Nakamura, L. (2008). Cyberrace. Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 123, 1673-1682.
I
have been exploring theory behind my profile picture project, and Dr. Romberger
directed me to theory of subjectivity. I have read a primer on subjectivity by
Mansfield (2000) that offers a good definition of subjectivity as "theorising
the subject, … asking how the idea of a self has been thought and
represented" (p. v). I turn in this post to Nakamura (2008) for an
application of subjectivity in digital spaces.
Nakamura’s
question is, “[I]f life online is real, are race and racism online real
too?" (p. 1675). She explores this question through a literature review of
cyberspace, her intentionally chosen term drawing on the nineties’ vocabulary. What
she finds running through all of the literature is an empty idealism about the
Internet solving the social problem of race.
For example, in its pre-graphic days, the Internet was seen as
non-racial because the body could not be seen. However, researchers found that
any racism that arose was therefore blamed on the target of the racism for having
brought up race (p. 1676).
