Instructions: Ask the journalistic questions on your focused research topic (at least 3 questions for each: who, what, where, why, and how). Identify top 2-3 questions. Briefly discuss what/how/why they are your favorite.

Who?

• Who represents themselves as queer in the digital world?
• Who might represent themselves as queer in the digital world but not in the physical world?
• Aside from others who identify themselves as queer, who interacts with those who offer such digital representations?
• Who might represent themselves in the digital world as queer in response to preexisting digital queer representations?

What?

• What happens when people visually represent themselves as queer in the physical world?
• What happens when people visually represent themselves as queer in the digital world?
• If queer theory proposes that meaning is never wholly fixed, then what qualifies an artifact as queer?

When?

• When did queer representation permeate into the digital world?
• When do people offer visual queer representations in the digital world?
• When do people attempt to subvert an already-subversive artifact?

Where?

• In which digital spaces might people offer visual queer representations?
• In which digital spaces might people refrain from offering visual queer representations?
• From where do visual queer representations originate?

Why?

• Why might people use visual means – and not lingual means – to represent themselves as queer?
• Why would people attempt to subvert an already-subversive virtual artifact?
• Why might users represent themselves as queer in digital spaces?

How?

• How might people visually represent themselves as queer in the physical world?
• How might people visually represent themselves as queer in the digital world?
• How might visually rhetorical strategies involved in digital and physical representations of queerness differ?
• How has visual queer representation in the digital world changed that realm’s overall landscape?
• How might people subvert an already-subversive virtual artifact?

If we’re meant to choose our top two or three questions overall…

• How – How might people visually represent themselves as queer in the digital world?
• Why – Why might people use visual means – alongside or instead of lingual means – to represent themselves as queer?
• Why – Why would people attempt to subvert an already-subversive virtual artifact?

The first question addresses the potential for parallels and contrasts between visual representations of queerness in the digital and physical worlds. The physical world is more fixed, so to speak, than the digital world; the fluidity of the latter allows for more manipulability in general, especially in regard to representation. In regard to the second question, visual rhetoric in the digital realm often involves searching and coding that can be more time-consuming and indirect than textual rhetoric. Why do people take more time and effort in their representations? Finally, the third question involves a furthering of what’s already there – a distancing from the norm. The idea that people would want their digital representations to further deviate from the norm fascinates me.