Chapter 3 Forward Thinking, Composing Cyberspace

Forward Thinking about Chapter 3

   "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" has become one of the best known one-liners of the electronic age, originating from the Peter Steiner cartoon published in The New Yorker in July 1994 (p. 110 in the paper version of Composing Cyberspace). The cartoon makes fun of the anonymity of network communications by showing a dog online, presumably fooling some credulous humans about its true identity. This anonymity is similarly lampooned in the Mike Luckovich cartoon that opens Chapter 2 (p. 66), where the focus is on appearance and gender relations. Steiner's cartoon takes a broader swipe at the issue, however, by portraying the anonymous computer user as a member of another species. The humorous implication is that the usual, face-to-face clues we get about people's identity -- their appearance, gender, voice, race, ethnicity, and other indicators of social status -- are so crucial that, in electronic space, we cannot distinguish human beings from other creatures.
   While we laugh at the unlikelihood of this scenario, we may also squirm a bit, uncomfortable with the idea of not knowing who we're talking to. The humor of the cartoon derives not only from the apparent gullibility of the human participants but also from the exaggeration of the dog's intelligence. Whether it's using its own office or borrowing a person's office, the black dog evidently can talk, read and write fluently, operate a computer, and navigate the Internet (tasks at which not all humans have succeeded!); the spotted dog, likewise, presumably understands the whole process. In the new electronic medium, dogs -- in real life, our pets or servants -- have become equivalent to their human masters. This leveling effect of computer-mediated communication -- "where individuals make themselves known by the acuity of their thought and expression, rather than by their physical appearance," as Steve Silberman puts it in this chapter -- may profoundly influence how we conceive, construct, and express our personal and cultural identity. Those influences, and the tensions among sameness, equality, difference, and individuality in cyberspace, are explored in the selections that follow.
   Steiner's dogs are, perhaps not insignificantly, different colors: one black and one white with black spots. In CyberFaith International, a Dayton (Ohio)-based Internet exchange described by Charlise Lyles, people of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds discuss multiculturalism, or the positive effects of cultural diversity, in the context of their Christian spiritual beliefs. Because the medium is "socially blind, colorblind, and classblind," according to one participant, "everyone comes to the conversation with a kind of equality." Steve Silberman cites similar advantages to e-mail and electronic chat-room exchanges for gay and lesbian teenagers, who can explore their sexual orientation with mentors and sympathetic peers in ways that haven't been possible in other media. By contrast, Max Padilla, who identifies himself as both gay and Chicano, writes about feeling much less welcome on the Internet, which he finds to be dominated by straight, white, affluent males.
   The complexity of expressing cultural identities online is further explored by Glen Martin, writing about the controversy surrounding a Native American seminar and chat room offered by America Online that was run by a white software consultant. Native activists called the project a cultural rip-off and fraud and have worked since to build Native-run electronic networks that restrict access to culturally sensitive information. Finally, in John Shirley's riveting science fiction story, "Wolves of the Plateau," prisoners in the year 2022 -- like prisoners today, mostly from socially marginal groups -- have access only to a forbidden, black-market kind of "Internet." They must confront their diversity and find a way to collaborate if they are going to escape.
   Before you read these selections, you may find it helpful to consider your own personal and cultural identity and the tensions in your own life between sameness and difference. For example,
   1. List the various cultural groups, other than gender (which is the subject of Chapter 2), with which you identify. Include groups based on social or economic class, race or ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, age or generation, occupation, physical abilities, special interests, and other important aspects of your identity. How much of who you are depends on each of these?
   2. How aware are you of particular group identities (from question 1) in your regular, day-to-day interactions? What forms of expression do they take (for example, attending church or meetings, reading particular books, etc.)? How aware do you think other people are of their, and your, belonging to various cultural groups? How knowledgeable or ignorant do you think most people are about some of the particular groups that form important parts of your identity?
   3. Whether you are heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual, what are your attitudes about people with a different sexual orientation from yours? What would you most like to ask someone with a different sexual orientation? What would you most like such a person to know about your own sexual identity?
   4. If you have access to a computer lab, classroom, or networked computers equipped with electronic discussion software, hold a discussion in which everyone logs on anonymously. Before you begin, make sure you agree on some ground rules for netiquette or online politeness. Discuss one of the issues raised earlier or another topic suggested by your peers or teacher. Afterward, talk face-to-face about the experience. How did you perceive other people's comments differently without knowing what they looked like, sounded like, and acted like? Or did you already know some of your classmates well enough to identify them without names? Despite the anonymity, or beyond your guessing of classmates' identities, did you perceive any clues or signals about people's social status or cultural identity from what they wrote? How so?

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