Once again this week it seems that gender roles, as much as I hate to admit it, play out in observations by researchers. Consistently, females CMC users write more words, use passive language, and are compelled to present themselves in an attractive light. Males users by contrast use fewer words, are more assertive, and tend to pick pictures of themselves that obscure their facial features in some way.  Additionally, this plays out in ethnic presentations as well. Grasmuck, Martin & Zhao (2009) explored Facebook users’ “about me” sections and found that, “ In summary, the African Americans, Latinos, and Indian ancestry students project a visual self that is dramatically more social than do Vietnamese or white students. African Americans to some extent and Latinos in particular also stand out in their greater willingness to invest in the more direct “about me” narrations than do the other three groups.”. In a previous communications course when this topic was discussed among other graduate students, several of us conjectured that minority students may be more elaborative with their online profiles as these social media platforms allow them to connect with others within their own ethnic background more frequently than they are otherwise able to do in face to face interactions. Online they are able to find and socialize with many people that share their ethnic background so they are more motivated to create a more robust online presence.

While we have already read a length about the gender differences in CMC, it only struck me today that my blogroll is 90% female bloggers. Our blog post prompt wanted us to explore what different contexts of CMC shape how we present and interpret gender and ethnicity, so I decided to review not the bloggers that I follow, by myself as interpreting these bloggers. I found out more about myself than I did the writers, when as previously stated, I discovered that I was seeking out bloggers that presented in traditionally female roles. Many of the women I follow shy away from stating any concrete opinions for fear of alienating their readers, and despite their blog purpose topics ranging from travel to music, many of them still post about fashion and celebrity culture regularly.

With regard to my interpretation of gender and ethnic backgrounds of my fellow classmates, I’ve only thought about gender as most of our names and writing styles give that away without trouble. As far as ethnicity is concerned, I haven’t thought about that as much as I might in traditional classes because I don’t see or know many of my current classmates. Other than one who as written openly about being an immigrant and bi-linguist, its been out of sight – out of mind for me this semester.