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Articles Conference Reviews |
200721RemleySession 2.1: Marginalized Groups Online
Serkan Gorkemli (Stanford University), Robyn Tasaka (Michigan State University), William Ritke Jones (Western New Mexico University) Serkan Gorkemli, Stanford University: "Access to Media and the Emergence and Propagation of Lesbian and Gay Identities" Gorkemli acknowledged that the Internet has transformed Lesbian and Gay populations’ access to knowledge about each other across cultures. He reported that in pre-Internet days, Queer populations had access only to certain media representations of themselves, while in the current, “post-Internet” environment, such populations can access information about each others’ cultures more directly. He described interview research with Turkish lesbian and gay students about their perception of how media and the Internet have changed access to information and to other queer people in their community. Robyn Tasaka, Michigan State University: "Performing Exoticism: Considering Local and Non-Local Readings of Hawai‘i Club Websites" Tasaka acknowledged that, in spite of their marginalization within American culture, Asian-Americans have a significant presence online. She focused on Hawai‘i club websites, which represent organizations consisting primarily of Asian Americans from Hawai‘i, using Pratt’s autoethnography as a framework for her analysis of these websites and readers’ reactions to images on them. Pratt asserts that: writers “represent themselves in ways that engage with the colonizer’s own terms,” images are “usually addressed both to metropolitan readers and to literate sectors of the speaker’s own social group” and are “bound to be received very differently by each.” Tasaka speculates that Hawai‘i residents and non-residents will react differently to website images and text on these pages. Tasaka presented her examination of several such websites, focusing attention on the use of the rhetoric of tourism, which appropriates Native Hawaiian language and culture in order to create a unique group identity. She also proposed a survey of students intended to support these expectations. William Ritke Jones, Western New Mexico University: "Are They Really Nuts or Do We Just Think They’re Nuts? Using Cyberspace to Promote Perspective Transformation in Online Collaborative Groups" Ritke Jones pointed out the importance of frame of reference in understanding how people respond to a situation. He also pointed to Mezirow’s (2000) assertion that “critical reflection of one’s frames of reference may lead to more democratic habits of the heart” by helping people respect others and bringing and openness to diversity. Jones then applied these points to frame his analysis of how conflict on online collaborations can provide an opportunity for critical reflection of one’s frames of reference and transformation of one’s perspective. He then discussed two cases of such conflict and reflection: the first considered the cultural conflict between two Caucasian women and one Brazilian woman that caused cohesion within their online group to break down; the second case involved the silence of an African-American woman and a traditionally-aged male in a group that also included a Caucasian woman. Jones described how online applications like Second Life can help transform perspectives by helping people assume different roles and experience other perspectives. References Pratt, M.L. (1992). Imperial eyes: Studies in travel writing and transculturation. New York: Routledge.
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