Rettberg: Chapters 2&3 of Seeing Ourselves Through Technology

Jessica Taylor

3/28/2016

Dr. Zamora

ENG5085

 

Chapters Two & Three of Jill Walker Rettberg’s Seeing Ourselves Through Technology

 

In chapter two of Seeing Ourselves Through Technology, “Filtered Reality”, Jill Walker Rettberg uses “filter” as both an analytical term to understand algorithmic culture and as a metaphor for the ways that technology alters and distorts—and even sometimes removes—certain aspects of our text, images, and data. Throughout the chapter, Rettberg discusses the similarities between the visual filters that we apply to images, the technological filters that alter our social media feeds, and the cultural filter that shape our choices and actions online.

In terms of visual filters, Rettberg notes that “one reason that filters fascinate us is that it gives the image that strangeness that defamiliarizes our lives. The filtered image shows us ourselves, or our surroundings, with a machine’s vision” (26). And although filters have become so overused and commonplace that the defamiliarization effect wears off, “seeing ourselves through a filter [still] allows us to see ourselves anew” (26). Using a filter is simply one way to make our everyday experiences more special to ourselves.

Another reason that people may choose to apply filters to images has to do with selfies. Rettberg writes that selfies can sometimes feel raw or revealing—too real. Filters allow us some distance from images of ourselves. According to Rettberg, it’s “as if we are outside of ourselves” (27). Perhaps that is why some people choose to use filters and apps that alter their image so drastically. This could explain why apps such as SkinneePix and Facetune exist.

Rettberg also discusses cultural and technological filters which frequently overlap and are often affected by one another. Cultural filters are the rules that guide us and teach us to filter out some forms of expression. Rettberg notes that we know what we are “supposed to” do because of the shared ideas of our culture. One example that is provided is the use of preformatted baby journals. Rettberg argues that cultural filters teach new parents what they are “supposed to” document and share. Creativity is often limited—inside of these preformatted journals there are prompts and spaces dedicated for certain pictures. She goes further to say that digital versions of these baby journals are even more restrictive. While you can alter non-digital baby journals to some degree by ripping out pages or pasting larger pictures overtop of some, you cannot usually alter digital versions at all.

Algorithms are another example of technological filters. Recently, Instagram announced that they would be switching their feed from a reverse chronological order to an algorithm similar to Facebook. This caused a huge backlash. One has to wonder if this is because the digital community is aware that algorithms filter some people out.

In chapter Three, “Serial Selfies”, Rettberg argues that one needs to see social media genres as feeds and analyze each post or image as part of a series. She goes on to discuss some visual self-representation genres that are very serial such as time-lapse videos and profile pictures. The first example of a serial selfie artist that Rettberg mentions is Suzanne Szucs. Szucs began taking Polaroid pictures every day in 1996 and continued for 15 years. Rettberg likens her mass of self-portraits to Instagram.

There is a strong storytelling aspect to cumulative self-presentation online. Time-lapse videos allow the creator to present months—even years—of their lives in a matter of minutes. Ahree Lee and Noah Kalina created “Me” and “Everyday” respectively. Both videos where posted on YouTube in 2006 and feature the creator’s selfies over a long period of time. Rettberg notes that audience fascination with these types of projects often has to do with watching change happen in hyperspeed.  She also notes that race and gender may have influenced the different receptions of these two videos. Some of the YouTube comments for “Me” are cited including: “Lol she’s Asian so she looked the same for the whole thing” and more that mentioned her gender (37). It was interesting to watch examples of pregnancy and childhood time-lapse videos because the idea of a story is more obviously present. I found myself responding more to videos like these.

Next, Rettberg discusses profile pictures as visual identity. Profile photos are a form of communication, a “visual expression of identity” (40). They change over time and taken cumulatively, tell a story. Later, Rettberg mentions temporary profile pictures or filters, like the ones sometimes offered by Facebook. Sometimes users are given a choice to add filters or icons that have to do with the changing seasons or upcoming holidays. Also, Facebook often allows users to add a filter to show support after terror attacks such as the flag of the country. Rettberg writes that these types of temporary profile pictures are used to show support and solidarity, but they can also be coercive as people may feel pressured to use them.

Both of these chapters highlight how technology can be used to form digital identity and how cultural and technological filters can alter and shape that identity. As Rettberg notes, technology comes with certain affordances and limitations. In certain ways, our culture shapes our interaction with technology and vise-versa. Our choice of digital self-representation and performance tells a story; in some aspects we get to choose in which ways we tell that story, and in some ways we have no choice at all.

 

Discussion questions can be found on the Google Doc!

Boyd's "White Flight in Networked Publics?”

Dana Boyd’s “White Flight in Networked Publics?” begins with a comment from Kat, a fourteen-year-old from a charter school outside of Boston. In 2007, Boyd asked Kat why her friends were moving from MySpace to Facebook. Kat’s response: Myspace is more “Ghetto”.

In the article, Boyd uses data collected from 2004-2009—interviews and observations from teens in diverse communities across 17 states, 2,000 hours of observation of online practices, and 10,000 randomly selected MySpace profiles—to form the argument that teen preference for one form of social media over another reflects “a reproduction of social categories that exist in schools throughout the United States”. The choice is racialized and reinforced because of self-segregation in schools.

Personally, I don’t know how much I agree with this. I missed the MySpace boat. I don’t really remember if I just wasn’t interested or if it had anything to do with my mom. She was very overprotective (I wasn’t allowed the watch MTV at 16 :I) And I didn’t join Facebook until 2009, when a long-distance friend pretty much bullied me into it. Maybe I was just out of the loop, but I do remember a few people from school having MySpace profiles. In my experience, it just seemed to fizzle out when Facebook became more popular. Facebook was newer and therefore better.

Anyway, Boyd goes on to say that a teen’s social world is shaped by race, and that in terms of their choice of social network, a distinction emerged. Facebook was more popular with white, more affluent teens. Boyd writes that “one way to conceptualize the division that unfolded is through the lens of white flight”. She likens teens moving to Facebook with white exodus to the suburbs. Boyd then notes, “Drawing parallels between these two events sheds light on how people’s engagement with technology reveals social division and the persistence of racism”.

In schools (even diverse schools), children self-segregate by race. There are social categories that come along with labels: “cheerleaders”, “goths”, “nerds”. These social categories mark people and groups based on a shared identity. According to Boyd, online spaces are also often organized by social categories.

Many teens cited personal preference as their reason for switching from MySpace to Facebook. They liked the features or the aesthetics. Also, many noted that pressure from friends (or simply following their friends to the new site) caused them to switch. Boyd mentions that “teens choose to use the social network sites that their friends use”. I say, “duh.” Isn’t that the whole point of social media sites… to be social? Again, I think that these are more plausible reasons for the switch. Teens often have a strong sense of FOMO. They want to be like their friends; they don’t want to be left behind or seen as different.

But Boyd says that this doesn’t disconnect their departure from issues of race. (?) She concludes that their experience with race and class shape their attitude towards aesthetics and features. I’m still not completely convinced.

Losh's Selfie Pedagogy I-IV

Wow! There is a lot more to selfies than I thought...
     In the first of Elizabeth Losh's Selfie Pedagogy blogs, we are introduced to the idea that selfies are worth studying in higher ed. and that the examination of selfies in higher education is not a new concept at all. It's just become more widely talked about because of scholars like Theresa Senft and Miriam Posner and the work of The Selfie Researchers Network. A link brings the reader to The Selfie Course, a six week class developed by academics from all over the world who are in the Selfie Researchers Network. The class covered topics such as "Branding & Celebrity", "Identity and Interpellation", and "Sexuality, Dating & Gender".
     The next link to "Selfies, Snapchat and Distance Learning" focused on Radhika Gajjala and her use of Snapchat assignments in the classroom. Gajjala notes that there is a "strong community component" in the assignments, and that students "are sharing personal stories". It was interesting that she mentioned that her colleagues "fret" about academic records because the images can't be saved. By planning ahead and using other components, it shows that  she has a strong understanding of the digital tools that she uses in the classroom, along with the limitations and affordances of tehse tools.
     Miriam Posner from UCLA was also a focus of this blog post. Her course "Selfies, Snapchat, and Cyberbullies: Coming of Age Online", takes on the question, "How do we talk about generational difference without flattening diversity or ascribing supernatural power to technology". Week 3 in her course looks at "what does identity mean in an online context" and "why is teen online behavior so often misunderstood". Posner also mentions that student privacy should be a concern to those who plan to teach a selfie course.
     In the second blog post, "Selfie Pedagogy II: Internet Identity and Selfie Practices", Alice E. Marwick is the focus. Losh mentions that it was Marwick who published The Selfie Course online so that it would be available to other educators. Marwick notes that she is interested in research surrounding identity and the internet, and "people's self presentation and self expression, and how it changes when they have access to the very large audiences online". She looks at strategic interactions to increase popularity and tries to figure out what practices lead to popularity.
     Marwick was also asked about her role as a core member of the Selfie Researchers Network. She said that as educators, we don't always talk about pedagogical practices, but that the interactions in the network "marry our research interest with practical day to day of teaching in a really effective way". She also offers a few basic guidelines for others who may be interested in teaching a selfie class: 1) urge students to create new accounts for the class, 2) she highly recommends the use of a pseudonym or alias, and 3) look into the pros and cons of using commercial sites. She said, "it was difficult to find technologies that give us openness online".
     "Selfie Pedagogy III: Networked Spaces, Slut Shaming and Putting Selfies in Dialog with Theory" focuses on Terri Senft and discusses her work with Camgirls. The Camgirls are equitable to the ways that girl's are practicing self-expression now. Senft notes that selfies can be used as objects of study to help liven media studies and to go against the feeling of detachment from the subject matter. This is definitely the case in situations like slut shaming, which led to the death of Amanda Todd, and political acts, like the response to the death of Sandra Bland. Senft points out that selfies can "humanize what's going on" and that selfies of the dead can have great political power because "they generate strange familiarity or strange intimacy".
     Mark Marino is the focus of the fourth blog post, "Selfie Pedagogy IV: Diversity, Netprov and Service Learning". His course, "Selves and Selfies: Performing Identity Online" sounds incredibly interesting. The blog post continues by describing some of the assignments that Marino's students competed throughout the semester. In a "Know Thy Selfie" paper, students answered the question, "How do your selfies produce or obscure a sense of your identity?" They had to take or choose 5 selfies of themselves and examine the pictures  for their performance of race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sexuality, and gender. They were instructed to look at clothing, pose, facial expression, lighting, and other elements in the picture. His students also created a "specular selfie" that represented them in a future moment.
    In addition to these assignments, Marino's students also created Vine-length videos of themselves "unboxing" an abstract concept. (I looked up "unboxing" videos and I don't understand them at all. It was 12 minutes of kids unwrapping chocolate eggs...) The Netprovs that his students participated in looked really interesting as well. There was one that chronicled "giving up" technology while Tweeting about it, and the other one was about working for the Web. Marino calls the assignments "thought experiments".
    Finally, Marino's students participated in a semester-long service project with the Neighborhood Academic Initiative for urban high school youth. The program was meant to help potential undergraduates (the high school students) with self-representation by assisting them in writing personal statements. Marino notes that the original selfies from the beginning of the semester provide an "opportunity to consider what it means to encounter someone with a different position of access to learning opportunities and higher education". Perhaps it even teaches the students "how they come off to somebody of a very different background".
      I really enjoyed reading the four blogs because I have never thought this deeply about selfies. They were simply a "thing" that we did. I would have never thought that they could be used as a teaching tool to think more deeply about identity and self-representation. A lot of the class assignments that were discussed sounded really fun in addition to being very informative. While I don't take too may (haha, I hope) traditional selfies, I do take an embarrassing number of Snapchat selfies, so here you go:

 

Chapters 5 and 6 of Net Smart

Chapter five of Net Smart, “Social Has a Shape: Why Networks Matter”, begins with this idea of human social networks and how the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts because the group’s properties are different from the individual’s properties. According to Rheingold, we need to understand some things about how network nature affects us are: 1) Networks have structures that influence how we as individuals behave. 2) New forms of sociality are possible because technological networked communication extends the reach of traditional networks. 3) Online networks that support social networks share properties of general network structure and specific properties of human networks.

The theory of six degrees of separation is really interesting, and I found it fascinating that when the original study (Milgram and Travers study which involved letter forwarded by mail) was given digital framework and the number of participants greatly increased, the results remained similar. The study done by Milgram and Travers resulted in an average “path length” of 5.5. When Watts recreated the study using email in 2001, the average path length was again around 6, and a 2010 study also found that 98% of people on Twitter are only separated by 5 steps. Similar results were found in a 2007 study by Leskovec and Horvitz: the average path length of Microsoft Messenger users is 6.6. It made me start to wonder how this applies to me and the people I know…

Rheingold later talks about networked individualism, and how the focus of technology has shifted the center from community to the individual. Rheingold writes that in the early years of cell phones, many conversations began with “Where are you?” It made me think about how today, so many people think that everyone is always available just because of cell phones. Some people actually get offended if you don’t text or call back in a certain time frame, but we shouldn’t have to be available to everyone all of the time. It also made me think about disappearing landlines. How many people still have one at home? (I haven’t had one in over 5 years!)

The section on Facebook use was also really interesting and thought provoking. Rheingold begins the section by saying, “Keeping track of our social relationships is a serious piece of work”. He also mentions that Facebook has caused us to form a redefinition of what the word friend means. There is definitely an etiquette to using Facebook and handling friend requests. Like Rheingold writes, there is social pressure and reluctance to hurt people’s feelings. However, this leads, in many cases, to “friending” people that you may not really want to be friends with. Which is worse: denying a friend request or ultimately realizing that you made a horrible mistake by accepting and then unfriending them? I have a few friends that I wish I had never accepted…

My experiences with Facebook also came to mind when I was reading Rainie and Wellman’s description of people who will thrive in this environment in which networked individualism plays a strong role. One of the characteristics mentioned was, “Those who learn to manage their boundaries”. Rheingold asks, “Does a person want all 300 of her friends to know what she did last night?” The “overshare” is popular on Facebook. There have been many times that I have asked myself why my “friends” (those regrettable ones) would want to post some of the things that they are being seen or read by perhaps hundreds of people. I get that your ex-husband isn’t going to win father of the year, but do I really need to know that. Just today, one of my friends posted a close-up picture of her crying child because she wanted help identifying the rash-like marks around his mouth… Call the doctor.

Chapter six is titled, “How (Using) the Web (Mindfully) Can Make You Smarter”. Again, Rheingold notes the emerging divide between those who know how to use social media for individual advantage and collective action, and those who do not. The section on parents was relatable. Rheingold says that “teenagers need to experiment with who they are and play with different kinds of identities”. The problem is that now, everyone is watching. I don’t even remember how many “phases” I went though as teenager (but some of them are definitely mortifying to look back on). Boyd encourages parents to focus on the underlying issues that worry them as parents instead of focusing on the technology aspect. My son is only three, so I don’t yet know how I will react to his life online. (Actually, I don’t even want to think about this yet.)

Two quotes/ideas that stood out the most in these chapters:

--“Although the Web affords a large audience to only a few, that audience is quickly accessible to other publishers when the conditions are right.”

--Knowledge can spread through online networks as swiftly as any viral videos do.

As far as what I want to learn/take away from this class:

-Think more critically about digital interactions

-Use new tools/ learn how to work with digital tools

-Find new ways/ become more comfortable being creative in a digital context

Mozilla's Image Seeking for Fantastic Visual Metaphors

Although I didn’t have any prior experience with the Mozilla website, I found that it was easy to use. I chose to explore the activity, “Image Seeking for Fantastic Visual Metaphors”, by Alan Levine which tasked the user with finding images to conceptualize complex ideas. Image searches are usually pretty simple, but I soon found that they are also very literal.

I used Mozilla’s example of fear. A preliminary image search for “fear” on Bing proved the point that complex ideas are more difficult to find through an image search than say, “cute dog “or “funny baby”. Out of the first 12 choices for “Fear” images, 5 pictures were of the word itself and one was a poster for the 1996 movie, Fear. Not what I was hoping for...

The next step was to use the Mozilla Thimble to create an Image Seek. You have to edit HTML—my first instinct was to leave immediately and find a new activity. Run, My Brain shouted, Don’t look back! But I persevered.

As it turned out, it was actually simple to use. (There are step-by-step instructions on the left hand side). I began to place keywords in the Image Seek, which is shown as a preview on the right side of the screen. You can see it changing as you edit the code which I thought was neat. Mozilla notes that in order to conceptualize a complex idea, you can search for actions, objects, and locations that visually represent that concept.

Unfortunately, I didn’t read this before I started playing around with the Image Seek Remixer, and I ended up using synonyms instead of actions for the first category—which probably explains why I got such terrible results. (More on that later). For the first category, I chose “dread, alarm, disquiet, and foreboding”. The people/animals/objects section was filled in with, “owls, crows, murder, and stalker”. Finally, the places section got “Night, parking garage, tight spaces, and abandoned places”. I was starting to feel like I was psychoanalyzing myself. There was also a section at the bottom for combination words, so I chose “shivering, alone, panic, and dark”.

Next, you get to test out the Image Seek. Honestly, many of my Flickr and Google Image search results were still abysmal. “Dread” gave me tons of images of dreadlocks; “Alarm” produced image after image of alarm clocks. But, as I said, I didn’t read over all of the instructions before jumping head first into the exercise, so Oops.

It got better. “Foreboding” brought up black and white images of stormy landscapes, “Stalker” gave me one image of a shadowy figure in an ally, “Panic” produced hundreds of pictures of the band “Panic! At the Disco”…

Going into the exercise, I had wanted to find “something more than the word itself, eyes in the dark, or a woman cowering”. These results were definitely more interesting, if not more effective. The best result was for a combination of “dark” and “fear” which produced black and white, stormy, foggy forest images. Yet I felt this still missed the mark. It didn’t portray fear as much as it did a dark and stormy night.

Overall, the exercise was still effective and made me think more about searching for images online. A lot of thought needs to go into finding a great image to act as a metaphor.  

Net Smart: Chapter 4

Chapter 4 of Howard Rheigngold’s Net Smart was an interesting read. The chapter focused on collective intelligence and virtual communities, and Rheigngold kicked off the chapter with a prime example of network-enabled collaboration: the World Wide Web. He notes that Tim Berners-Lee—creator of the Web in 1989—refused to patent his idea because he didn’t want to own it, he wanted to use it. Rheigngold writes that Berners-Lee knew that the Web would be most useful to him and to other scientists if many people used the technology.

The Web’s creation has led to collaboration on a scale that was never before possible—mass collaboration. As Rheigngold notes, it has changed the way that we find info, conduct science, aggregate knowledge, create software, entertain, gather and distribute news, keep in touch with others…the list can go on and on. Whether or not you believe that everyday access to the internet has influenced our society for the better, there is no going back. Rheigngold points out, “If you tag, favorite, comment, curate or blog, you are already part of the Web’s collective intelligence”.

Much of the chapter deals with Collaboration Theory and attempting to understand how to effectively use the collaboration skills made possible by the Web. How do we effectively organize and govern online groups? What can Collaboration Theory teach us about our online lives? In terms of effectively deploying collaboration skills, Rheingold mentions four points to keep in mind:

1.      We must pay attention to one another—“Attention is a fundamental building block of social cooperation”. Later in the chapter, he notes that, historically, we learned by imitation.

2.      It is because of our ability to learn how to create new tools and methods to overcome social dilemmas, that “humans are supercooperators”.  Tools shape the way that we think as a collective intelligence.

3.      New media has made new kinds of institutions possible—“Innovative social institutions continually coevolve together with communication media”.

4.       Both individuals and groups benefit from “reciprocating cooperation, punishing non-cooperators,  and signaling a willingness to cooperate”.

So what does Cooperation Theory teach us about our online lives today? Rheingold offers the following advice:

1.      In new interactions, present yourself as ready to cooperate.

2.      Contribute publically without expecting a reward.

3.      Reciprocate when someone does you a favor.

4.      Seek a sense of shared group identity.

5.      Introduce networks and people to one another.

6.      Punish cheating (but not too drastically).

Finally, what marks groups that are able to organize and govern their behavior successfully?

1.      Group boundaries are clearly defined.

2.      Rules for collaborated goods meet the social needs of the group.

3.      Most who are affected by the rules have the opportunity to influence them.

4.      There is access to means of conflict resolution.

5.      Within the community, members monitor each other’s behavior.

In moving forward in New Media Studies, this information is all very useful. I don’t have much experience with online collaboration and I do not usually contribute much (other than “liking” pictures and posts), but I am interesting in becoming more involved.

Week One: Rheingold and Rosenberg

While reading Scott Rosenberg’s, “In the Context of Web Context: How to Check Out Any Web Page”, I realized that while some of his basic principles for evaluating an unknown source come instinctively to me now, there are so many other ways to verify a web page that I have not considered. Previously, if there was even a hint of suspicion that a site may not be credible, I would avoid it and move on—this may be a safe option, but I’m aware that I’m potentially missing out on some interesting and valuable information.

One piece of advice that Rosenberg offers that does not come as a surprise is to look at the top level domain. He gives the example that sites that carry the domain .info are almost guaranteed to be spammy. I remember that when I first learned about internet research as a child, I was taught to look for .edu, .gov, and .org. These were considered to be safer than .com sites. Yet I never thought to look up the domain owner’s info or consider how old or new the registration is.

Rosenberg also mentions that you can Goggle the URL. I have done this many times, and I have also Googled links to find out if they are legit or if they could possibly be viruses. This practice has definitely become instinctive now—if something looks questionable, investigate.

The use of ads is mentioned by Rosenberg and also by Rheigngold in the second chapter of Net Smart. Looking back, I have certainly judged a site based on its use of ads, but Rheigngold suggests that users “take the Web site’s design into account, but don’t count on it”. Professional design is simply one clue as to if the site is credible. Yet, as Rosenberg points out, if the site is inundated with ads, it might be spammy.

In the end, it all come down to the idea of crap-detection—of learning to, as Neil Postman says, “distinguish useful talk from bullshit”. Rheigngold notes that internet fluency, experience, and engagement are important factors in crap-detection. This made me think of my mom and her general distrust of the internet. She avoids information derived from the internet because she doesn’t have the experience necessary in order to sort through the crap. But instead of becoming more fluent and experienced, she simply asks me to look things up for her.

My biggest take away this week came from Rheigngold, who said, “Continue to pursue your investigation after you find an answer”. Don’t just accept the first piece of evidence that you come across.