Uber Multitaskers and digital citizenship

Seldom do you ever feel more like a journalist than when you cover a protest. The semi-chaotic situation, the anger, the people's excitement and concern, and the constant moving and chanting all give you a certain adrenaline rush that makes you alert of even the smallest of details.

Faced with a crowd of probably a couple thousand, you start making decisions on what is more important, what quotes should be written down, who should be interviewed. You enter what I call "the journalist mode," analyzing in a matter of seconds what information deserves to be reported and what media suits it best. As with "arachnid" sharpness and sensibility, we enter into an "alpha" mode in which we try to look for the article and its angle in everything that happens around us.

As a print journalist-to-be, I always focus on what people say and do, going from the most general to the specifics. I know I will have to "paint" the scene to readers who were not there to experience the sentiments and emotions of the protest. They didn't hear the shouting or see the signs. They may have seen pictures but, in general, they won't have enough context to understand what those pictures really say. That is the work of print journalists--to give context, to explain, to spell out and make readers visualize and experiment what happened.

Retrieved from roystoncartoons.com
by Royston Robertson,  2009.

But journalism has changed dramatically, as I could experience first-hand today during the CPS School Closings protest at Daley Plaza and the march that came after. We were all there: print, broadcast, digital, radio, photo. We were all there. But what used to be a divide between the different medias and their particular ways of getting the information out, became a literal depiction of the word "convergence."

Yes, print journalists were there, but they were also tweeting and uploading videos live from the protest to the Internet. Yes, broadcast journalists were there, but they were also dictating stories to their newsrooms. Stories that would be, almost instantly, published in a written format in the network's web site. Photojournalists were there, but they were also online. And pretty much everyone was live-tweeting. If I didn't hear something Karen Lewis, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, said, I was sure to get it in a tweet a minute after. If I couldn't get the official headcount, police were most likely to publish it half an hour after the protesters dispersed. There were, or are, no boundaries to information.

If before journalism had branches that marked the way news were processed and published, now all the media to process and publish this information has converged, requiring all aspiring journalists to be ready to print, broadcast, live tweet, photograph and what not, everything that happens. We are required to be the uber multitaskers.

But why do we do this? Why have journalists transcended the boundaries of their own realms to become a "little bit of everything"? What has compelled us to move across platforms?

Well, there are many answers to those questions but I think they sum up to the simple fact that people (citizens, our audiences) are moving across different platforms, crossing limits and being empowered by new technologies that give them the opportunity to engage more and more effectively. They are not only citizens of a country, they are citizens of the web.

During the protest, for example, journalists' tweets only accounted for a minority of all the tweets regarding the march and the school closings, the majority were done by protesters and activists themselves. And it doesn't end there, it were precisely these community members, the audience, the "laymen and women" who by retweeting, commending or commenting on journalists' articles and tweets, empowered the journalists and got the word out.

"Power to the People," retrieved from fat.spreadshirt.com

The notion that technology has the potential, the power to foster and propel change is a complex but unavoidable reality. Not only, as the Knight Foundation suggested in its study on Digital Citizenship, does technology can bring community together to build relations for the benefit of the community, but also, it has the tremendous power to get words, ideas, plans, etc. out and, by doing so, engaging communities even further in democracy, in local politics and economics, and ultimately, in the creation of their own future.

I cannot help but think about the Arab Spring when pondering the capacity of technology to empower people, bringing them together to provoke change. Even in less grandiose enterprises, social media and the digital world have helped move the masses--think about elections, for example. Yes, we are moving because the people are moving, because it no longer suffices to get events into paper or tv.



It is indeed a demanding yet exciting time to be a journalist.

Retrieved from "Drowning in Digital Democracy: Part I" by J. C. Caruso
http://blog.marylhurst.edu/blog/2013/03/19/drowning-in-digital-democracy-part-i/ 

Virtual v. Real: One world

Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/06/15/magazine/20070617_AVATAR_SLIDESHOW_11.html

Virtual realities, for many, are alternatives to the everyday "boringness" of life. They are a scape from the real world and what we do not like about it, our worries, commitments, own and other's wickedness...

Interaction is free of the attachments of the physical body, you can be whoever you want, do whatever you want, be wherever you want--morality an inherent, tacit, albeit unsupervised structure in which users find their way through these "law-less," "government-less" worlds by instinct and their own pre-assumed real life standards and rules of conduct.

Inside these multi-user dimensions (MUDs), users are able--or believe they are--to interact not only without the constraints of social standards and stereotypes, but also without the usual wariness and distrust of others. So when a case of virtual rape occurs, the initial shock of having something that seems confined to the real world happen in your virtual reality becomes an urge to establish rules to govern the same freedom that may have caught your attention in the first place.

Dr. Bombay's rape narrative in LambdaMOO, besides being at times gruesome and scary, touches on several points. First, the possible and understandable physicality of virtual worlds where, even if only through words, users are still more than able to experiment desires, needs, pain and a myriad of emotions--both good and bad.

The narrator of the story characterizes what happens in virtual worlds as "true," and indeed, as I mentioned in my post on avatars, one's real self gets so enmeshed into our virtual living that what happens in one world irremediably affects the other. The narrator describes this phenomenon when he says that "what happens inside a MUD-made world is neither exactly real nor exactly make-believe, but nonetheless profoundly, compellingly, and emotionally true." Our reactions to events in one world are extrapolated and mimicked in similar situations in the other world.

Second, the situation that the virtual rape produced was so unprecedented yet so in need of a solution that users, despite the freedom inherent in virtual worlds and the initial desire to distance from the real world, ended up demanding resolutions logical in the real world, recognizing the ultimate need to create governing standards and platforms that regulate conduct inside their virtual world. The outcry for punishing Bungle, the perpetrator, was such that users began, in a sense, merging the real world with its virtual counterpart, withering boundaries and compressing degrees of separation.

What happened in LambdaMOO, the way it played out and was resolved are more evidence that, no matter how much different we believe (and want) virtual worlds to be, as they are irremediable run and used by humans, they end up being not a second life, an alternative self in a different world, but just an extension of users and their own lives. It is precisely those who, seeking a escape from real life, brought reality to the virtual world.

Physical or Digital: "It" is I

Identity is an elusive concept. Who am I? How do I reflect myself? Who do I want to be? There are many things that make us, well, us. So when you have to create an avatar that shows “who” you are, a complex spider web of interrelated, intermingled factors keep changing our perceptions of self and of self in society, adding and modifying even the smallest details of that digital “I.”

I am a woman, a daughter, a sister, a Venezuelan, a member of the Catholic Church, a friend, a journalism student, among many other things…in the physical world.

Creating an avatar to represent myself was beyond a simple assignment—it was a challenge. Not only did it involve a total compromise of my inexistent computer skills, but it also threw me into a world completely alien to me. Beyond the initial weirdness—fueled by stereotypical preconceptions of what “sort” of people enters these virtual worlds—my frustration at not being able to do anything sparked a certain curiosity on why people would want to engage in a “second life” when the “first life” was already complicated to begin with.

Why a second body? Why a second self? Isn’t one enough? That was my frustration talking.

Retrieved from "The Eclectic Mind,"
Facebook

It actually took me long to figure out how to change the appearance— “my” appearance— from a somewhat amorphous humanoid to something closer to the person I see in the mirror every morning.

What was I trying to say to those who could see my avatar? Well, my initial intention was showing who I am, the way I am. No tweaking, no altering, no thinning. Nothing. I wanted to my digital self to be exactly whom I think my physical self is. What message was I trying to convey? That life is one and we must work with what we have, whether we like it or not.

Although at first it was hard to figure out how much can you tell about your exact self (let alone 1000 words), I could not help but remember the old Anthropological mantra of making the strange familiar and, in this case, the familiar strange.

Now I was before the task of making me strange.

After long periods of experimenting—during which I had to start over more than a couple of times, was hairless until the very last minute, and could not figure out how to change my clothing from “goth girl” or “rocker” to the plain me—I realized that identity and my perception of self is more complex than I had initially thought.

Created at Second Life

During the creative process, I found myself wanting to add details that would get my personality across, but, how exactly do you do that with an avatar? There’s no tutorial, manual or instructions that can tell you who you are and how to be yourself. Perhaps a psychologist but, is there such thing as a “Second Life psych”…?

  

Creating your digital self is a solo enterprise, and a hard one for that matter.

As I said, I wanted my digital self to resemble what I think I look like—short, curvy, simply dressed, my backpack always on me, ready to work…

When I looked at my finished avatar I realized I did not look precisely feminine under traditional standards (I could have worn a dress, or a skirt, perhaps more makeup). I did, however, look like the woman my parents raised—strong, confident, accountable and always ready. Both my decisions and the technical components of Second Life had worked to "give birth" to my digital self.

  

Interestingly enough, while trying—and struggling—to create “me,” I noticed an interesting pattern. More often than not, it is external, technical factors that deviated the appearance of my digital self from how I truly look. It was not intentional; I did not want to, it just happened. Very much like in real life, where events and the rhythm of everyday life, the people we encounter and with whom we interact, ultimately shape our beings, whether we notice it or not.

At the end my digital self ended up being a product of my own conscious decisions and the conditions and influence from the environment it was created in. When I look at her—at me—I could see “digi-me” acting the way I would act, just in a way more appropriate to her world. It is not that she is a second me or that that virtual world is a “second life.” She is I in the virtual version of my life.

The same way I understand my place and engage with the world with my body, experiences and struggles (as Elaine Scarry suggested), my digital version was learning, largely by trial and error, to engage in her own world.

Precisely because of this— although I did have the intention to be “myself” from the very start— and after going through the process of creating and interacting with the world through my digital body, I cannot help but question Liuan Chen Huska’s idea that with avatars and online worlds “users can transcend the limitations of race, gender, class and age which attach themselves to our bodily existence. Users are free to create new identities...”

Even though the temptation to lie is present, even if one lies in the online world, ultimately the people behind our digital selves will always be us. What we convey, what we say, the way we act, will always be shaped by our experiences in the real, physical world. In other words, it is not like we are creating another identity, separating ourselves from our existence, as the author of Digital Bodies suggest, but what we are actually doing is extending our existence to and through another media.

No matter how many avatars I create or how similar or different from my physical self they look, no matter how much I lie...all of my digital bodies will ultimately behave like I do. All of them, by extension, would be a woman, a daughter, a sister, a Venezuelan, a member of the Catholic Church, a friend, a journalism student…even if they do not look like one.

My digital bodies are not separate identities, they are just me, a virtual me, understanding and interacting in the world in another realm.

Esther Daniela Castillejo

Search engines through the mycroscope--the building of the Hyperself

It is no news that the information, advertising and recommendations we get on the Internet are specifically catered based on our previous searches and clicks. As Eli Pariser writes in his article "The Filter Bubble: what the Internet is hiding from you," we are increasingly being isolated by a complex mechanism of algorithms that, instead of letting us explore and reach new frontiers of knowledge and opinions using the web, have secluded us in a tight, personalized bubble of constant self-reaffirming. It is as if when we think about anything or opine on an issue, the Internet immediately finds people who would agree with us, both building up our egos and, at times, our misconceptions about life and the world.

In a virtual world of apparent infinite information and opinions, we are "cared for" by search engines that do not want us to get "mad" by encountering contradiction in the web. (Sarcasm alert: They truly care for our well being).

Retrieved from imgHUT
http://www.imghut.com/image/
always-keep-an-open-mind-11008.html

As I see it, this has tremendous implications, some of which Pariser addresses on his article. Internet providers have made us feel bigger, more important, while at the same time reducing us to a set of encrypted data longed for by advertisers and companies. We are both a hyperself (by that I mean a hyperlocal self, consistently reaffirmed by online publicity and fed with exactly what we usually want) and a new commodity, our information sold to the best bidder.

In many cases, Pariser's article was eye-opening.

Leaving aside the fact that our tastes are advertised to and bough by corporations that try to captivate us, the consequences of this maximization of the importance of our most menial thoughts and searches have for democracy, society and ultimately the world, are indeed worrisome.

It is preoccupying that we no longer have to even think what we want to type--Google know what we want and it'll give it to us. In our quest for having infinite options to choose from, we are left with only a few, all of which are what we wanted--not necessarily needed--to read, see or hear.

We vehemently and irremediably becoming isolated, immersed in this pool of homogeneous thinking and consistent advertising, creating a seeming "hyper locality"that endangers our capacity to look beyond ourselves and our surroundings. Something the world is in desperate need. This hyperlocal self is an ultimate detriment to the collective society, as bonds between different groups wane and differences are heightened. At the end we are exposed to only one way of thinking--ours. 

One of the main problems with this is that, if we only get one side of everything, our capacity to make informed decisions is ultimately determined by what we are getting, not by critical thinking or an accurate examination of ALL facts available. Without perhaps intending it, Google --and other search engines and Web sites that have as ultimate goal to cater to our preferences and give us what we want before we even know what that is--end up acting to the detriment of humanity and society at large.

I have always been an advocate of critical thinking, of doing the research and thinking "on my own." As an aspiring journalist I have a particular sensibility to getting to know both sides before making a decision or judgement. Bottom line, as much as Google is convenient, I cannot help but think how many opinions are formed, or mis-formed, by a narrow, specific information the Internet gives us. I cannot help but think about all the thinks I may be missing just because algorithms do not think them relevant to my life or my mentality. 

Anthropologists, psychologists and sociologists (among others) have for long tried to understand what molds our personalities and perceptions of self and the world. If culture, environment, kinship were themes in past decades, the Internet and its algorithms should probably be considered the ultimate "shaper" in the modern world.

Esther Daniela Castillejo

Yelp and more about me

Aripo's Venezuelan Arepa House  

 3/12/2013

Aripo's is a taste of home in Chicago.
Born and raised in Venezuela I always appreciate a good arepa and, undoubtedly, Aripo's has the power, the gift, of transporting me to my mother's kitchen in every bite.

Their shredded beef is to die for, as are all of their empanadas. ALL of them. But, perhaps the dish that really reminds me of home the most is their fried plantain, "las tajadas," as we call them in Maracaibo, the city I was born in.
There are only two things I do not like about Aripo's--location (Oak Park), and atmosphere. Although the owners are very affable, I would appreciate if they played Venezuelan music instead of stereotypical "latin" music. 

Everything else is great...

If you are up to a gastronomic adventure, do not doubt to try Aripo's. It's food will take you through a flavor roller coaster!

Category: Latin American 

http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=CRlcpZXqkPDxA3w1nlcthw

Twitter: @ecastillejo

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/esther-daniela-castillejo/67/525/690

Digital Bodies: new dimensions to physicality, or lack thereof

Retrieved from "Adventures through the Google Glass,"
BBH LABS, 2011.

In the mid-twentieth century canadian sociologist Erving Goffman proposed the idea that human social interaction was very much like a theatrical play. "Actors" interacted following a set script known to all, and a "back stage" allowed individual actors to practice their lines and rest when they were not in one of the several "front" stages playing what they practiced. 

Everything is calculated, everything rehearsed and measured. There are expectations. Any deviation from the script would cause distress, fear, anxiety at not being sure what to do next.

But Goffman could have never predicted the upsurge of online interaction as a new, more perfect and multifaceted form of playing these scripts, one that takes away the awkwardness of potential deviances, and flows in a more chronometric, measured way. One that leaves away the physicality of encounters and focuses on an orchestrated interplay.

As I mentioned in the previous post, online "We learn to hold different "fronts" for the different ways of social interaction we engage in. One person becomes three, four, five, as we navigate our way through the web." 

Goffman would be amazed.

How these new capabilities of "inventing" ourselves impact our perception of identity is yet to be determined, but, contrary to what many suggest, I don't believe it gives us real freedom or that it fosters "deeper relations."

Why? 

In his 2012 article, "Digital Bodies," Liuan Chen Huska exposes a current thinking that online worlds free people from the constraints of their own physical bodies. The author cites studies that show users believed "online relationships as more pure and intimate than those in real life." 

Retrieved from "Digital v. In-Person Relationships,"
The Hourglass Blog, 2011.

"Just being online eliminates the physical entanglement that comes with having the extra physical side to deal with," one user remarked, melting Goffman's back and front stages together in an abstract form of measured, "you-know-what-I-want-you-to-know" sort of world.

But humans, whether we like it or not, whether we are comfortable in our own flesh or not, are both a personality (soul, spirit, etc.) and a body. Physicality, as blunt as it may sound, is perhaps the most real aspect of our being. It is tangible.

How exactly does this, "a-physicality" of the online world (be them sentimental, professional, etc.) foster better relationships? How does concealing the visible aspect of our being benefits society because stereotypes are disproven?

There is a fine line between being part of this constant play and getting to the point where socialization is absolutely and completely absorbed by the theatrics of measured interactions. A possible supremacy of "digital bodies" crosses that line shamelessly. 

At a time when our beings have become increasingly digital, taking up more "fronts" and  spilling our identities through social media sites, online networks and what-not, we need to start considering the consequences new forms of socialization have on our perceptions of self and society.