Nakamura proposes that individuals want to express key aspects of their identities, such as race, on new media platforms, while the rise of visual cues online in the form of avatars, photographs, and video has made it much more difficult to separate an individual’s appearance from his or her online identity. We have also read how members of specific ethnic, social, or cultural groups develop group norms within their networks in order to create insider status, such as the so-called “Black Twitter,” which uses a form of African American Vernacular English to create a network of individuals who share similar demographic backgrounds. Similar communities and networks link together individuals by race, gender, sexual orientation, age, ethnic or national origin or other demographic categories. Baym and Nakamura both note that this outcome is very different from the colorblind, egalitarian new media early proponents envisioned.
Identify one potential positive benefit and one potential negative drawback of individuals belonging to networks based on offline demographic categories such as race. Please explain your choices.
Are networks based on a demographic grouping such as race empowering, or do they risk isolating that demographic? Please explain in detail.
How can online environments encourage greater communication and interaction among people from different demographic backgrounds?
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