Playing games (After presentation)

In our presentation, we have chosen Mia Consalvo’s reading to present our topic about the gender and sexuality issues in video game. Firstly, we have introduced some important ideas which are mentioned in the readings such as the sexuality representation and the erotic triangle in video game. With the example of The Super Mario Bros and The Sims, we discovered the representation of heterosexuality is often occurring in the common video game. It means that the structure of video game is mostly affected by a heterosexual society that we are living in.

Therefore, we have set up an implicative question in the discussion part. For the reason is that we think it is a interesting topic for peoples to concern more about do the video games have reinforce the dominant ideology about heterosexuality and the representation of gender. During the keen discussion, we don’t think that the video game may reinforce the representation of gender as it is mostly depend on the player interests. For example, one of our classmate’s boyfriends likes to play cooking game and one’s girlfriend likes to play violent game respectively. It is really difficult to say that video game may reinforce the dominant ideology. Finally, we think it is a quite interesting topic for us to discuss.

Online Communities (after presentation)

After the presentation on the topic of Online communitites, there are several arguments that I should consider deeply. the most important is the the question of 'Real'. As there are so many online communitites on the Internet nowadays, such as forums, communicate platforms (e.g. msn) and social webpage (e.g. facebook), etc. We chat with each other in front of the computer monitor at our own home, without any interaction, but we would smile, laugh, cry, anger or sad, etc. all these emotions and the chat history become part of our lives and memories, yet all these things were done by text or image. so, are these experience real or not? it is very hard to define as we are experiencing them but not with real people. This is a good question for all of us to think carefully. Besides, the interaction among people became less with the development of technology and we should bare in mind that our reality is through interaction, we should not rely on technology too much or we would lose the social skills in the near future.

Week 11 : Playing Games (before presentation)

The topic we are going to present is "Playing Game". Our focus reading would be "As We become machine: Corporealized Pleasure in Video Games" from The Video Game Theory Reader by Mark J.P.Wolf & Bernard Perron (eds). According to the reading, there are 3 main parts we would like to further discuss. The bodily dimension is going to extend through the development of technology. Video games give players to get involved in "third place" in order to identify their self to the video games and perceive their own point of view.

However the boundaries between the games and players are erased in terms of increasing the tactile involvements. By using the examples, we can easily point out that the strong interconnection between human and technology in which our body sensory is going to be much actual and realistic from the video games. it is no longer limited into a visual aspects. At last, the cyborgian relationship can be fully developed while human are melding with the technology.

Week 11 Playing Games (before presentation)

Our group is going to present the topic of week 11: Playing Games, Sim(ulating) Worlds and Having Divine Powers. We have chosen to highlight and discuss the the second reading of this week, ‘As We Become Machines – Corporealized Pleasures In Video Games’ from The Video Game Theory Reader by Mark J.P. Wolf & Bernard Perron (eds).

Although there are two main foci within this reading, we would like to present the first focus, how the game space is being the ‘Third Place’. We will discuss the notion of how games provide the more real cyberspace for gamers by the development of video games. They are the dimensional improvement of graphics, the use of first person point of view for gamers and the sensory immersion for games. With the examples of these developments, the boundaries of the screen are being removed and that is why the writers commented that human and technology are merging together and having a new cyborgian relationship.

 

Critical Annotated Webliography

In writing the brief explanation of how feminists think towards the Donna Haraway’s figure of the cyborg, I found that I have to fully understand the key concepts of it. In order to start, I used to search the words like cyborg, Haraway, post-gender, etc. in different search engine. It is not easy to find the journals or article in which containing both pros and cons for Haraway’s argument. Indeed, feminists are commonly tends to totally against or mostly correspond to her. For academics writing, I believe I can only avoid bias if I have received those viewpoints. The more articles I read, the more complete ideas I get. So, I would like to use my sources in different styles or types such that they may help me to rich my statements. Here are the sources:

[1] Caddick, Alison. (1992) Feminist and Postmodern: Donna Haraway’s Cyborg. Arena. Retrieved 12th April 2008, from http://www.arena.org.au/ARCHIVES/General%20Archive/arena_99-100/haraway.html

Naming Haraway as the second wave feminism, the author has stated the difference of post-modern-determinit and historical-determinist ideologies. Different from other sources, this article has discussed the notion of cyborg in different aspect. Caddick figured that even Haraway may not recognize the powerful ability of cyborg. ‘Feminism occupies a privileged moral ground in Haraway's cyborg essay. With examining the philosophical meanings of cyborg, Caddick did believe that ‘cyborg’ metaphor help feminism to spur both political activity and helping us in adjusting and understanding the meaning of the techno-scientific era. 

[2] Du Preez, Amanda. (2002) Chapter Six, The Cyborg body. Gendered Bodies And New Technologies. Retrieved 30th March 2008, from http://etd.unisa.ac.za/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-08232004-155034/unrestricted/10Chapter6.PDF. 

This is the most details explanation of cyborg within the six sources. Rather than the key concepts of cyborg, the author has also mentioned that Harraway is technological determinism as well as social determinism. Different from those feminists, biological determinism, Harraway does not use the traditional briary categories to construct her analysis. It is because the cyberspace is now challenging the existed boundaries. Back to our traditional ideologies, women trends to be absent from technologies. Men own technologies as toys while women are seem to be apart from them. However, Harraway did prove that cyborg could absolutely fit into the post-gender world in which there is no gender at all. She believes that the cyberworld is a utopian post-gendered world without definite outlines and boundaries.

In contrast, the author used comment by another feminist, Alice Jardine, to doubt the originally idea of gender in cyberspace. Like parts of the feminists, Jardine only adopted some of the cyborg theory. In fact, they do dispute for the real sex of cyborg, regarding machines as the women. The author has used couple of Hollywood films as the examples to illustrate that the popular culture has been continuing the myth towards cyborg. Most of these films portrayed feminised cyborg as evil and hyer-masculinised cyborg could always retain popularity over a feminised cyborg. It is clear that cyborg is also based on sexed and gendered biases. 

[3] Haraway, Donna. (August 2000). Birth of the Kennel: Cyborgs, Dogs and Companion Species. Lecture at the European Graduate School with Schirmacher, Wolfgang. Saas Fee, Ski Switzerland. Retrieved 11th April 2008, from http://www.egs.edu/faculty/haraway/haraway-birth-of-the-kennel-2000.html.

This was the transcript of a lecture by Donna Haraway presented in 2000. She delivered her lecture with the explanation of Cyborg Manifest, the additional point of view in the modern cyber-world and in responding to the questions by the Audience and other scholars. She has used dog as the cyborg metaphor in explaining the new notion of her argument since dogs have been under evaluations in living with humans. Haraway suggested that human were not really into what is dog. Indeed we do certain about who we are. Sometimes we need to look away from ourselves in order to understand ourselves deeper. Just like the lecturer, Schirmacher, raised that this is not the time to discuss ‘who is dominating whom’, but this is the generation to evolve and investigate the relationship between the human and machine. That is why Cyborg acts as the new organism for human to investigate the relationship. She has then highlighted the essentialism of Cyborg.

[4] Kluchin, Abigail. (8th April 2003) The Cyborg and the Golem. The Global Spiral. Retrieved 10th April, 2008, from http://www.metanexus.net/Magazine/ArticleDetail/ tabid/68/id/8173/Default.aspx.

‘Cyborg feminism is a bold new myth; it cannot afford to ignore the old...’ In this article, the author used the word, golem, as the title in which point to the loophole of Harraway’s argument. Since Cyborg demonstrates the hybrid post- modernism of humans and technology, Cyborg feminists trend to mix the nature of the new and the old. Those feminists use cyborg to rebuild new concepts toward our society. Thus, the author used Nili as the argument to show the counterpoint of Harraway’s cyborg in referring simply ignored the history of human.

[5] Scott, Krista. (1997) The Cyborg, the Scientist, the Feminist & Her Critic. The Feminist eZine. Retrieved 28h March 2008, from http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/philosophy/Cyborg-Scientist-Feminist.html.

Similar to Amada Du Preez, the author has also focused on the gendered or non-gendered cyborg. Screening the headings and the graphics of the article, we can be easy to realize the standpoint of the author. With her reasons, we can discover that cyborg can be gendered. Besides, she has provided her analysis on how Harrayway’s cyborg is accepted and objected by cyber feminist and anti-technological respectively. Although the author used a large portion in criticizing the Harraway’s Cyborg Theory, she has shown her agreement on Harraway’s suggestion. They both thought that it is necessary for feminists in adopting science into feminism in order to enlarge their vision and bring the feminism forward. 

[6] Senft, Theresa. (2001) Theresa M. Senft's reading notes for 
Donna Haraway's
‘A Cyborg Manifesto’. Retrieved 13th April 2008, from http://www.terrisenft.net/students/readings/manifesto.html. 

This web is an introduction for Senft’s students to get the brief ideas of the Cyborg Manifesto. It is very suitable for the beginners or students to use as reference or even the dictionary to search the key words in related to cyborg. Out of the six sources listed here, this one is the only one to clearly state the three crucial arguments within Haraway’s text. Although Senft has not shown a clear standpoint within this article, she has described and breakdown from point to point. She has also referred to the four descriptions of the cyborg (cybernetic, hybrid, of the present, of the future). She commented Haraway’s cyborg concerns mainly on ‘boundaries crossing’ of the present instead of the prediction for the future. 

To conclude, Haraway’s Cyborg is absolutely incredible for describing our modern life, as it seems that we are living in a techno-determined world. Cyborg helps to bring feminism forward as feminists are no longer separating gender and technologies. Harayway’s argument about the hybridization of human and machines are meaningful to both popular culture and science fiction. Although most scholars has used the counterpoints of cyborg theory, like the homosexuality of cyborg verse the framed bias towards cyborg, in arguing Haraway’s theory, there is no clear assumption could be make in objecting the cyborg theory. Like most of the academic theory, Haraway could not avoid in being challenged by others due to the fact that the incompleteness of cyborg. Again, cyborg is applicable to many aspects since it is required to be the new organism for us to intensify the relationship of human and technologies.

Topic 10: Online communities (After presentation)

In the presentation, the concept of virtual community on the Internet was examined clearly with the case of Facebook. It included the features of online communities, such as embodiment, personal network, and its correlation to the real life experience. To some extents, we believe that online communities do help communication as it act as a platform for the interaction between people in the cyberspace, as mentioned in the discussion part. In which, it do change some of our communication practice in real life that we may more depend on online communication. For example, as said by some classmates in the discussion, even they don’t like Facebook, they also have an account in this online community and add into other people’s friend list, or say, network, for intercommunication. In this way, we can say that such online communication or communities have become a part of our life inevitably, as told in Rheingold’s reading.

Besides, some potential problems involving in online communities in aspects of privacy, anonymity and censorship are investigated in the presentation, with examples from news. Instead of these issues mentioned, the commercialization of virtual communities is pointed out as one of the problems and discussed in the tutorial discussion. Taking Facebook as a case, the commercial elements does not only refer to the increasing advertisement in the online community, but also applications such as quiz or questionnaire given by some companies. We think that those applications do have commercial purpose of collecting information and targeting the potential consumers as well as promoting. For examples, the psychological tests and the virtual gifts and applications of brand name like Starbucks and Gucci. In this way, Facebook may act as a tool for those companies rather than a pure communication platform. Moreover, the privacy may again become an issue to be concerned in this case, as the personal information may be transferred to the companies for commercial purpose without users’ permission.

In fact, the positive side and the ubiquity of virtual communities are realized obviously nowadays. But the impacts and potential problems involved in have also been disclosed gradually along with the increased online communities, and it should be put in concern.

For the presentation, there is a space for impovements. Paticularly, it may be better to give more examples, such as forums, to explain the ideas of online communities .

Week 11: Playing games, Sim(ulating) Worlds and Having Divine Powers (Before Presentation)

The presentation topic is ‘playing games, simulating worlds and having divine powers’. Our group will base on Mia Consalvo – Hot Dates and Fairy-Tale Romances. The presentation will be divided into parts. The reason that we chose this reading is the topic of video game is very interesting. And it is a chance for us to understand how the gender and sexuality issue are represented in the virtual world. Firstly, we will summarize the writer’s point of view. There have three main ideas in this part, which are ‘images of male/female’,‘sexuality representation’ and ‘Erotic triangle’.

According to Mia, the representations of women and girls in games reapply many stereotypes of feminity and vulnerability found in more traditional media. Those female and male game characters do not exist in isolation from each other, but interact in varied situations. And these interactions are sexualized, usually with the presumption of heterosexual interests. We will discuss with the game – The Sims, to talk more about those idea of reading.

Then, we will also take the game ‘Super Mario’ as an example to apply on this idea. All in all, we found that this is the truth that most of the video games which having stereotypes of feminity.