Playing Politics Workshop Response

After examining the two simulation game ‘September 12th’ and ‘New York Defender’, it is crystal clear that the games are designed to convey political parodies on the U.S. tactics on war against terrorists after the 911 event by means of playing. In the 'September 12th', for example, once you start air strike, you cause collateral damage not only killing the terrorists but also the innocent civilian and destroying their homes, resulting in violence against violence generating endless wars. You will see more and more civilian in the game becomes terrorists after each air strike, and the situation goes uncontrollable. I think the simulation games are effective in some ways to communicate with people about political issues via the Internet. Just like those traditional printed political satire cartoons we always see on newspapers and magazines everyday, the simulation games are alternative expressions of such satire, an ‘onlined’ version with interactive interface and thus seem more entertaining.

However, simulation games as a media to convey political message does not always yield the same effect on players. Since such media effects depend on the people’s predispositions on political issues, as Doris Graber refers, it is always “perceiver determined”, depending on the degree of their political interest and awareness. Therefore, if people have either highest or lowest prior interest or awareness in politics in general, I don’t think they will affect by the political cues hidden in the games, and the simulation games is less likely to arouse them to further look into what the games are trying to “say”. As for me, I’m kind of a moderate type so I have enough interest to play the games and weak enough belief to be affected by the political message the games conveyed, thus will more likely to find out more about the games and its political statements.

On top of that, from the aspect of game-playing, the simulation games are not designed to let players win. They are not as playable as any other video game; they are indeed ‘dead games’[1] (Lee). Unlike the popular fun-quest games, are “entertaining games with non-entertainment goals" (Lee). Thereby, fun-questing players are unlikely to be driven to find out the political statement behind the simulation games since they find them boring. They are less fun to the players (as reflected noted in the comments of 'New York Defender’) as there are not so much ‘pleasure’ (since it’s doomed to lose), no (bodily) rewards, and no sequences.


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[1] Shuen-shing Lee,""I Lose, Therefore I Think": A Search for Contemplation Amid Wars of Push-Button Glare." Game Studies 3.2 (2003). http://gamestudies.org/0302/lee/

Meun-Driven Identity Workshop

Response on Q1&2


By examining the signing up procedures for the Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and Second Life free account service, it proves that Lisa Nakamura’s argument on internet, in fact, is a space where identities are enacted, and it is the subversion of the utopian belief that ‘cyberspace is a potential for erasing social inequalities’ true.

There are similar basic personal particulars like name/username, and password to fill in for if you want to sign up for accounts in Hotmail, Yahoo!Mail and Second Life. When choosing a username, only aphetic letter (English) is allowed to fill in, and no non-English are permitted. It is assumed that the user are all English speaking and they understand the language. However, there are also fields such as gender, race and class which are categorized into different options and are required to fill in order to complete the signing up procedure. Once again, it proves that the design of the internet interface and its content is highly categorized and revealing certain ‘categorized’ identities are criteria to join those services. The following are some of my observation in respect to the Nakamura’s argument:

With regard to the gender category, only two options are available – either male or female. It presumes that there are only two genders among the users. It singles out the possibilities of the user as a transsexual and it seems that identities are defined only by two kinds of genders and gender only (as somehow you can’t leave the gender box blank because it is stated that “Fields marked with an asterisk * are required”.) Moreover, the problem of racism and ethno-centrism is also hidden in these websites in several ways, for example, when registering a Hotmail account, the first question asked is about the country or region of the user, from which our identities is highly reduced at the first place to ‘country-based’; and “United State” is always set as the first option rather than a blank drop menu to choose from. If ever the menu is designed for the sake of ‘user-friendliness’, it’s underlying nothing but the US citizens are the expected most common users and likewise, more important than any other countries’ citizens. As for Yahoo!Mail in the ‘Preferred Content’, it puts “Yahoo!US” at the default option.

Identities in terms of gender, age, race, body shape/height and living habits, religion and ethnic background are also asked to be revealed as the ‘basics’ in Lavalife. Again, the field of country always put “U.S.A.” and “Canada” (which are white people dominant countries) onthe top followed by Australia, disregarding the alphabetical order of the country names. Besides, most of the photos shown in the website are photos of young white people, and Asian are not as popular. It is assumed that white people are the targeted users. What’s more is when you register as female, male users’ online profiles and photos will be delivered at sight. Therefore, heterosexuality is presumed among users. I hardly see signs of other sexualities like homosexuals, gay or lesbian. Furthermore, users have to identify their ethnic background in order to register. Again, the white option comes first, followed by black and Asian. All these identities are ‘menu-driven’ and there are stereotyping of identities, in particular, in terms of race and sexuality, of which are polarized into white people and their countries, heterosexual, young, as dominant on one polar (which always come first in the field of options upon choosing) and the other side as ‘colour’ people and their countries, homosexuals and old as marginal identities. There, users can select to meet certain ‘categorized identities’ while neglecting certain ‘categorized group’ of people who may also have the same quality, which indeed is a process of marginalization. Through this, identities are constructed and driven by the menu whist social inequalities still exist in cyberspace.

Belated Hallo

Hello everyone. This is Wendy from Hong Kong. I've joined this tutorial blog not so long ago but forgot to post an introduction. Sorry about that. I have posted something up here before, but I don't know if you will be still using and checking out this blog, if so, please take a look at my post and hope there will still be some interactions.

Cheers

Gattaca Blogged Response

Workshop III -- Gattaca Blogged Response

Does genetic screening and manipulation as presented in Gattaca evoke a new eugenics? Does this scenario seem credible given current scientific trends? How are class, race and gender explored in Gattaca?


Eugenics have been existing long ago in human history advocating the improvement of human hereditary traits to create healthier and more intelligent humans to save society’s resources and lessen human suffering by means of different kinds of human intervention, such as ‘selective bleeding’ in early age, ‘birth control’ led by the state as ‘eugenics-based program’ in recent decades like in Singapore where female university graduates, who are considered as “the intelligent”, were offered grants towards hospitalization during labour, housing and children’s education, while “the less educated non-graduated” females/ parents were encouraged to sterilize after their first child for their “inferior” or “less intelligent” genes. Eugenics is always tainted with racism and classism since it is perceived as a cultural choice of what should be determined as “desirable” human traits and “beneficial” to the society in terms of race and social class.


There is also a coercive genetic screening in China for couples who wish to marry and have a child to prevent certain genetic diseases carriers pass the diseases on their children. Such eugenics has evolved along with the advanced technology of vitro fertilization, and then genetic engineering, resulting in liberal eugenics which supposed to be less associated with racism and classism, but more focus on using reproductive and genetics technology to reduce the role of chance in reproduction, for example, eliminaing the chance of getting congenital disorder, to improve human beings.


Gattaca evokes a new eugenics shares some similarities with Liberal eugenics of reducing the chance of undesirable genes heredity, but more than that, with not only physical characteristics such as skin, hair and eye colour and congenital diseases, it takes the extreme that even personality and behaviour can be determined through genetic manipulation. The society in Gattaca is generally dominant by a genetic determinist ideology in which genetic essentialism is accepted as the true state of the world. Such new eugenics in the movie has barely negative eugenics like coercive sterilization or abortion disencourges reproduction of “bad” genes but only positive eugenics of which preliminary genetic screening allows human’s offspring conceived in a way that they are designated “fit” to the society. But by the same token, such genetic determinism shapes belief that a person’s innate genetic makeup exclusively determines his/her personality, behaviour and physical appearance, in turn one’s destiny. It is used as a mechanism to screen out inferior genetic profile or the designated genetic “unfit” individuals to the society, for example, Vincent as the “in-valid”. Thereby, in Gattaca, a new class structure has arisen based not on social status or skin color but on one’s genetic profile. In the movie, Vincent is a while male born in a middle-class family (since his family can afford to pay for the genetic enhancement technologies) but suffers from genetic discrimination because he’s a genetically unenhanced, a “god’s child”. Then again, how a society and who decides a person’s genetic profile an inferior or ‘unfit’?


It seems that in Gattaca, issues of social class, race and gender are wiped out, and the DNA is the only factor that remains and determines your class in society. It does not matter what your gender and skin color is, as long as you have the right genes, the superior genes, you can do what ever you choose to. For instance, all the employees working in Gattaca wearing matching black suits making men and women alike. The costuming in Gattaca make the gender boundary blurrier, and suggests homogeneity and uniformity, probably implying a homogenous society and loss of diversity resulted from the new eugenics of genetic essentialism. The DNA profile becomes an identity card, and its ultimate factor in determining one’s access to the world, and how the world might accept you or deny you. For example, a job interview of Vincent is only a blood test to determine whether he fits the job; he could only work as a janitor at Gattaca before he obtains his “borrow ladder” status; and after he’s genetically enhanced, he works as a navigator to arrange offworld expeditions. However, I think discrimination against the genetically unenahnced in Gattaca is akin to racism or classism in contemporary society.


With current technology, I don't believe the genetic selection technology is advanced enough to extract all the genetic defectiveness in a non-born child. Although “Gene therapy” nowadays can be used to treat people who already have a genetic disorder or to correct genes in sperm, eggs, or embryonic cells, still it has few more decades to go before our knowledge of human genetics is mature enough to combine with the gene therapy to produce a “genetic designer baby”. I see glimpses of possibility, and perhaps, in the future, technology could advance to a point where genetic manipulation on human is possible and will be widely accepted. And questions like would people take this choice or will they shy away from it as it is a counter-religious action where in our society, birth is ingrain into life as it is suppose to be a natural process with minimal science intervention as possible, and consequences of unrestricted human-gene therapy in a society as illustrated in Gattaca still remain unanswered.