Mediated environments: we must learn to write themselves into being
"In everyday interactions, the body serves as a critical site of identity performance. In conveying who we are to other people, we use our bodies to project information about ourselves.[32] This is done through movement, clothes, speech, and facial expressions. What we put forward is our best effort at what we want to say about who we are. Yet while we intend to convey one impression, our performance is not always interpreted as we might expect. Through learning to make sense of others’ responses to our behavior, we can assess how well we have conveyed what we intended. We can then alter our performance accordingly. This process of performance, interpretation, and adjustment is what Erving Goffman calls impression management,[33] and is briefly discussed in the introduction to this volume. Impression management is a part of a larger process where people seek to define a situation[34] through their behavior. People seek to define social situations by using contextual cues from the environment around them. Social norms emerge out of situational definitions, as people learn to read cues from the environment and the people present to understand what is appropriate behavior.
Learning how to manage impressions is a critical social skill that is honed through experience. Over time, we learn how to make meaning out of a situation, others’ reactions, and what we are projecting of ourselves. As children, we learn that actions on our part prompt reactions by adults; as we grow older, we learn to interpret these reactions and adjust our behavior. Diverse social environments help people develop these skills because they force individuals to reevaluate the signals they take for granted.
The process of learning to read social cues and react accordingly is core to being socialized into a society. While the process itself begins at home for young children, it is critical for young people to engage in broader social settings to develop these skills. Of course, how children are taught about situations and impression management varies greatly by culture,[35] but these processes are regularly seen as part of coming of age. While no one is ever a true master of impression management, the teenage years are ripe with opportunities to develop these skills.
In mediated environments, bodies are not immediately visible and the skills people need to interpret situations and manage impressions are different. As Jenny Sund´en argues, people must learn to write themselves into being.[36] Doing so makes visible how much we take the body for granted. While text, images, audio, and video all provide valuable means for developing a virtual presence, the act of articulation differs from how we convey meaningful information through our bodies. This process also makes explicit the self-reflexivity that Giddens argues is necessary for identity formation, but the choices individuals make in crafting a digital body highlight the self-monitoring that Foucault describes.[37]
In some sense, people have more control online-they are able to carefully choose what information to put forward, thereby eliminating visceral reactions that might have seeped out in everyday communication. At the same time, these digital bodies are fundamentally coarser, making it far easier to misinterpret what someone is expressing. Furthermore, as Amy Bruckman shows, key information about a person’s body is often present online, even when that person is trying to act deceptively; for example, people are relatively good at detecting when someone is a man even when they profess to be a woman online.[38] Yet because mediated environments reveal different signals, the mechanisms of deception differ.[39] "
(Danah Boyd 2008, p.128-129)
[32] Fred Davis, Fashion, Culture and Identity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
[33] Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, 1956).
[34] Erving Goffman, Behavior in Public Places (New York: The Free Press, 1963).
[35] Jean Briggs, Inuit Morality Play: The Emotional Education of a Three-Year-Old (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999).
[36] Jenny Sund´en, Material Virtualities (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2003).
[37] See David Buckingham’s introduction to this volume for a greater discussion of this.
[38] Joshua Berman and Amy Bruckman, The Turing Game: Exploring Identity in an Online Environment, Convergence 7, no. 3 (2001): 83–102.
[39] Judith Donath, Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community, Communities in Cyberspace, eds. Marc Smith and Peter Kollock (London: Routledge, 1999).
1). Boyd, D. (2008). Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life. Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. D. Buckingham. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press: 119–142.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Just The Facts About Online Youth Victimization Researchers Present the Facts and Debunk Myths
"The nation's foremost academic researchers on child online safety presented their research and answered questions over a luncheon panel on May 3. This was the first time these prominent academics have appeared together to present their research, which, altogether, represents volumes of data on the state of online youth victimization and online youth habits."
(Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee, 3 May 2007)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
The entire notion of school 'subjects' needs to be questioned
"In fact, the entire notion of 'subjects' needs to be questioned, [Sir Ken Robinson] says. 'The idea of separate subjects that have nothing in common offends the principle of dynamism. School systems should base their curriculum not on the idea of separate subjects, but on the much more fertile idea of disciplines ... which makes possible a fluid and dynamic curriculum that is interdisciplinary.'
In December, the Rose review, the biggest inquiry into primary schooling in a generation, also recommended moving away from the idea of subjects. Sir Jim Rose said a 'bloated' curriculum was leaving children with shallow knowledge and understanding. The review proposed half a dozen cross-curricular themes instead: understanding English, communication and languages; mathematical understanding; science and technological understanding; human, social and environmental understanding; understanding physical education and wellbeing; and understanding the arts and design.
Robinson believes the curriculum should be much more personalised. 'Learning happens in the minds and souls, not in the databases of multiple-choice tests.' And why are we so fixated by age groups, he asks. Let a 10-year-old learn with their younger and older peers.
We put too high a premium on knowing the 'single right answer', Robinson claims. But he says he is not in principle opposed to standardised tests, such as Sats. Used in the right way, they can provide essential data to support and improve education. The problem comes when these tests become more than simply a tool of education and turn into the focus of it, he argues."
(Jessica Shepherd, 10 February 2009, The Guardian)
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MTV Buzz: avant-garde television
"Buzz is a long forgotten MTV experiment from 1990. In 1988, Mark Pellington developed an idea for a non-linear collage program he called "Buzz". Created in partnership with MTV Europe producer/director Jon Klein, Buzz was an ambitious 13-part global series commissioned by MTV and channel 4 (UK). It was hailed by critics as ground-breaking, adventurous television. This is episode 1 of the 4 episodes that have managed to survive on an old VHS tape to be digitized for your edification in this modern, digital age."
(Black Flag Party, YouTube Channel)
Fig.1 Buzz Episode 01 Segment 01
Fig.2 Buzz Episode 01 Segment 02
Fig.3 Buzz Episode 01 Segment 03
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Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us
"Daniel Pink provides concrete examples of how intrinsic motivation functions both at home and in the workplace."
(Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, 8 April 2010)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
