Blog 12...would you grab my sweater?

It's "drafty" writing, get it? Fun with puns! Moving on...

Right now, I’m working on piecing together the important part of the interview with the questions that I want to answer and some things I’ve already said in my notes – trying to use the interview to prove what I am trying to say. These are my notes so far. I think I will also use the Herring article (http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/politeness.1994.pdf) to help me explain computer culture and gender.

I need to talk about the relationship than women have with men in general as a society/culture, and then ask why A feels the way she does about men in relation to the internet.

• S    so how do you think you felt about computers (when you were young- in grade school/middle school).
• A    I loved it - I loved it because, when I discovered what AOL was - that I could email my friends, put in little pictures, photoshop - all those things - and like chat with people my age - which can be dangerous.  We didn't have a computer, but we had web tv.  Must have been in fifth grade.  And it was a slow connection and you could have a little keyboard, and you could, check your email, and you could also chat strangers - which was dangerous cause I think I talked to a pedophile I'm not sure, I I was in fifth grade I gave him my phone number when he called me I hung up I was so scared
• S    what did that experience do
• A    That was scary.

When asked about the internet, the very first thing she talks about is talking to a pedophile – she was unprompted for this type of admission, so for this information to appear so quickly in the interview shows how much impact it has had on A. Subconsciously, A must relate the internet to a scary place where old men stalk little girls. There are some serious issues that A has with trusting men and feeling inferior to men – this is the reason for her fear. On the internet, nobody can hurt you (physically) because they don’t know who/where you are – her fear is not of being emotionally hurt, but physically hurt. She would have to empower the man to hurt her (by giving her phone number, address, etc.) despite the fact that she clearly knew better, even as a child. Did she feel so fearful of men that she gave him her number anyway? What caused A to feel automatically inferior to this man on the internet, considering that she had little previous experience with the internet and no parental input on the subject?

What impact has culture had on her ideas about power (between men/women) on the internet and in real life? Or, how has culture affected A's ability to feel empowered in social situations? (the limit of "individualism" a woman can achieve in relation to media ideals (make-up, models, looking thin, etc.) and how this continues from real life to the internet via chatrooms and social networking.)

• S    making my eyes green, and fixing my cousin's nose to make it a little pointier, and then sending it to people  will all the photoshop, so we had a lot of fun
• S    oh you did (laughing) you did
• A    we would make ourselves a little thinner, and that's what we did though, I think half of our albums were photoshopped, so um

In this interactional unit, A tells S about using PhotoShop to alter her appearance and send the photos to people. Although A and her friends were doing something considered relatively normal, in the context of the internet, it shows A’s continued fear of men. She as an inherent need to appeal to men and to impress them, or to feel sexy around them; even though on the internet, the men that she encounters are strangers and are potentially dangerous. Why does A feel the need to alter her image? Perhaps this is because subconsciously, she feels inferior to men or even to other women. It seems unhealthy that a young girl (presumably in her early teens at the time she is discussing,) would feel the need to appear “thinner” to older men.

Based on her stories, does A really like the internet?

It appears as though throughout her life, A has only found that the internet is a place to have fear. Although she remains anonymous in chat rooms, which gives her the ability to have different personalities each day, she still feels as though she does not have power. Despite her claims that she loved the internet and felt a certain freedom (or an environment in which she did not have to abide by her parent’s rules,) the tone and word choice throughout the interview suggest the opposite; she was restricted by her fear and by the oppressive nature of the adult men that she would speak to.

• A    well this time it's someone I know and I think we lied about our age, too, so we said, every time we were 14 we'd at 3 or 4 extra years, we wanted to sound older (small laugh) and we would change our screen name so many times, cause we're like  'ahh, we want to have a new personality today'
• S    laughing
• A    we're like "pinkgirlloves whatever" or there, like our new boyfriends name, like Angelalovewhateverhisnameis - we changed it every week.   What can you do?

In this interactional unit, A further proves that she is defined by the men in her life. Her “new personality” is never defined by her thoughts or ideas, but by the name of her boyfriend at the time. She is so subservient to the male culture that she does not even realize this mistake.

Questions I haven’t yet worked with: When does A lose or gain power in this transcript and why? What morals does A have on the internet that may be different in person. I might use A's pronoun usage as part of the discussion about power - her inability or unwillingness to take responsibility for doing something "bad", but complete willingness to point fingers at those who are doing similar things (her younger sister or the pastor's son). A tends to dominate the conversation with S, but on the internet she presents herself as having been more timid - her constant reference to danger and fear, etc.