I found this week’s readings quite fascinating as both a continuation/elaboration of previously discussed topics within the class as well as being representative of the enigmatic claim to identity and individual creation on the Internet (or anywhere for that matter). The question of the week is what does it mean to be an audience in the shadow of this new and ever-expanding network form? Marshall comes at the problem from a cultural studies perspective, and I must say that his approach is one that I like. His consideration of the interpretation of texts as a creative act is spot on (and manages to sum up the importance of academia as a world where students require and thrive from the interpretation of more skilled and knowledgeable professors in an effort to learn how to interpret for themselves). How then does the interpretation and engagement with the Internet tell us about the overall structured apparatus but more importantly about ourselves? Marshall hits on point after point of relevant ideas, whether in regard to control and surveillance within the Internet (with a dash of Foucault) and the visibility (even as seemingly anonymous avatars) the Internet provides. Then there is the co-creation and prosumption of the “environment” of the network with the concept of  “feedback loops” seems to indicate that users within the network invariably become that medium. What would Marshall McLuhan and his “medium as the message” have to say about this? Perhaps we have never stopped being the medium. Just as our physical bodies serve our souls/identities, the Internet network becomes the new body, the new medium of transport for our avatars, digitized representations, co-creations, flaneur-style odysseys of exploration in an infinitely expanding wonderland of opportunity.

Also, Marshall inspired me remember the Tamagotchi (the digital pet), something I haven’t thought about in a very long time.

Shirky won my heart with his light-hearted romp of an essay talking about surplus time, sitcoms, and dealing with our problems by drinking gin. This kind of theoretical lark is great to shake things up, making evident the notion of “cognitive surplus” without getting too terribly in-depth. By using humorous anecdotes, Shirky confronts the rapidly changing technological age and how “we” consider our involvement in the network temporally and in terms of surplus, something we seemingly want to deny most of the time.

My intrigue with Marshall and smiles with Shirky should not discount the other articles/essays of the week, all of which adequately confronted the question of the unknown digital terrain of the Internet as a space in which participation and creation both empower and reconfigure previously maintained perceptions. “Race and Online Content Creation..” by Correa and Jeong is an important study and particularly interesting in the wake of our election. Though I haven’t seen any racism on my Facebook feed, I have read posts from numerous friends who are suddenly feeling the need to “purge” their friends list due to savage racist posts from their more conservative “friends.” Though the space of the Internet allows for beneficial identity creation for minorities, it still remains a place for backward thinking and terrible negativity.