Jeff+and+the+Minority+Audience

2/26/2010: **The Gay Youth Corner...** I wanted to check out what the UK has to offer in terms of gay online communities. The Gay Youth Corner seems very cool and exactly what I thought a virtual community would be like. After becoming a member for free, I received this message from the site:

**Hi J Rock Star,

Welcome to The Gay Youth Corner.

We hope you enjoy browsing the site and meeting cool and interesting people in this varied worldwide community. There are lots of benefits to being a member, one of which is being somewhere that doesn't impose anything on you. You are free to talk about what you want, when you want.

This site is not about being gay, or being straight, or having sex (or not having sex), or doing and being a certain way. This site isn't really ABOUT sexuality either. TheGYC is here for people to chill, talk, and get information, comfortably and positively.

If you have any problems on the site please do not hesitate to contact TheGYC at info@thegyc.com or to get in touch with your GYC rep.

You will find that you have a message waiting for you from your rep. Reps are there to help you get on with using the site and to help you get useful information and advice.

Lastly, this is your website. If you think there is something missing or something you could do on TheGYC, please get in touch. TheGYC survives because of contributions and suggestions! ** It sure seems like TheGYC is trying to be a lot of things to a lot of people. They do impose an age limit for the site: "TheGYC enforce an age limit of 13-25. If you are not between 13-25 please remove your account now. Grooming laws in the UK are tight and we're obliged to pass on your details if and when 18+ chat up/groom -18." Luckily for me, I'm not too old to be a member (only 23)! This site offers a lot of ways to connect: chat rooms, a personal profile page, and a search tool to find friends. There's also a forum to post ideas and a podcast coming soon. The chat rooms have this motto: " A gay teen, or "gay youth" chat room, for people in the UK, USA, South Africa, Canada, Australia, Ireland, NZ and beyond. Talk to people, make friends, find love, and love life..."

I'm going to search around and see what the chat room is all about. **~Jeff** 

2/26/2010: **What do LGBT people do online...?** Gays.com turned out to be surprisingly similar to Facebook. You create a personal profile (with pictures, interests, self-descriptions, and quotes) and virtually mingle with others. I "friended" a few people and quickly discovered that I'm only allowed to friend 10 people each day (so I guess I need to be careful with my allowance). I found this to be incredibly limiting! But I also understand that the creators are trying to protect their site from being taken over by those who might abuse social networks to promote their products. The site also offers groups, a chat function, and a Communiverse (a cool online tool that visually connects you to your friends by degrees of separation). There doesn't seem to be many people on this site (I think it's fairly new), however, there is a surprising number of international LGBT people. I sent a message to a boy from the UK and told him about my project. He directed me to some cool UK gay online communities (The Gay Youth Corner & Queer Youth Network). Here's what my new friend Alan had to say:



"I guess being LGBT means you’re part of a more disparate community. What’s worse is that in everyday life it’s difficult to pick out gay from straight without relying on stereotypes. Online it’s that much easier to stick on a label and make yourself easier to find, or find others with the same…interest? So if a place collects together people by way of sharing relevant material like LGBT news stories or events, and also includes membership element to make it more of a community like you were saying, it inevitably ends up being a source for dating. @http://www.thegyc.com/index.php http://www.queeryouth.org.uk/community/ These are a couple of places where there is a large LGBT community from the UK. The first is more based on news and information with a chat and social element tacked on to keep the members happy. The second is really all about forums for advice and information sharing. They both have the dating in there somewhere but like I said, I think It’s more of a response to the need for people to meet others like themselves when it’s difficult to in life, especially when you’re not secure with who you are yet."

At first, I thought using the internet mostly for dating wasn't a good thing. There is so much potential to connect a group like the LGBT community. Then as I thought more about it, it makes sense. Just like Alan says above, "Online it's that much easier to stick on a label (in this case LGBT) and make yourself easier to find (by joining an online LGBT member site), or find others with the same interests." The LGBT community is somewhat unique as a marginalized group because there is no real "physical" indicator of someone's sexual orientation (versus things like skin color, hair type, facial features, etc.). The internet offers a search ability to find others just like yourself and gives you the tools to connect/communicate with them.

Another friend of mine also brought up that people use the internet as a way to meet up in a physical space, not just to have virtual relationships. Again, in the gay community, finding a safe-space to express yourself is a high priority. The gay rights movement has come a long way since its start in the late 60's but hate crimes and verbal assaults are not gone. Gays.com offers a section called CityScene. It offers a forum for people to let others know which places they frequent and which places are gay friendly. This function may be a major reason the LGBT looks to the internet as an effective tool. I'm going to explore the two sites that Alan offered up - I'll write soon to let you know what I find! **~Jeff**  2/24/2010: **The Gay Facebook...** After some thought, I've decided to shift my focus away from ethnic or racial groups and toward the LGBT community. How does the LGBT community use the internet and for what reasons? LGBT once stood for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender. It has now become a catch-all term that encompasses not only the aforementioned groups but also anyone who identifies as queer, questioning, an ally, pansexual, androgynous, ... the list goes on. How does such a diverse group of people build an online community? To begin answering that question, I did what any self respecting, tech-savvy youth would do: I googled "Gay Online Communities." Here's what popped up: [insert screenshot]

I talked to a friend and he recommended I check out Gays.com, an LGBT social networking site. After signing up, I received a message right away from the Gays.com Team...

"Hey Jeff, Welcome to the Gays.com family!

Gays.com is a unique social network that helps you find gay friends and connects you with the LGBT community in your area! Check out our [|CityScene] to read about the best venues and services in many major cities, explore the [|Communiverse] to meet new people and keep in touch with friends via Messaging, ShoutOuts and Chat.

To get started, Thank you for using Gays.com! Don't hesitate to [|get in touch with us] if you have questions. We're excited to have you join!
 * [|Upload a profile picture] if you haven't done so already! Nobody likes talking to faceless profiles ;-)
 * [|Create a new album]. You can upload as many photos and videos as you like!
 * [|Browse members] in your city to connect with the local LGBT community
 * [|Find your friends] to see who's already on Gays.com.
 * If some are missing, send them an [|invite] !

Your Gays.com Team"

I also did a quick wikipedia search to get more info...


 * Gays.com** (not to be confused with [|Gay.com]) is an [|LGBT] social networking website established by the Hong Kong-based Gays.com Ltd.[|[1]] In 2006, the purchase of the high profile [|domain name] at the price of US$500,000 by German entrepreneurs Julius and David Dreyer[|[2]] was a record sale for the year, and one of the highlights of the domain name industry.[|[3]][|[4]] The launch of the website took place in Shanghai on May 17, 2008 and was timed to coincide with the sixth International Day Against Homophobia.[|[5]] Unlike competitors in the same sex online dating category, //Gays.com// offers members the freedom to upload as many pictures and videos as they like at no charge and touts itself as "the world's first GLBT social networking website that is designed for real people with real names and actual relationships".[|[1]] Soon after the launch of the site, the [|City Weekend] magazine referred to Gays.com as "the gay [|Facebook]".[|[6]] Gays.com's move from closed to open beta on 10 September 2008 was reported by The Inquisitr.[|[7]]

And now I'm off to explore what the site has to offer. **~Jeff**

2/18/2010: **Comparing Minority Groups Use of Internet...** The PEW Research Center always has a few good statistics or reports to work with, no matter what your topic. I found a powerpoint online titled "Trends in Internet Adoption and Use: Comparing Minority Groups" by John Horrigan, Ph.D. Here are some of the best facts:
 * 128 million American adults (64% of population) are internet users
 * There are about 70 million American adults online every day (65% have high speed connections at home)


 * Trends in Internet Use by Race ** [[image:Graph1.png width="706" height="325"]]


 * Online demographics: White (75%); Hispanic (11%); African American (8%); Other (6%)
 * Offline demographics: White (69%); African American (15%); Hispanic (11%); Other (5%)
 * Average age of internet users by race: White (41.9 yrs); African American (36.6 yrs); Hispanic (33.8 yrs)
 * Average age of non-internet users by race: White (58.3 yrs); African Americans (50.9 yrs); Hispanic (41.1 yrs)

Internet Penetration by Race and Age (2003 - % Americans Age 30 or Younger) **
 * Internet Penetration by Race (2003) ** [[image:Graph2.png width="772" height="312"]]


 * Internet Penetration by Race and Education (2003 - % Americans age 18 and over & college graduates) ** [[image:Graph4.png width="800" height="371"]]

Rhythms of Use by Race **

There's definitely more statistics, data, and useful information out there! I'll keep posting as I come across other stuff. Until then... **~Jeff**

2/15/2010: **How the hammer views the world...**

 I came across this paragraph in the article "The Stories Digital Tools Tell" by Gillepsie:

"The caricature of this is to say that hammers see the world as a bunch of things to be driven forcefully into other things. But our concern is much less absurd if we talk about the affordances of a prison. The architecture of a prison is not merely a functional means to contain criminals; it suggests and authorizes a mentality in which enclosure, control, and boundaries have a heightened salience, where the walls that demarcate inside and out stand for all sorts of cultural and moral lines - right and wrong, just and depraved, human and other. And the particular design of that prison... can have additional significance for the practices and presumptions that go on both inside and from without. These affordances are always purposeful,  and can typically be validated in terms that justify their presence: safety, security, efficiency. But they have a double life; even as they  organize behavior ,  they also install a worldview by which behaviors they encourage or erase. And while they do not create a mentality in their users - most people inside of a prison, convict and guard alike, have come there knowing what the space is about - they may make it subtly more difficult to envision practices that do not fit these built-in logics once they're inside.

To consider software in this way, we must look at the design of the application itself. When the tool offers a range of choices, we must consider what is left off that list. When the tool works with the hardware in a particular way, we have to uncover the economic arrangements it represents. When the tool anticipates who the user is or what he will likely do, we have to take into account the character of the social world those assumptions represent. And again, these political valences will be hidden, or will appear a natural or obvious element of the technology, or will be praised in the seductive terms of efficiency, simplicity, and empowerment" (9).

I like the way Gillepsie connects attitudes toward artifacts with attitudes toward technology. The way the internet is built and the potential (and limitations) it offers say a lot about the social perspectives of its creators. The way a website attracts a viewer may be welcoming and user-friendly for some while completely leaving out other groups. I think using this lens to explore how minority audiences experience the internet will be helpful. There are definite examples of how a complex website would prohibit an uneducated person from utilizing it. I wonder if there are also examples of how websites limit certain races, genders, or sexual orientations from using them. **~Jeff**

2/6/2010: **And so it begins, my adventure into the unknown...**

This is my first day on the course wiki and I'm already digging how connected our class is. (I wish my other classes used a course wiki too) I'm exploring the different ways minority groups use the internet, and my first stop is going to be the PEW Research Site. I've used this site for other classes, and I think I'll find a lot of great resources to guide me.

Wish me luck as I climb (fall?) deeper into the rabbit hole... **~Jeff** PS - I'm reading Neuromancerby William Gibson right now. If you're into science fiction books (or Vonnegutor Philip K. Dick), you'll really like it.

