Digitizing race : visual cultures of the Internet / Lisa Nakamura.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nakamura, Lisa.

Series:

Electronic mediations ; v. 23.

Electronic mediations ; 23

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Internet--Social aspects.

Information society.

Internet and culture.

Internet and race.

Visual communication.

Physical Description:

ix, 248 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2008]

Summary:

In the nineties, neoliberalism simultaneously provided the context for the Internet's rapid uptake in the United States and discouraged public conversations about racial politics. At the same time many scholars lauded the widespread use of text-driven interfaces as a solution to the problem of racial intolerance. Today's online world is witnessing text-driven interfaces giving way to far more visually intensive and commercially driven media forms that not only reveal but showcase people's racial, ethnic, and gender identity. Lisa Nakamura refers to case studies of popular yet rarely evaluated uses of the Internet such as pregnancy Web sites, instant messaging, and online petitions and quizzes to look at the emergence of race-, ethnic-, and gender-identified visual cultures.

While popular media continue to depict nonwhite nonmales as passive audiences rather than as producers, Nakamura argues the contrary-with examples ranging from Jennifer Lopez music videos; films including the Matrix trilogy, Gattaca, and Minority Report; and online joke sites-that people of color and women use the Internet to vigorously articulate their own types of virtual community, avatar bodies, and racial politics.

Contents:

Introduction: digital racial formations and networked images of the body

"Ramadan is almoast here!": the visual culture of AIM buddies, race, gender, and nation on the Internet

Alllooksame?: mediating visual cultures of race on the Web

The social optics of race and networked interfaces in The matrix trilogy and Minority report

Avatars and the visual culture of reproduction on the Web

Measuring race on the Internet: users, identity, and cultural difference in the United States

Epilogue: the racio-visual logic of the Internet.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-237) and index.

ISBN:

9780816646128

0816646120

9780816646135

0816646139

OCLC:

154789875

Online:

Publisher description