Hey guys, sorry for the late post!! I got this unit confused for one of my other units and thought I didn't have to post my presentation notes until after my presentation...lucky i checked the unit outline!!

So tomorrow I a presenting on the article "Ruminations n cyber-race" by Jerry Kang.
This article looks at the concept of race and the idea of humans overcoming racial stereotypes and discrimination through the medium of the internet. In particular, Kang wants to know what happens when a social construction (race) develops within another social construction (the internet), and how our online conceptions of race could impact those of the real world.
Kang states that the cyberspace changes social interactions (changes the ground rules). While it depends on what type of online interaction you are engaging in (ie. email vs chatrooms) cyber interactions can be "more" than those in real life as they are not limited by geographical boundries, but "less" than those in real life because they can be clouded in "anonymity and pseudonymity".
He offers a range of 'tactics' (for lack of a better word) for challenging racism through the internet:
*Abolition: ie. relations be based on text content only. This is naive because just because race is not signaled does not mean that is ceases to be an issue, it will continue to influence the content of the communications. Also, text does fall for racial mapping, particularly if the person chooses to be explicit (eg. "I am black"). Also could harm people in racial minorities because not only does race tend to be a large part of their identity but because they often need to organise their politics around their race to stop racial discrimination, making to need for racial disclosure imminent.
*Interaction: ie reforming social interaction. Cyberspace could provide the perfect conditions for fighting prejudice. The conditions Kang states are:
i) social contact unravelling firmly held stereotypes
ii) interaction in an equal social status
iii) socioeconomic disparity can be overcome (this is tied to geography)
iv) co-operation towards a joint goal (common project/interest rather than a common racial identity)
*transmutation: because in cyberspace race is a voluntary choice, almost like the banner you choose to wear to display your cyber identity, as opposed to in the real world where your race is viewed as something natural and hereditary, might prompt people to look at race as less fixed. However I tend to agree with his criticism of this:- that by attempting too act as an individual of another race I may be enforcing racial stereotypes rather than destroying it, as my knowledge of the social characteristics pf someone of another race come primarily from mass media, who are some of the primary creators of such stereotypes.
In conclusion, Kang offers that the different tactics shoudl be used in different 'zones' of the internet- the example he gives is using abolition in economic and the 'market place' areas of the net and integration in the social areas of the internet.

A few things for discussion tomorrow: to what extent do you believe race relations online affect race relations and stereotypes in real life? Do you believe that the ability of people to 'cloak' their race online will affect people ideas of race on cyber space, and how will this in turn affect their ideas of race in real life? To what extent do you agree with the 'tactics' offered by Kang and to what extend do you think they could be effective? Do you agree with Kang's notion that different 'tactics' should be used in different zones of the internet?

Also, there are two books I read as sort of background for this topic.
Virtual Ethnicity: Race, Resistance and the World Wide Web by Linda Leung
Cyber Types: Race, Ethnicity and Identity on the Internet by Lisa Nakamura
If this topic interests you i strongly suggest these books- they offer some very good observations regarding this topic.

Also, I went online looking for some examples of racism and identity online, and one example I found is a blog posted through a neo-nazi site called Stormfront. While this is not an example of an individual attempting transmutation or experimenting with racial identities online, it is an example of how the internet has allowed racist sentiments to overcome geographical barriers, on addition to showing Kang's idea of real world and cyber ideas of race interacting.

I'll see you all in the tute tomorrow!