online theater: gender, dating & race narratives April 14, 2004 IS 208B

Today’s topics 1. Brenda Laurel, computers as theater – what kinds of narratives do people enact? 2. Tinysex: narratives about gender 3. Nakamura: narratives about race 4. Dating: narratives about market exchange

Laurel, Online dramaturgical metaphors Software is a communications medium built upon culture -- metaphors, storylines, action. } ‘tool’ & ‘user’ are metaphors with limited utility. } Metaphors are ‘cognitive hooks,’ enabling action with low cultural overhead } Computers theater -- focus upon directing actors and actions in a story.

Computers as theater? 1. Identity construction / deception, the emotional infrastructure of nearly all human communication  Goffman views identity as constrained by roles and feedback that have real consequences in RL, and in virtual environments linked to RL.  It looks as if online social networks are frequently reinforced by RL social networks. 2. Three keys to identity:  Sex & gender is a tacit drama within every organization -- a fundamental building block of organizations.  Race  Markets

2. Tinysex: some definitions No-one uses these terms with any consistency but here’s a try at defining them:  Sex differences = biological differences, including chromosomes, hormones, anatomy, secondary sex characteristics  Transexuals = sense you’re in the wrong body  Gender = cultural practices that construct behavior and ideas about sex differences.  Transgender = feeling you don’t fit either M/F categories

“sex roles” Persistent cultural practice to read gender as important part of every social context, whether salient or not. Sex “roles” are expectations of M/F behavior, people violating these expectations subject to negative feedback outside of their own subculture. For this reason ‘signs expressed’ tend to be in code. Gender socially constructed as “opposite sexes,” as if two species, although in fact behavior is a variable with feminine men and masculine women in every possible combination.

Organizations are (always) gendered  Social networks have a tendency to be more or less single sex (depending upon context)  Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice – study of gender culture of children’s games.  Masculinity = rights, competition, rule oriented  Femininity = social relationships  Rosabeth Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation. Corporations (and utopias) are gendered -- men in authority roles, women in relationship roles.

Sex & gender online Turkle: Gender becomes a variable when there are no consequences outside the MUD of not living up to sex role expectations – and yet people demand that you enact a sex role = theater of gender. } No consequences -- but there may be personal emotional consequences in RL. } And online social networks often seem to link to RL social networks, so there may be consequences.

Turkle, on tinysex The emotional functions of tinysex  Turkle thinks the function of play is emotional growth, experimentation to solve deeply felt problems or issues (Erickson, Childhood & Society; Turkle The Second Self)  Gender identity play a form of entertainment, but because gender is so closely tied to identity, has emotional consequences in RL.

M/F interactive patterns of dependence F presenting identities are constantly offered help -- reinforcing feelings of dependence, inadequacy. M presenting identities are not offered help, expected to learn rules through competition, games, assertion of rights. Barrie Thorne, Gender Play. How games reflect and reinforce ‘sex roles’ (great chapter on ‘cooties’ – contamination by the other sex) Note that M/F inequality exists in every culture, but there is considerable variation in how sex roles/gender is performed.

Software design & gender  NOTE: If sex roles/gender is persistent online theater it becomes a design issue: the use of identity/anonymity.  Sherry Hsi == girls drop out of class discussions in middle school because of gender; online discussions that don’t reveal sex are much more egalitarian. See

Nakamura on race ‘roles?’ Race as a ‘role:’ stereotypes of being Asian  Nakamura: sex is choice, but default race is white (absence of definition is white)  Because participants are largely white  Because MUD goal is harmony, race is regarded as unharmonious  Identity tourism = recreational race  Male = Samuri warrior fantasies  Female = exgeisha  Edward Said = marginalizing the ‘other’ = fantasy of control because other is stereotyped. Tacit theater of Western culture is colonial attitude towards people of color.

3. Dating & social networks: the theater of market exchange } ‘dating and mating’ occurs within context of strong tie social networks in RL (neighborhood, education) } matchmaking by family, friends -- self confidence, advising, helping to calculate exchange value. (Note arranged marriages). } Note success of British site “Friends reunited” -- 1/6 the British population belongs -- to find high school loves (and have affairs with them). The persistence of early strong networks.

Online dating  Lifestage: after college social networks of single people tend to become much smaller, harder to find mates.  Acceptance of online matchmakers due to confidentiality, ability to assess the other without commitment, ability to escalate commitment slowly. How well can software do this?  Profiles/search and match/private messaging/exchange of pictures  Eventually FtF meeting (pheromones?)

Marriage markets M/F construct identity profiles thinking about what the ‘other’ is looking for: exchange of social status, educational level, attractiveness, expressive quality. Dating a classic market, but with imperfect information about the other; function of SN is to qualify information. (See Geertz on Morocco street markets) What holds the relation together during negotiations? SN in RL; online matchmakers have an interest in keeping people trying.

Monday, April 19 Theme: Blogs (and other kinds of social software) o as an innovation -- how do innovations spread? oThe ‘S’ curve: where has it taken hold? What are accelerators? oDiffusion of innovation follows social networks (early adopters / influentials) -- which are engaged now? oReinvention. Typically innovations accelerate the ‘S’ curve when they find a new social context -- is that happening? o As genre -- are there rules that make info more redundant? What relation to social networks?