Avatar: Genders and Web Pages

Part I: Avatar and Gender

Avatar was meant to represent genders just as they are, but in the end, I think that so much emphasis was made into making such representations truthful that we ended up with more negative than positive representations of gender. 

The males in this film are often negatively represented as…

• self-centered (such as the corporate representative who thinks he can do anything he wants to because he is the representative and all he cares about is the mineral and the profits he could possibly make from selling the mineral)
• aggressive (such as Coronel Quaritch who thinks that anything can be solved with force and weapons and acts and speaks all tough)
• hyperactive (like Jake who disobeys rules and guidelines and does things his own way whenever he wants to)

While the females of the film are negatively represented as…

• Indecisive (the lead scientist Dr. Grace, who is not sure of whether she wants to be a scientist or a navi) 
• Lazy and complainers (like Neitiry in the scene where her mother tells her that she is the one who will teach Jake the navi “ways” and who complains about having to do so)
• Double-sided, hard to trust in, gold-digger (such as Dr. Grace who hates Jake for being a handicapped ex-marine and not a scientist, but as soon as she sees that Jake was chosen by the navi, she immediately starts to be nice to him because there is now something in for her)

But of course there were also some nice things about both genders...

Males were positively represented as…

• Followers (such as Jake when he is taught the navi ways by the female navi Neitiry)
• High self-esteem or the I can do anything attitude (Jake throughout the movie challenges ideas because he strongly believes in his potential to achieve)
• Leaders (such as Eytukan, the [navi] clan leader who always has the last words in a clan’s discussion)

Females on the other hand where positively represented as…

• Caring and protective (Neitiry was always watching out for Jake)
• spiritual (such as Mo’at the spiritual leader of the navi clan)
• Strong-willed (Neitiry was not submissive of the male navis)
• Forgivers (I am not really sure if this is a good or a bad representation, but in the end of the film, Neitiry forgives Jake from lying to the whole clan about his purpose and yet after such a big lie, she still takes him back)

Part II: Avatars as Personal Web Pages

When I first saw the film, Avatar,  several months ago, all I was thinking was  that this was such a good movie with an amazing use of technology to create a new world in which life not only dealt with societal problems, but also with the equilibrium of nature. Very often, people like me are stunned by the technology used in a film or by the actors and the storyline and we don’t usually dare to read in between the lines or to see in between the scenes. However after reading the article, Identity Construction and Self-Presentation on Personal Homepages, I clearly see that the typical avatar as represented in the film, functions just like a web page. Just as a webpage, an avatar allows you to recreate an identity, to self reflect, to free yourself from the “real world” and to connect with others.

Just like a web page, the avatar allows you to represent who you are or who you want to be. In the film Avatar, Jake has the opportunity of a new life in Pandora, whoever the avatar allows him to choose what personality he wants to show in this new world. Jake has the choice of being a cutter or a non-cutter; of being polite or disrespectful therefore Jake has the ability of choosing some of his personal traits (a second example would be Dr. Grace who has a much more feminine personality as an avatar than she does as a huma). Also, it is important to note that there are a couple of things over which he has no control, for example the avatars are made by mixing the DNA of humans with the DNA of the natives, so technically, Jake Sully does not have much choice of weather he wants to have black hair or blond hair, weather he wants to be tall or short, slim or fat, all of those “biological” choices are predetermined through the combination of the DNAs. However, the whole idea behind combining the DNAs is to look like a navi person and yet at the same time to retain a little bit of your physical identity, so in the end, an avatar looks like the navi people and at the same time looks like you. Just like a website in which a profile can reflect who you are and yet at the same time, the construction of the profile also depends on the options that the homepage provider makes available to you (Cheung 281-283).

 Another use of both, websites and avatars, is to recreate your personality and to free yourself from the world. In the film, Jake goes from being a disabled paraplegic to having full function of his body as an avatar and Jake’s disability becomes “invisible” in the Pandora world. The avatar here functions just like a website that can make “disabilities invisible so that people can’t respond” therefore emancipating the user from stigmas related to disabilities (Cheung 276). Perhaps, if the avatar were still physically disabled, the navi people wouldn’t have accepted him as part of their people. An avatar also helps you recreate your personality because it allows you to self-reflect. We know this because at the end of each Pandora journey, Jake has to do a video blog of everything he sees, does and feels. However, Jake takes his self-narrative to a whole level and instead of just thinking about his blog and what he sees and feels, he also starts reflecting on his life as a human and his life as an avatar. In the end, Jake chooses to stay in this avatar body in this Pandora world because he is much more emancipated as an avatar than he is as a human. Just like a web page that might allow a person to establish personal relationships with other users and to link, an avatar also allows the “soul” to relate to other people or organic beings, just like the avatar body allowed Dr. Grace to join the navi or allowed Jake to control and lead new species of animals. In fact both the avatar and the web pages allow you to link and relate in such ways that someone could even find true love, which ended up as the main reason why Jake decided to stay in the Pandora world ([Cheug 276]).

Works Consulted

Cheung, Charles. "Identity Construction and Self-Presentation on Personal Homepages: Emancipatory Potentials and Reality Constraints.” The Cybercultures Reader. David Bell and Barbara M Kennedy. New York: Routledge, 2000. Print.

Cyborg She

I had found this movie about a week ago in a very popular movie site for Spanish speakers, the title; My Girlfriend is a Cyborg (also known as Cyborg She). I will not review the whole movie, although, I have to admit that it is hilarious and captivating with a touch of romance and hope. What I will do is make a comparison of the movie using the criteria for human/computer relationship set up by Deborah Lupton.

Before I start my comparison of Cyborg She, I need to talk a little bit about the criteria from which I will be comparing the movie. Deborah Lupton wrote a wonderful article about the human/computer relationship where she claims that computer users have become “disembodied” and that the computers themselves have become “humanized” (Lupton 422-432). Deborah also claims that while many people might be afraid of computers due to their complicated manuals and the security problems created by hackers and computer viruses, there are also those that have created very strong emotional relationships with their computers and now see their computer as part of themselves (Lupton 422-432).

The Cyborg She is a perfect example of what Lupton is taking about in her article. Cyborg She, is the story of a Japanese teenager named Jiro, who establishes a very strong relationship with a female cyborg that has no name (Lance). The cyborg from this movie fits the description for a cyborg that Lupton uses in her article. Cyborg she is “represented as the closest to this ideal that humans may attain, that is a ‘humanoid hybrid’ that melts together computer technology and human flesh” (Lupton 425), you see, this cyborg is “as perfect” as the “dream girl” that Jiro had in mind and is basically a computer (or should I say intelligent device) with organic flesh and titanium bones (Lance).  This female cyborg has a body that is “far stronger than the human body and far less susceptible to injury and pain” just as Lupton had portrayed the cyborg in her article (Lupton 425). The bottle line behind this female cyborg is that she is sent from the future to save and protect Jiro from all kinds of injuries and although she is not capable of repairing herself when she breaks apart in one of the scenes in the movie (as Lupton would have imagined) she is quite strong.

Contrary to what Lupton would have expected from this female cyborg, this female cyborg acts as human, eats as human, drinks as human, I am not sure if she also defecates as human, but I am sure that she also becomes tire as humans do, because every night, she shouts down in “sleeping mode”. She might resemble a human body and might act pretty human at times; however, she does not have a soul and does not have feelings. Jiro, spending so much time with “her” slowly becomes impressed with this “girl” and starts feeling a strong attraction to her, not only physically, but also emotionally. In her article, Lupton had mentioned that sometimes the human/computer relationship can become “romantic, sexual or marital,” however, in this movie this was not the case, not because Jiro didn’t wanted to, but because the cyborg didn’t allowed him to (Lupton 426).

Close the end of the film, Jiro becomes tired of waiting for the cyborg to have emotional feelings towards him and starts disliking the “super” human powers that his cyborg had, supporting Lupton’s idea that at times, technology is so impressive that it simply becomes scary.

Works Consulted

"Cyborg She (teaser 1) English Sub." YouTube. Web. 23 Sep 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKPCBoCORj8>.

Lance . "Cyborg She (My Girlfriend is a Cyborg) Review." Amped Asia. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Sep 2010. <http://www.ampedasia.com/movies/Cyborg-She/>.

Lupton, Deborah. "The Embodied Computer/User.” The Cybercultures Reader. David Bell and Barbara M Kennedy. New York: Routledge, 2000. Print.

Part II: Digital Diversity and Me

I have learned quite a bit in this course, but since I am planning on becoming a teacher, the most useful thing that I have learned is about the digital divide and the effects we, future teachers, have on closing or increasing the gap. The phrase that has had a great impact on me and how I view the digital divide comes from the source Mind the Gap. In his article, Carving stated that “internet access in schools isn’t worth a hill of beans if teachers aren’t prepared to take full advantage of technology” and I could agree with him more. It doesn’t really matter if a school has access to impressive technologies if the teachers are not prepared or simply prefer not to use this technology to teach children. This ideology that access to technology solves the digital divide is wrong, because access does not help when pedagogy gets in the way. It reminds me of a video I saw a couple of years ago, tittled A Vision of K-12 Students Today, in which it mentions that teachers who prevent K-12 students from using technologies in the classroom, are preventing them from exploring and learning from a world that gives them tons of possibilities for self-growth.  

Works consulted

"A Vision of K-12 Students Today." YouTube. Web. 23 Sep 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8>.

Carvin, Andy. "Mind the Gap: The Digital Divide as the Civil Rights Issue of the New Millennium." MultiMedia & Internet @ Schools. MultiMedia Schools, January/February 2000. Web. 23 Sep 2010. http://www.infotoday.com/MMSchools/Jan00/carvin.htm

Peg Communities? How about we start respecting each other and our choices?

Bell and Bauman have different views about online communities and how they impact society. This is not just a debate between both of them, but between millions of online users and their counterparts. My stand here is, as mentioned in DTC 475, that technology is subjective. We will always have those who believe that technology is improving our lives and we will always have those who will believe that technology is taking down the essence of personal interaction and communication. My question here is, why worry about fighting against each other and why can’t we all accept that everyone is different? What works for some does not work for others, so why can’t we all start respecting each other and our choices?

I, personally, love online communities or should I say, that I love the way technology allows me to communicate with other people whenever I want. For some, it could be true that “virtual communities lack the durability and intensity of RL communities” but I keep insisting that this argument is subjective (Bell 255). For me, online communities are just like phones, they help me stay connected with whomever I want and whenever I want. My own “online community” does not harm the durability and intensity of my RL community, if fact, it enhances my RL and I’ll tell you why…

I met my husband on an online community of music lovers two years ago and we got married this summer. My relationship with my partner was not less durable or less intense as that of any other couple that met at a coffee shop or somewhere else. In fact, I could even argue that my relationship with my partner and the distance between us (I live in Washington, he lives in Venezuela) forced us to push even harder and made us look beyond the body and into the soul.  Our relationship (although sustained via online interfaces) made my RL more real, but what made it a relationship was not the online communities, but what each of us decided to put in, such as patience, love, trust, respect and understanding.

All of the online communities to whom my partner and I belong to did not withdraw us from our RL taking us into a virtual word, they did not acted as “coat peg” where we could “hang our interests or obsessions, our enthusiasms or worries,” we just used them to communicate as you would use a phone or the post office (Bell 257).  

So like I said in the beginning, technology is subjective, what works for me enhancing my real life, might be harming or might be withdrawing someone from the “real life” and into the virtual life. So how about we all stop looking into other’s lives and instead learn to look at ourselves, like Bell concluded in his writing, jut “stop worrying!” and “get over it!” let people make their own choices (Bell 261).

Works Cited:

Bell, David. "Webs as Pegs." The Cybercultures Reader. David Bell and Barbara M Kennedy. New York: Routledge, 2000. Print.

Part Two: Choosing 3 Online Sites

To compare similar websites and their representation strategies I would like to compare MySpace and Facebook because there is a big battle between both of them on who attracts and keeps more members active (or at least I believe) and I personally see that MySpace is starting to resemble Facebook in a lot of ways, so I would like to see them “face to face”. For the third website, I would like to use Deezer, just because I see Deezer as a loner who does his own thing, his own way. But I’ll need to think further about using it, because both MySpace and Facebook are just social sites, while Deezer is a social site where you meet people but not based on profiles but on music tastes.

http://www.myspace.com/

http://www.facebook.com/

http://www.deezer.com/

Reanalyzing Yahoo!

Burnett and Marshal published their book in 2003, which maybe one of the reasons why the authors and view Yahoo! a little bit different than how I view Yahoo!

Since Burnett and Marshal published their book, I believe that the internet was changed the way we look at things or at least that the people have helped changed the way the information is presented to us. I personally believe, we (internet users) have changed the way we like to look at stuff and most of us will prefer something that grabs our attention with images, videos or music over something that presents the information in a simple yet not exciting way.

Yahoo! Main Page in 2003

After reading the work by Burnett and Marshal, I can say that the way they looked at Yahoo! back in 2003, is different than how I view Yahoo! now in 2010. The authors divided their critique into three different categories and two stages.  During the first stage, color and contextual dimensions were evaluated. Yahoo! back in 2003 had the Yahoo! symbol right on the center of the page in bright red color with a very distinct font, while the rest of the text on the page was regular black and no full sentences were observed on display of the page. In 2010, however, the symbol of Yahoo! remains written in a funky way but it is not in the center of the page and is not red, but purple. Now I would ask myself why the change in color and in location would matter, but the way I look at it is, that back in 2003, Yahoo! was battling against other pages in search of recognition, and if you somehow landed on the page, the makers of Yahoo! wanted to make sure that you knew that you were using their services. In 2010, Yahoo! has no need to battle with other companies just over a name, the makers are now focusing on having their users know, not that they are on Yahoo! but that Yahoo! provides you more results than other search machines (You see, the Yahoo! symbol was moved to the right of the page and was replaced by a search bar).

In one of my earlier paragraphs I had mentioned that people are changing the way internet is presented to us. The reason why I say this is because we now live in a word where visual appeal will have an impact on how you view a web site. Back in 2003, Yahoo! was pretty boring with less than a few images and with a boring Times New Roman lettering. Burner and Marshal stated in their work that Yahoo! makers probably excluded as many images from the main page, because images were heavy and as a result they slowed down the loading of pages. But of course, the internet was slower back then. In 2010, visual images, videos and sounds have taken over many pages including Yahoo! and information for the most part is now presented in very interesting and appealing ways.

Yahoo! Main Page in 2010

During the second stage of Burnett and Marshal’s critique, they analyzed the links showed on the main page, the user’s ability to personalize, interactivity between the user and other users or between the users and the site and the interplay of different media forms. Now on this second category, I would say that there wasn’t been much of a change, Yahoo! still promotes other pages though the use of links, and the user with an account can personalize what information is presented to him/her and how it is presented. The main observable change in the page is of course the addition of more and more categories and the change in their order as people began requesting and using other services. I say this, because back in 2003, Yahoo! had six main categories from which to choose from, while now the Yahoo! user has about 18 categories shown. Quite a change!

On a final note, Burnett and Marshal stated in their work that “the more financially endowed the site, the more likely that… standard techniques of interaction are operating” and I do agree with that statement to one level (Burnett and Marshal). It is true that in 2009, Yahoo! partnered with Microsoft and therefore the organization increased its financial stability, giving the site the opportunity to keep up all of the services offered, but I personally believe, as stated before that the user is the one who draws on for the different changes on a web site and not only the funds available for the development (the funds are important too, but with no request, no need to develop, right?). What the user prefers to use, how it is presented and how it works in part depends on the user who either supports or not supports a certain feature of the site. Yahoo! and other websites are up and working thanks to the user interaction and they have to adapt to what the user prefers and how they prefer it, otherwise the user will simply go to another page that offers what he/she wants to see and use. In the end, the user has a voice...

Works Consulted:

Burnett, Robert, and P. David Marshal. Web Theory: an introduction. New York: Routledge, 2003. 95-101. eBook.

Goldman, David. "Yahoo-Microsoft Search Deal Gets Final OK." CNN. 18 Feb 2010, Web. September 9, 2010. http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/18/technology/yahoo_microsoft/

Digital Divide: the have’s, have not’s and the in-betweens

The term “Digital Divide” us often defined as an ever-growing gap between the haves and the have-not’s of technology, but this is not it. The reality is that not everything is simply black or white; we also have all the grays and shades in-between. For example, there have been many projects around the world of organizations who believe that giving technology (computers) will solve the gap, but the reality is that the technology by itself does not solve the issue(Warschauer). If you do not know how to use that computer, or if you do not have the resources to properly keep the computer working and the internet access available, it really will not make a difference. Mark Warschauer, author of Reconceptualizing the Digital Divide, believes that the term has been wrongfully defined. He thinks that the Digital Divide is not just about having or not having access to technology and that other issues of “content, language, education, literacy, or community and social resources” are often left out of the equation (Warschauer). But what if you access to information does not depend technology but on your willingness to learn? You can give a computer to someone, but you can’t make them click. After all, technology is not just about having or not having a devise, but about using the device as an interface (physical channel of communication) between people and information. The digital divide is not about access to technology, but about access to information and communication. 

It kind of works like a business, you can’t just give someone a coffee shop and expect them to compete against the Starbucks down the corner. You also need to ensure that they know how to properly prepare the coffee, muffins and sandwiches, that they know how to maintain and operate all of the equipment or at least where to call for help, you need to make sure that all of the information in the coffee shop is written in a way that allows all of the workers to understand it, you will need to teach the workers how to declare prices and how to reorder supplies.  But best of all, you also need to ensure that whomever will take on the coffee shop is willing to strive and make a change for their own good and that they will put it all together, up and running.

Solving the Digital Divide is not just about giving computers and internet access to people, it is also about informing people and gathering resources; it is about ensuring that they know how it works and how they can use it for their own benefit. To me the digital divide is the combination of barriers (personal, physical, economic, political, societal, ect), that limit a person’s ability to access technologies of information to communicate and interact with others.


Works Cited

Warschauer, Mark. "Reconceptualizing the Digital Divide." First Monday 7.7 (2002): n. pag. Web. 31 Aug 2010. <http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/967/888>.