Tute Reflections

Hey All

I got called into work today and couldn’t make it to the tute so I thought I would answer a few of the questions posted on the blog by this weeks presenters in regards to JenniCam and Jerry Kang’s article.

JenniCam

In terms of the broad and narrow approach to looking at the idea of JenniCam and which way of seeing has more possibilities and is in use. To me, I think that the broad approach is certainly optimistic and sees technology as empowering and as having positive impacts. However is saying this, I find it hard to go past the fact that this is voyeurism in its most intense form. In many ways whilst being an interesting social experiment, I can’t help put think that this experiment would have been embraced more by those people looking for a cheap form of pornographic material, hoping to see Jenny in a state of undress as opposed to watching the feed for innocent entertainment. It also makes me wonder the type of response if this was a man in the feed as opposed to a women. I also immediately thought of ChatRoullete as I read this article and watched some of the stills from the project because ChatRoulete was hailed as this revolutionary way of meeting and communicating with people, yet quickly turned into a cheap form of pornography, where every second person that appears is a middle aged male pleasuring themselves.

Jerry Kang

As someone who has never been the subject of rational discrimination online I found aspects of this article pretty confronting. As Alison spoke about in the lecture, I think many people hoped and to some extent still think that the internet is a completely democratic arena where things such as race and sexuality don’t matter. I think to some extent it is the anonymous nature of the internet which leads to racial and sexual vilification on the internet, simply because can discriminate and out their prejudices without being caught or without having people know they are doing it. I don’t think something such as abolition would work, simply because some people may wish to be able to identify with their race, gender or sexuality. Microsoft trialed such a thing with their Xbox Live gaming service by banning all online profiles that contained any sort of name that alluded to anything but heterosexuality. By doing this, and by extension any form of abolition, it doesn’t allow individuals to freely express themselves and freely present their identity. Also in the case of abolition, it discriminates against the minority, be it women, homosexuals or coloured people, because it stops them from identifying what makes them “them” but doesn’t stop the dominant group from identifying themselves.

Just a few of my thoughts on the readings.

Namaste,
Luke