Weekly Reflection Post for 10/27 Class

First, I’d like to apologize for being a tad late on my post for this week.  I literally just got back to my apartment five minutes ago from my interviews in New York.

In the remainder of her The Breakup 2.0, Ilana Gershon continues discussing the differing media ideologies of different parties using social media and what cultural significance these differences have.  I thought her discussion of Isabella and her ex-wife was especially interesting.  Gershon discusses how what was important about this scenario was the media used, not necessarily the message being mediated.  For example, the ex-wife doesn’t respond to Isabella’s emails but has no problem immediately responding to Isabella’s texts.  That is because of the media ideologies they established in their relationship; text is impersonal and limited so it is ok even after the breakup but email allows for more heartfelt and deeper feelings and desires to be expressed and so cross the boundary that the ex-wife has.

In the first section of Coming of Age in Second Life, Tom Boellstorff focuses on the why and how of his ethnographic exploration of Second Life.  He emphasized the fact that he was using traditional methods to explore a new realm of culture (even the title harkens back to Margaret Meade).  He also commented a lot on Second Life’s status as a virtual world.  He argued that Second Life is as real as the “real” world in many ways, including the variety of social interactions that occur.  He makes a very convincing argument here, showing how any social construct can be interpreted as “virtual” yet still be a real realm of culture.

My observations in New York

I’ve been in New York City area for medical school interviews since Sunday morning and don’t get back until Tuesday night.  Today, I had to take the subway from Columbia to the bus, the bus to the train, the train out of the city, and a cab from the train station to New York Medical College.  I just kept thinking how dependent New Yorkers are on their public transportation technology.  If all this technology stopped for just one day, New York would cease to function and would need months if not years to recover from this disaster, much like what would happen if it snowed in San Diego.  For New Yorkers, these technologies are vital part of their everyday lives and the entire culture of New York revolves around these technologies.  This dependence on transportation technology is by no means restricted to New York City; I could not live in San Diego without a car.  However, transportation technology has a unique place in culture in New York City.

Weekly Reflection Post for 10/20 Class

In E. Gabriella Coleman’s “Ethnographic Approaches to Digital Media,” the author surveys different approaches and particular areas of interest of many ethnographic works relating to digital media.  What I found most interesting from this survey was her discussion of the duality of digital media.  On page 493, Coleman talks about how both sides of any political discussion can be found in digital media and points to an example of Iranian protests.  It is interesting how, as Coleman says, “social media tools can simultaneously support grass-roots political mobilizations as well as government surveillance and human rights violations.”  It seems that although social media have provided new forums for individuality and freedom, they are also forums for oppression and conformity just like all other social forums in the entirety of human history.

Ilana Gershon, in her The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media, examines how social media affects modern relationship, focusing especially on the end of relationships.  The most pervasive theme of the first two chapters is the idea that everybody has different media ideologies and that these media ideologies are established through both use of social media and communication with peers about social media.  For me, this seemed to highlight an interesting quality about the new social media; these forms of social interaction were not constricted to their primary online location and instead diffused out into everyday normal interactions.  In that way social media becomes more than what it appears on the surface and makes interactions using social media that much more influential.  That is why many people view Facebook relationship status as the most “official” representation of that relationship.  Once the relationship is on Facebook everybody knows and it becomes gossip fodder for the entirety of its existence.

How I use Facebook

Given the theme of this week’s class, I’m going to provide some insight on how mainly use Facebook.  When I first got Facebook in 2007, I intended to use it as a way to easily stay in touch with high school friends.  However, it quickly became a tool primarily used to “stalk” friends and friends of friends.  This especially became true once the news feed had been added.  So this is a step by step way that I use Facebook on an everyday (probably more hourly than daily) basis.

1. Log on

2. Check notifications (pictures, wall posts etc.)

3. Read messages (or not since most of my messages are simply from student groups/events that I am not particularly interested in)

4. Check events (this step has serious social implications—I never say not attending.  If I am not attending I always either say maybe if I want to support the person hosting the event or I simply don’t respond.  I always feel like it is too inconsiderate to outright say no unless I have a legitimate conflict)

5. Read the entire news feed and click on those things that I find most interesting so that I can get more information and maybe stalk the profiles of people relating to that thing

On a less regular note, when going through my pictures I always untag photos that portray me in a bad light (for instance me surrounded by copious amounts of alcohol at a party) in case medical school admissions committees ever examine my profile.  When it comes to relationship status, which is most relevant to this week’s readings, I don’t have one even though I have been in a relationship for a year and a half.  That information is too personal and I don’t feel the need to broadcast that to every friend of a friend.  However, before I was in a relationship I did have single on my profile, so if somebody was a very dedicated stalker and read my wall all the way until March 2009 then they could figure something out.  If anyone is interested in how I choose my profile picture, look at my post on 9/12/10.

Weekly Reflection Post for 10/13 Class

In “The Science and Business of Genetic Ancestry Testing,” Deborah Bolnick et al examine the limitations and problems of direct-to-consumer genetic ancestry tests.  At first, their discussion of these tests reminds me of Sarah Wagner’s ethnography on Bosnia in that technology is being used to return a sense of ancestry to a person and to recapture a history stolen by time or some heinous act like genocide or slavery.  Bolnick et al go on to show why these tests are unreliable at best and divisive at worst and to urge scientific experts to be more vocal about the issues surrounding these ancestry tests.

Charles Rotimi, in his article “Genetic Ancestry Tracing and the African Identity: A Double-Edged Sword?” analyzes the possible affects of ancestry testing on African Americans who lost their ancestral identities due to slavery.  He views the subject from a personal perspective since his wife and kids have lost their heritage in such a way.  Rotimi emphasizes that these tests can give African Americans a sense of “belonging,” a feeling that is very important and shapes all relationships and interactions a person has.  However, Rotimi explains that this sense of belonging is a double edged sword since it is hard to identify ethnic groups in Africa due to high rates of migration.  He also explained that the results of these tests could be more divisive than inclusive, since many ethnic groups in Africa are currently or have recently clashed.  What I found most interesting in his article was his discussion of whether genetics or cultural activities are a better indication of inclusion in a group.  For many who seek to belong somewhere with these tests, they may find themselves even more excluded since they cannot relate to the culture that is their ancestry—they are too far removed.

In her article “‘Race’ and the Construction of Human Identity,” Audrey Smedley investigates the history of racial identities.  She shows how race as cultural invention was not present until the colonization of the Americas.  She goes on to show how this social construct affects contemporary culture, focusing especially on how it has maintained the marginalization of the urban black youth.  What struck me the most from this article was how race in its modern sense has been a source of identity, a place to belong in a way.

In Duana Fullwiley’s “The Molecularization of Race: Institutionalizing Human Difference in Pharmacogenetics,” the author examines the genetic bases of race from their perspective of two research projects: Coriell and SOPHIE.  These projects are trying to find a genetic basis for race by analyzing specific SNPs.  What I found most intriguing about these studies was how they approached the study.  The researchers seemed to separate the subjects before testing their DNA and then only chose genetic markers that aligned with their prefabricated demarcations of race.  Also, many SNPs that were “identified” as racial markers were inconsistent between studies.  This goes to show that race as a cultural construct is present even in the supposedly unbiased field of science.

Kimberly Tallbear, in her “DNA, Blood, and Racializing the Tribe,” discusses how the idea of blood has become very important to Native American tribes.  What I found most relevant to our class was the discussion of the Kinnewick Man.  In this instance, DNA technology was used to assign race/tribal identity to the remains of a man.  In doing so scientists undermined the tribal oral histories of many tribes.

Wash U Apple Commercial

When I walked past the library this weekend, the scene I saw inside reminded me of an Apple commercial.  At the table at the southwestern most corner of the first floor sat three people, all of whom were multitasking using two or more apple products.  The first student was typing on his Macbook while listening to his iPod nano.  A second was reading the paper on his iPad while listening to music on his iPhone.  The third, the ultimate Apple multitasker, sat typing on his Macbook Pro while texting on his iPhone and reading his notes on his iPad.  It seems that our university has developed a technological culture that revolves around Apple, as do many universities around the country.  However, considering that PCs are still a more popular computer, it is interesting how common Apple computers are in education.  I don’t know if it is because Apple products are good for educational purposes or that, since Apple products are relatively expensive, they are reserved for those who can afford them (who are often more highly educated).

Weekly Reflection Post for 10/6 Class

The final eight chapters of Adriana Petryna’s Life Exposed focus on the citizens of Ukraine and the social systems that have risen up after the Chernobyl disaster.  She investigates the idea of “illness as work,” saying that the social and government systems that have surrounded the Chernobyl victims in Ukraine have facilitated a world where it is more beneficial to be too sick to work than to be able bodied.  She goes on to examine the idea of biological citizenship, where people are defined in terms of their status of suffering and specific disabilities.  The term “biological citizen” seems to imply that these people need to be treated as biological entities, meaning that their most important value is the illnesses they have both in terms of maintaining their livelihood and n terms of offering chances for biological and medical research.  She also reflects on how Chernobyl has changed the local medical knowledge of Ukrainians.  What I found most interesting from this section was how uneducated, poor farmers became well versed in medical terminology showing how need facilitates knowledge.

From the study of cultures of science and technology, I found the section of Petryna’s ethnography dealing with illness as work and the status of sufferers to be the most noteworthy.  On page 78, Petryna describes a meeting of the Chernobyl minister with mothers of children with thyroid cancer.  During that meeting, a woman began crying about her situation but, when told to “promise to put [her] emotions aside” she immediately goes into a seemingly well rehearsed speech about her family members in very bureaucratic terms.  This seemed to me to show just how important the relative status of sufferers and suffering was to the Ukrainians; this makes sense considering that suffering was often the primary source of income for such families.  I also found a comment made by Maria Ivanivna on page 91 to be especially interesting.  She said that, upon achieving level three disability, she “had the right not to work” in a manner that caused Petryna to describe this right as an “achieved status.”  This exemplifies the idea that being ill is in many ways a benefit, providing an individual or family with a social and governmental “status” that guarantees them a certain amount of economic security.

I need the internet!

So yesterday I wrote a fake myth for my Greek Mythology class.  The entire time, I needed to keep my computer open so that I could look up Greek words and other real myths concerning what I was writing.  And I realized, I don’t understand how the world functioned before the internet.  I know this is a big statement but think, in order to write a fake myth I needed information from 5 different web sites.  Before the internet, I would have needed to go to the library and spend hours looking up these random pieces of information.  Instead, I simply sat on my bed and found everything I needed in less than 5 minutes.  Now think of it on a larger scale.  War can now be conducted over the internet; policies can be made instantly from across the world.  The internet is one of the most important advancements of the modern world.