarked that technology stimulated the feminist studies to their own practice in particular, to exploring cyborg-feminism with work that addresses. The image of the cyborg presented as an artwork, just like Korean artist’s Cyborg sculptures and installations works. These new deconstruct the female body with the theory with Donna Haraway. Through the technologies therefore as a significant representation such as Lee Bul’s cyborg, which rooted in the issues of today in terms of genetics, science, technology, and sexuality, it proved Haraway’s manifesto and cyborg-feminism.

Conclusion

In conclude, I found that there were some online recourses such as article or research were putting Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” in a crucial position even based on her “Cyborg Manifesto” to development their own perspective of argument. Obviously, “Cyborg Manifesto” brought a great influence for feminist and also the popular culture. Although some of scholar interpreted Haraway’s manifesto were invalid, it still keeping question and to challenge gender binary and gain a possibility to ask a better tomorrow.




Reference:

Radin, Patricia, “When Technoscience Rewrites Biology.” The European Association fot the Study of Sicence and Technology,Volume 16(2). June 1997. 21 march .2007 < http://www.easst.net/review/june1997/radin>.

Summerhawk ,Barbara, “He, She or It: The Cyborg De-Constructs Gender in Post Modern Science Fiction”, English and American Literature Department, July 8, 1998, 21.march.2007 <>.

Anar,Tesler Mesika, “Feminism and the technology of body: Dichotimic patterns and the Cyborg. ” Tel Aviv University, 22.march.2007, <http://www.tau.ac.il/~teslerme/cyborg%20talk.doc>.


“The world without gender1.” University at Buffalo,World Wide Web.
22 march. 2007 <http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jhwhang/without%20gender1.htm>.


“The world without gender1.” University at Buffalo,World Wide Web. 22 march. 2007 <http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jhwhang/haraway%20and%20Lee%20bul.htm>.


Marti, Stefan, “On Elizabeth Reid: Cultural Formations, Chapter Three: Identity and Cyborg Body.” 21march.2007 <http://web.media.mit.edu/~stefanm/vsociety/ElizabethReid.html>.