Friday, November 29, 2013
Online spaces and race
Being in this class has taught me a lot about the relationship between society and how minorities "are" within the society, and overall I think that I have learned a great deal. But one of the things that really interested me was the concept of how people speak about race within online spaces. I agree that the internet is a wonderful place, full of information that we can now obtain with just a click of a button. However with that sense of anonymity, people feel like they have a good amount of "power" on the internet because they know that if they say (most) things, whether it be on a forum, a blog, or the comments section on Youtube, that they will get away with it, as well as having the satisfaction of making everyone upset (if that was their goal). Being a forum moderator for a popular gaming website, I do think that having moderators or "Gatekeepers" is a good thing to have in certain situations because of how topics can stay somewhat "on topic" without people getting harsh with each other and saying nasty comments to each other, but I think that the gatekeepers within the online spaces can be just as corrupt as the rest of them, and can contribute to subjecting the other participants to groupthink, making it worse as people will think negative thoughts because of the group. What do you guys think of this?
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I agree with you damian. ONCE upon a time, the story goes, we lived in a broadcast society. In that dusty pre-Internet age, the tools for sharing information weren’t widely available. If you wanted to share your thoughts with the masses, you had to own a printing press or a chunk of the airwaves, or have access to someone who did. Controlling the flow of information was an elite class of editors, producers and media moguls who decided what people would see and hear about the world. They were the Gatekeepers like you. Then came the Internet, which made it possible to communicate with millions of people at little or no cost. Suddenly anyone with an Internet connection could share ideas with the whole world. A new era of democratized news media dawned. Engaging in open discussions of race and race-based issues is often a delicate task, requiring participants to recognize their own status and privileges or lack of with respect to another, differently situated group. Many people remain not equipped with the skills necessary to navigate these encounters effectively I gues. Thus as a result one can understand why this topic of race is easier discussed behind a computer screen rather than the awkward uncomfortable face to face contact
ReplyDeleteI certainly think that, when having discussions about race, it is important to have moderation, at least a little bit. I don't think you should silence anyone's opinion, but there are people who are there just to cause drama and just troll. These people need to be dealt with accordingly because they don't add anything to what may be a serious conversation. However, the down side with that is these people will more than likely just go somewhere else and ruin another conversation. Because they were blocked they may not have gotten the chance to learn something new or change their opinions. I know it may be unlikely, and the chances of someone like that gaining a new out look on the topic is pretty rare, but I do believe it's unfair to rob them of that chance.
ReplyDeleteI agree that moderation is definitely more beneficial than it is harmful. But even outside of message boards, I think race still plays a huge role on the web. Take sites like Imgur and Reddit for example. Most of the images, that aren't of cats, that people upload are of white people. I'm going to go ahead and assume that only viewers on these sites are not all white, so why aren't more images of minorities uploaded? I mean, the only memes with minorities are of Sweet Brown and the Dos Equis guy.
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