Tagged: inequalities and technology

7: Perpetuating Social, Economic, and Cultural Inequalities Through Language & Technology… and Text Ownership

Selfe and Selfe’s discussion of “The Politics of The Interface” paralleled some things I’ve been thinking about a lot in the past few years, after I took a course at University of Oklahoma titled “Postcolonial Literature.” On the first day of class, when we were asked to define “postcolonial,” I couldn’t. I had no clue. And I still would struggle to definitively explain it today. But Selfe and Selfe’s article rehashed some of the thoughts I first had in that class at OU. It came as no surprise to me, then, when the authors wrote

the virtual reality of computer interfaces represents, in part and to a visible degree, a tendency to value monoculturalism, capitalism, and phallologic thinking, and does so, more importantly, to the exclusion of other perspectives. Grounded in these values, computer interfaces, we maintain, enact small but continuous gestures of domination and colonialism (Selfe and Selfe 433).

I have been thinking about this a lot—the overarching superiority and dominance of the “white man,” of Americans, of the middle and upper classes. The Selfes’ article echoed Bosley’s discussion, I thought, of ethnocentricism. The images used on computer interfaces, Selfe and Selfe continue, “These images signal—to users of color, to users who come from a non-English language background, to users from low socio-economic backgrounds—that entering the virtual worlds of interfaces also means, at least in part and at some level, entering a world constituted around the lives and values of white, male, middle- and upper-class professionals” (433). In the almost 20 years since Selfe and Selfe wrote this article, this has not changed.

What I struggle with is: how do we change this? How, when “these borders are represented and reproduced in so many commonplace ways, at so many levels, that they frequently remain invisible to us,” do we bring those of color and non-English backgrounds and low socio-economic backgrounds onto the same level as the white middle-class? How do we “in Mary Louise Pratt’s words, [make it] ‘the same for all players’” (Selfe and Selfe 430–431)? Personally, I am of the belief that changing the interfaces seems like a simple enough switch that the next “generations” of Microsoft and Apple products that come out can come up with equally as intuitive or convenient images and symbols to represent functionalities as those currently in use. Also, I fear with anyone much over the age of a school child may be a lost cause for equal opportunities, for we’re talking about oppression and inequality that is generations in the making. And I believe it will take cultivating equality in the upcoming generations—the youngest now in school, those not yet in school, and those generations not even yet born. And I think it’s a matter of ensuring institutions of education—any educational institution—have the same equipment for students’ use and that teachers receive the same training in technology, as part of their teaching degree course work, not something they’re quickly walked through as part of their job training. Inequalities will continue to be perpetuated if we continue to remain unaware of the subtle ways in which they are perpetuated through language and technology.

As for Howard’s discussion of the ownership of texts, electronic and otherwise, this is yet another topic I’ve recently spent a lot of time thinking about and discussing. I tend to speak quickly, reactively, and think later. So my first inclination when discussing the ownership of electronic texts, is to say that once a writer has “gone public” with a text—particularly in this instance (in my mind) online texts—that material becomes shared text. I think there are certainly still copyright laws and even common etiquette that should be implemented and followed, but I think with digital technology and the web, it is going to become increasingly difficult to manage copyrights on texts. Texts are rampant on the web anymore, and authors are going to have a battle to fight in maintaining sole control of their text, I think. But, on the other hand, I feel as users of digital technology and the web, we have a responsibility to learn a new etiquette that has never needed to exist in the past. I think there is a “digital users etiquette” that may need to become more than just an “etiquette” and become more a set of standards/regulations/laws that must be followed if electronic texts are going to become more shared than owned.

Take Pinterest, for example, a few months ago there was some controversy that went viral about Pinterest users accountability as owners (or not) of the links/items/photos they were pinning. Pinterest founders had written into their terms and agreements (which is another issue we’re all aware of in copyright cases—how many users ever actually read the terms and agreements of anything online or elsewhere?) that once a user had pinned something they were claiming sole ownership of that link/item/photo through permissions they had requested or received from the original owner. Of course, as we all know, tracing many things online back to the original owner is often times difficult, or even impossible. I remember becoming outraged that Pinterest had put the burden on me, as a user. I felt it was their responsibility as the founder of a web network that had stumbled into phenomenal success, should have had the foresight to come up with a way to protect their users from copyright and permissions infringements. But the more I thought of it and started paying attention to other Pinners, I got frustrated with the users, and that’s when I determined that there was a need for digital and web user etiquette—properly crediting photographers, properly crediting sources and authors, taking the time to trace an image/site/idea/item back as far as possible, to the origin if possible. But is that even enough? According to the scenarios Howard outlined, it may not be.

I had a lot of reactions to and thoughts about this week’s readings, so I feel I could go on and on. But I’ll stop here…

WORKS CITED

Howard, Tharon W. “Who ‘Owns’ Electronic Texts?” Central Works in Technical Communication. Eds. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber. New York: Oxford, 2004. 397–408. Print.

Selfe, Cynthia L. and Richard J. Selfe. “The Politics of The Interface.” Central Works in Technical Communication. Eds. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber. New York: Oxford, 2004. 428–445. Print.