Cybertypes, pages xii-30 - Lisa Nakamura

Cybertyping-
Recap: This section of her book she goes into great detail about how the Internet is split with a Digital Divide. Racial issues are thought to be nonexistent. She talks about how minorities are being left behind in the use of the Internet and how if they wish to use the internet they must conform to the “white” internet. The Internet is supposed to set up a Utopia for all who use it and not be segregating to those who use it. She feels that there is a large “white gaze” that goes with the use of the internet. Other races that use the internet have to conform to the style, and way it is used or loose their identity. Even the ethnicity of the person using the internet is lost due to the neutral nature of how it is used by most people.

Comments: So far to me, Lisa comes across as being somewhat racist herself. It may be just her writing style, which is very slow and tedious, She does make her point but the way she comes across about how the internet is causing people to loose their ethnicity. However, I find it interesting that when a person visits web sites from other parts of the world that are not in English they are very different indeed compared with what comes across here as a “white” web site. It may be a male dominated internet, which tends to be the case when things of technology are used. I think that more women are showing interest in technology and from societies that suppress the female; they will be able to get more control over their lives as time goes on. Yes, the information super highway does wonders for people but it’s the people that need to do wonders for themselves. People make the internet and the different races, ethnicities can work to make the internet the way they want it to appear. For a technology it is still in its infancy and in time it will come to represent the whole world. If people can ever work to get along across the whole planet, then maybe just maybe it will work out.