Digitizing Race

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Digitizing Race

Visual Cultures of the Internet

Lisa Nakamura

Table of Contents

$19.50 paper
ISBN: 978-0-8166-4613-5

The implications of how we see and exhibit race and ethnicity online.

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 such as e-mail and instant messaging 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, a leading scholar in the examination of race in digital media, 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 such as Hollywood cinema continue to depict nonwhite nonmales as passive audiences or consumers of digital media 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.

“Digitizing Race starts an important conversation about the practice of articulating race and gender on the Internet.” —MELUS

“The book’s main strength: giving equal status and consideration to user-generated and popular media as serious reflections of one another and society. For this reason, Digitizing Race is an important intervention into the study of visual cultures, digital racial formation, and critical Internet studies.” —The International Journal of Communication

Lisa Nakamura is associate professor of speech communication and Asian American studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet and coeditor, with Beth Kolko and Gilbert Rodman, of Race in Cyberspace.

240 pages | 23 b&w photos | 5 7/8 x 9 | 2007
Electronic Mediations Series, volume 23

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Digital Racial Formations and Networked Images of the Body
1. “Ramadan Is Almoast Here!” The Visual Culture of AIM Buddies, Race, Gender, and Nation on the Internet
2. Alllooksame? Mediating Visual Cultures of Race on the Web 3. The Social Optics of Race and Networked Interfaces in The Matrix Trilogy and Minority Report
4. Avatars and the Visual Culture of Reproduction on the Web
5. Measuring Race on the Internet: Users, Identity, and Cultural Difference in the United States
Epilogue: The Racio-Visual Logic of the Internet

Notes
Bibliography
Publication History
Index

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Digitizing Race *Visual Cultures of the Internet* Lisa Nakamura Table of Contents		$19.50 paper ISBN: 978-0-8166-4613-5
The implications of how we see and exhibit race and ethnicity online. 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 such as e-mail and instant messaging 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, a leading scholar in the examination of race in digital media, 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 such as Hollywood cinema continue to depict nonwhite nonmales as passive audiences or consumers of digital media 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. “Digitizing Race starts an important conversation about the practice of articulating race and gender on the Internet.” —MELUS “The book’s main strength: giving equal status and consideration to user-generated and popular media as serious reflections of one another and society. For this reason, Digitizing Race is an important intervention into the study of visual cultures, digital racial formation, and critical Internet studies.” —The International Journal of Communication Lisa Nakamura is associate professor of speech communication and Asian American studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet and coeditor, with Beth Kolko and Gilbert Rodman, of Race in Cyberspace. 240 pages \| 23 b&w photos \| 5 7/8 x 9 \| 2007 Electronic Mediations Series, volume 23 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction: Digital Racial Formations and Networked Images of the Body 1. “Ramadan Is Almoast Here!” The Visual Culture of AIM Buddies, Race, Gender, and Nation on the Internet 2. Alllooksame? Mediating Visual Cultures of Race on the Web 3. The Social Optics of Race and Networked Interfaces in The Matrix Trilogy and Minority Report 4. Avatars and the Visual Culture of Reproduction on the Web 5. Measuring Race on the Internet: Users, Identity, and Cultural Difference in the United States Epilogue: The Racio-Visual Logic of the Internet Notes Bibliography Publication History Index