Lights, Camera... Action.

“Everyday Life in our Wired World”

Ben Agger writes about how media and technology control the lives of human beings in our modern world.

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The author of “Everyday Life in our Wired World”, Ben Agger, writes about the relationship between the everyday lives of people and their social structure, especially in the virtual world. Agger begins by explaining that the “virtual self is connected to the world by information technologies that invade not only the home and office but the psyche” (1). He says that it is important to realize how the media culture and technology control human actions and everyday lives so that it is easier to see the relationship between our technological surroundings and us. Sociology is a perspective through which the relationship between people, their actions, and larger institutions can be seen. He also describes that technology is a “dense set of social relations defining the uses of machinery, electronics, media” (Agger 6). The author doesn’t believe that sociology is a science. In fact, Agger explains that sociology is “a writing style… a way of arranging certain words and images on the page. It’s a writing style that makes arguments” (2). In his efforts to de-professionalize sociology, Agger begins to clearly define historical aspects of Marxism, which he believes follows closely to the aspects of sociology, and other views that he grew up with in his lifetime, often relating his experiences with his values and beliefs. Agger goes more into depth on the self. He says that sociology is an explanation of what he calls “the worldliness of selves- their ability to go anywhere/anytime, their saturation with popular culture… their tendencies to change jobs, spouses, their bodies” (Agger 4). The current generation is introduced to much more information, virtually, than their parent’s or grandparent’s generation. The current generation is deficient in knowing the real value of life, and people are continuously trying to search for themselves and a community in which they can belong.  
    Agger goes on the explain the relationship between self and community by explaining the views of Karl Marx, whom he considers one of his inspirations. Karl Marx, according to Agger, said that “social being conditions consciousness but that consciousness, expressed in critique and action, can change social being, bringing into being a new society” (6). Agger goes on to explain his own story and his experiences in his life because he says that sociology “arises from experience, and the way we tell its story depends on how we remember who we were, and how we came to be the way we are” (9). Everyday life in this wired world that we live in has turned into a fast-paced and compressed life that people often rush through. When people go shopping, for example, “they are in a rush and perhaps do not have a complete and legible list of what they need” (Agger 19). He then tells the reader that this everydayness is a useful sociological category, even though people have forgotten to slow down in life and think about their self. Therefore, he agrees with Marx with the fact that everyday life has turned into a false consciousness and “a wellspring of revolutionary energy” (Agger 23).  Even though we live in a capitalistic society, capitalism only survives because it asks its citizens to follow the roles of a twenty-first century person and also because wealth depends on the exploitation of people. Agger calls this the wired capitalism and explains that even though socialism to some has failed, there is more to come in the future where socialism can definitely show its true colors. The internet doesn’t “set men and women free” and the “self is… scattered on the vectors of virtualization” (Agger 27). And that is why Agger introduces to us his first chapter of his book to explain the importance of a virtual sociology in order to make some meaning of out scattered virtual selves.

Texting in Public

Imagine yourself in a really crowded bus, full of strangers all around you, pushing you as they moving, touching you as they shift in their seats. In this situation, you take out your phone and start texting your friend about this very uncomfortable situation. The person next to you looks over at you, and makes a comment about the crowded situation and how they can’t wait to get off the bus. You smile at the comment and go back to your phone.

This is a very situational event, but it can happen to almost anyone. The issue to think about here is that you would rather text your friends rather than make conversation with the person next to you. Why is that? The reason for this may range from a variety of different reasons. What I believe the reason is security reasons. We listen to the news now and then and we always hear about the insecure times our world has fallen into. Murders, rapes, hacking, stolen identities, burglaries, and many other things now bring more and more fears about the strangers that live outside of our homes. The fears in our minds in our modern world is what prevents us from making friends simply by talking to a stranger next to us in a crowded situation.

In our modern times, however, we have an advantage: cell phones and other distractions. We are able to resort to these things because we feel more secure doing these than talking to a stranger. Our security and comfort level with modern technology prevents us from using simple forms of time-pass and communication: talking to someone next to us. Who knows, in the next ten years, texting on cell phones will be equivalent to looking over and talking to someone next to us and we will need to resort to other upcoming ways of comforting communications forms.

Self-Respect in Cyberspace

Julian Dibbell, one of the victims of the famous cyberspace rape incident in LambdaMOO, wrote about his experiences as he saw the crimes occur in front of his eyes. An analysis of his work shows us just how important it is to be able to protect our online identities.

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Dibbell, Julian. “A Rape in Cyberspace.” Scribble, Scribble, Scribble: Selected Texts, Published and Unpublished. 1 Apr. 2010.

    Julian Dibbell, the author of the blog post titled “A Rape in Cyberspace”, talks about a sexually disturbing virtual case within the website called LambdaMOO, a virtual imaginary space where people were able to socialize with other avatars, using their own avatar as a representation of themselves. Julian Dibbell starts by telling us the horrible things that Mr. Bungle, an avatar of a supposed male college student, did to other representations, or avatars, within the mansion halls of this imaginary place, which shows up only as texts running across the screen of your laptop. Mr. Bungle’s words of sexual offense against the others in the room became a case of serious insult against others, and was made into a big issue.
    Dibbell, when explaining what Mr. Bungle, the name of the suspect, and his voodoo doll avatar, did to the others in the room, does it in a very vague way. His argument is obviously against Mr. Bungle and his actions and he negatively describes the situation that occurred in the year 1993. Dibbell states that “you could hear Mr. Bungle laughing evilly in the distance”, stating that he believes Mr. Bungle really was an evil character, at least in the virtual LambdaMOO world. His argument, as I said, was conveyed in a very vague manner. At the beginning for example, it was difficult for the reader to fully understand the entire context of how LambdaMOO is set up. Later, the reader is able to partially understand that LambdaMOO is, in fact, a world of words running up the computer screen. The reality of a physical mansion or home of the residents of LambdaMOO existed only in the imaginations of those who were involved with the website. What the participants read on the screen, were conveyed in their heads as images, like reading a book. This message, however, is vague from Dibbell’s words in his text. When he starts off his article, he states that he “may have shape-shifted (the story) by the digital moonlight one too many times to be quite up to the task”, thereby questioning the reliability of what he wrote. He himself is not sure if he can effectively explain the Bungle case to us, neither is he sure about being reliable to tell it to us properly. This is why his reliability, and ethos, is automatically low from the very beginning. Dibbell tries to present an argument, the fact that what Mr. Bungle did through the internet, may only be true in the virtual world, but is still a serious crime against the minds of those who were also playing the online game. However, because of the statement he makes, he immediately loses a lot of his ethos, because the audience is now less likely to trust him to be able to correctly define the situation, since he says it has been shape-shifted.
    Even though Dibbell tries to use ethos to make his argument, and fails in doing it, he mostly uses pathos to describe the Bungle case and present the argument to the audience. He describes Mr. Bungle almost as a dreaded avatar figure, making his readers afraid of him and erupting a feeling of disgust within them about this horrible character and the horrible sexual acts he committed against his fellow gamers. Dibbell creates a fear within his readers about the queer thought this case brought to the world: if this could happen online, without actually physically affecting the lives of those involved in any way that’s real, is it still considered to be an act of crime? After all, the avatar one creates online is a representation of themselves and when one messes with this avatar it can be just as frightening a though it were happening in real life. Dibbell may have failed to use proper ethos in presenting his argument, but he uses pathos in a very efficient manner to describes the frightening case of Mr. Bungle and his horrible crimes within the halls of a once-upon-a-time mansion called LambdaMOO. 

Class Divisions between Facebook and Myspace

The following is a research analysis of a very interesting piece written by Dana Boyd in which she describes the class divisions that can be seen along the lines of Myspace and Facebook.

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Boyd, Danah. “Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace .” Apophenia Blog Essay. June 24, 2007.

    In an online blog, the writer Danah Boyd writes an interesting article called “Viewing American class divisions though Facebook and Myspace” in which she describes the two main divisions in class as seen in online media and social networking sites, specifically Facebook and Myspace. Boyd explains that these two groups are called hegemonic and subaltern groups and she explains the definitions of these groups through a series of examples throughout her blog. Boyd begins by describes the hegemonic group as “the goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other “good” kids” and explains how they are “now going to Facebook…These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college”. She states that these hegemonic kids are more likely to use Facebook than Myspace because they like the look and feel of the website, versus the look on Myspace’s “trashy” appearance. This apparently “trashy” and crowded look of Myspace is what made many hegemonic kids and teenagers migrate to the Facebook era, a transition mostly from Myspace’s generation of use. According to Boyd, Myspace users belong to a group called subaltern kids, comprising of “Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, “burnouts,” “alternative kids,” “art fags,” punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn’t play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn’t go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. These are the teens who plan to go into the military immediately after schools. Teens who are really into music or in a band are also on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers”. Boyd describes that people of Myspace are often grouped into people who belong to the lower class culture and therefore are looked down upon by the Facebook users, or the hegemonic group. Similarly, Myspace users tend to isolate themselves from hegemonic groups because they feel it is unnecessary for them to indulge in such a different class culture.
    Boyd’s blog post is very similar to my previous Tumblr blog post in which I talked about the differences between Myspace and Facebook and how they play into the different personalities of different people. I agree with Boyd in her description of how class differences can be seen from the use of different types of social networking sites. For example, in my blog I wrote about how the efficiency of Facebook is much different than the world of bling and HTML of Myspace, and I further explain the experiences of my own in migrating from the old Myspace culture to the new dominant Facebook world. I wrote about how my needs along with my tastes, as I grew from a girl to a woman, changed as I migrated from one online world to another. Boyd’s article states something similar, and she explains how the “then” users of Myspace are “now” using Facebook because they believe that Myspace is “so lame” as apposed to the professional and adult-styled appearance of Facebook. However, Boyd brings in the issue of class distinction in her blog, something that I failed to see the importance of. The class distinctions she has studied in her six months of research in online media, has shown her that a growing division of class and culture, not necessarily of income, but geography and often race, can be seen in the different types of media websites. She writes a must-read article about the progression of social networking sites of Myspace and Facebook and shows how they are progressing through the years as a mirror image of the class distinctions of real life. 

“Adventures in Capitalism”

Another reading done by our rhetoric class was Ben Agger’s chapter called “Adventures in Capitalism” in which he talks about the uses of Capitalism in our postmodern world. 

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Agger, Ben. “Adventures in Capitalism”. The Virtual Self: A Contemporary Sociology. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007: 98-123.
    Ben Agger, in his book called The Virtual Self, wrote a very interesting chapter called “Adventures in Capitalism”. He talks about how capitalism uses postmodern techniques in order to protect itself from a socialist world and environment and Agger uses Ethos, Pathos, and Logos to help the reader understand his credentials.
    For ethos, the author mainly uses credentials such as giving examples of things that he has done in the past. For example, Agger states that in an earlier book of his, he “argued that in a ‘fast,’ postmodern stage of capitalism the boundary between the text and the world fades as books ooze out of their covers and into the world” (102). Because of the credential of his other book which has already been published and read by hundreds of other people, the author is able to trust him better, knowing that he is already such a successful author. Later in another sentence he says that what he really means is that “our lives are cluttered and commanded by all sorts of discourses” which he defines as “ways of talking about, and representing, the world” (Agger 102). Primarily, without the credential he gives about his earlier book, people may have strongly disagreed on the fact that our lives are cluttered around the things we use to make life more comfortable. But since he is no known as an established author, people are not going to disagree as much, and instead will think about what has been said by the author rather than defy him immediately.
    Pathos was also used in Agger’s work. He states that in an ideal Marxist world, “people, when free, will make good choices about their lives. Their selfhood will be healthy, non-dominating, neither abused nor abusive…the environment will be treated with respect… animals will enjoy their rights… race and sex hatred will fade as police no longer apprehend drivers simply for being black and women run large organizations without male resentment” (Agger 108). Ironically, as nice as this world sounds, it is not the world we live in today. This is why Agger’s pathos paragraph full of sentences describing the ideal Marx world, bring an emotion of sadness. In the big picture, this helps Agger define the positive sides of a Marx community, and the negative sides of the Capitalistic community we live in today, which Agger makes is seem like the complete opposite of his pathos-driven paragraph.
    Agger’s use of logos can be seen quite extensively in this chapter. In one example, the author uses an entire page and a half to describe the evolution of Marxism and its comparison with Capitalism. He even gives a definition on the same page and tells the audience that “according to Marx and Engels, ideologies produce false consciousness, a worldview that disqualifies radical social change as impossible and convinces workers to accept their present circumstances” (Agger 104). Agger goes on the describe the change of Capitalism through the years and states that “during the 1950’s and 1960’s, capitalism developed even more resilience” (105). He uses a lot of historical facts and logical reasoning to describe the changing of both Marxist and Capitalistic theories is such a logical and reasoning way that the audience is forced to compare the two together, a feat that Agger tries to accomplish in many other places in this chapter. Other places in this chapter holds the same type of historical based knowledge in order to educate his audience and use logos as his credential for his argument.
    The methods that I found to be dominant are logos. Throughout the chapter, Agger uses logos and logical facts, usually in history, to make his point across to the audience. For instance, he states that “Thorstein Veblen (1979) talked about the leisure class and what sets them apart from those who simply toil” (Agger 117). Connections to other authors, historical facts, and defining terms is something that Agger does a lot throughout this chapter. This is beneficial to him because his audience consists mostly of those who are very intellectual and consistent with both Marxist and Capitalist theories. This kind of audience would want to know the logic behind Agger’s argument.

Mindmap

In my Rhetoric class, we made a mindmap explaining the activities of our online identities. 

The Ways In Which We Communicate

The writing tone is different between the different types of communication such as texting, social network messaging, public posting, emailing, etc. This is because in each of these ways, we are addressing a different type of audience. For example, when we text our family members, the writing is very short and informal. When we post a message on our friend’s facebook wall, we are very relaxed about what we say. When we post a blog, we make the tone a little more serious since other people are also expected to read it. When we write an email to our professors, we are definitely more formal and we make sure there are no spelling mistakes in what we write. It is easy to see that the different ways in which we communicate call for different tones in our writing.

There are some rules in each of these types of writing. In texting, the rules are for keeping as short and simple as possible and using acronyms such as brb, for be right back, ttyl, for talk to you later, and many others. On facebook, not much rules apply except for the fact that the tone is usually kept at a very informal level and spelling and grammer is usually not kept an eye on. Within a blog, spelling and grammar are more important than facebook and the rule of getting the point across to many other people is the main goal. In an email, the goal would be to pass a message on to someone else with the rules of spelling and grammar kept in mind, especially when sending the message to a professor or an authority figure. In an email to a professor, we usually avoid everyday language, such as phrases like “see you later”, or “watsup?” The same way, texting people usually does not involve long email length writing or formal sentences that an email usually would. 

Like I mentioned before, usually the audience decides on what you write and how you write it. If I were to tell a joke to a friend on her facebook profile, I normally would not send that joke to my professor through email. This is because I have a much more informal relationship with my friend than my professor, and even though both of those relationships mean a lot to me, its on a personal level that decides what tone I use hidden within my words.