Daniellesirk's Blog

Masculinities

daniellesirk — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:46:22 +0000

Sherry Turkle: “by enabling people to experience what it feels like to be the opposite gender or to have no gender at all, the practice encourages reflection on the way ideas about gender shape our expectations” (77).

I really didn’t think about making my avatar look different until after I had finished creating it. I realized that I had made an avatar that looked like me, but I didn’t have to do that. It was my instinct to create a female avatar with brown hair and blue eyes. The idea of creating a male avatar never came to me. I wasn’t really familiar with the game, so I guess I just wanted to feel comfortable using my avatar to learn the basics. If I would have created a male avatar, I probably would have made the “male version” of myself.
It would be interesting to create a male avatar now that I know more about the game. I don’t think that I would purposely act differently while using a male avatar, but there would probably be a difference between the actions of my female avatar and the actions of the male.

“Avatar Landscape”

daniellesirk — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 00:57:30 +0000

What it is, Part One
Mark Meadows states that an avatar is “an interactive, social representation of a user.” I definitely agree with this statement. I automatically think of a little 3-D person that moves and talks when I hear the word “avatar.” Sims 2 is all about interaction and representation. The user creates a character that goes on to interact with its surroundings. The avatar allows the user to be a part of the virtual world. Another thing that Meadows mentions is the ability to customize your avatar. People may create avatars that look just like them or one of their friends. On the other hand, they could also create an avatar that looks nothing like anyone they have ever seen before.

What it is, Part Two
In this section Meadows somewhat contradicts his depiction of avatars in part one. At first I was skeptical about youtube videos being considered avatars, but after reading the section I changed my mind. An avatar is not only a representation of a person, but also a representation of ideas and views. Meadows also showed how easily people are lead on by avatars. I agree with this idea. If I would be chatting on AOL with someone who had a masculine screen name, I would automatically believe that the person was a male. Sometimes things like this can be misleading.

What it is, Part Three
This section deals with avatars and perspectives. Meadows talks about the “baseball card” type of avatar- a profile. I never really considered a profile to be an avatar, but if a youtube video can be one, why not? Meadows goes on to describe avatars in different video games, like Mario. I think it is a stretch to consider Mario an avatar because there is little to no level of customization. How can an avatar socially represent someone if there is no way to put your own personal twist on the avatar?

What it is, Part Four
I definitely agree that avatars are social characters, but you are not always interacting with other real people. In Sims 2, for example, the game is not played online. The user’s avatars interact with each other and other nonplayable characters. Interaction is what fuels our avatars, whether they are interacting with other users online or with their own environment.

Robbins-Bell Response

daniellesirk — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:37:50 +0000

After reading the Robbins-Bell article on virtual reality, ideas about new courses at McDaniel started to flood my brain. One portion of the article really made me think. This was the section about avatars. Robbins-Bell states, “The flexible avatar can allow students to experiment with personalities and roles that they might not otherwise be able to try out.” She goes on to give examples, such as a male student using a female avatar. This idea would be of great use in a sociology or psychology course. Some of the courses it would benefit at McDaniel are Social Inequality and Justice, Race and Ethnic Relations in the US, and Gender and Society.
Using a virtual world such as Second Life for a sociology course would be very interesting. A white female student could make an Asian male avatar. The female student could try to convice others that she really was an Asian male. Even though virtual reality is different from real life, the female student could see if certain biases or stereotypes hold up in the different world.
Since the virtual world is always up and running and there are people from around the globe online at all different times, students would have a chance to interact with people of different cultures and backgrounds. They could observe other avatars and see if there are any prejudice behaviors that occur online.
This type of knowledge could be very useful in our fast paced world. Since technology is always progressing, who knows what will be introduced to us next. One day there may be a career path that involves virtual counseling or something of the sort.

Blog Response #1- Alexander

daniellesirk — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:11:29 +0000

A screenshot of wikipedia

Wikipedia is a web service used for editing and adding information to encyclopedia articles. The website goes on to list what it should not be used for. This is quite a long list, but some of the items it includes are original inventions, personal essays, discussion forums, and journalism. No credentials or verifiable sources are needed to update articles. Because of this, the articles contain many different viewpoints and are constantly changing. This could cause the site to be a blessing or a curse.
Users are able to modify information very quickly and easily, so information should always be accurate. Say one article is about a current author. Any news about the author can be easily added and old information can be updated. There is also a down side to this. Since it is so easy to add information, anyone could do it. There will always be a chance that incorrect information could be posted on the site.

A screenshot of Socialtext.

Socialtext is like wikipedia in the fact that users can add and edit information, but you must be a member in order to do so. You must pay to be a member, but there is a free trial available on the site. Some features that are included with membership are collaborative weblogs, wiki workspaces, dashboard “homepage”, social messaging, and distributed spreadsheets. This site is mostly for sharing information with coworkers or partners while working on some type of project.
Wikipedia is a site with a general audience and membership is not needed. Wikipedia seems like it would have more use in everyday life. Socialtext would be more useful in the corporate world, since it is geared toward project leaders and businesses. The downside to socialtext is its membership fees.
Overall, I would say socialtext is the most useful. It seems like it would be an excellent way for coworkers to collaborate on a business project if they were in different parts of the country or working different shifts.

Hello world!

daniellesirk — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:51:32 +0000

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!