Instructions: 3 robust annotated bibliography entries on focused research topic.

1. Rak, Julie. “The Digital Queer: Weblogs and Internet Identity.” Biography 28.1 (2005): 166-182. Web. 1 Feb. 2015.

The article contemplates blogging as a site for establishing queer identity, among other things – what would “queer blogging” be like? How might bloggers focusing on queer issues bring queerness into their actual discourse? While many seem(ed) to view blogging as an online form of diary writing, people like multimedia communication expert Madeleine Sorapure suggest that the public nature of the blog audience keeps it from being a strict extension of the diary. Rak draws comparisons between blog research and Michael Foucault’s work – discourse has constructed both as something to be analyzed. Rak posits that weblogs are their own internet genre. Bloggers compiled links on their websites to guides their audiences before search engines took over. Early online communities did not regard blogs as online diaries; online diaries came into existence before blogs, in fact. Blogs began to focus more on individual experiences – and less on link collecting – when dated entries came into the picture; blogs even evolved to the point where more than one person could post materials on the same blog. Even with this evolution, blogging prioritizes individualism and freedom of expression. Blogs exist in a semi-private environment. A crucial component of blogging is that authors are as authentic (or “real”) as possible; blogs circumvent traditional standards of publishing. In this sense, blogs construct what can be considered a queer social (and digital) space. Rak searched for queer blogs – gay, GLBT, etc. – and found conservatism in regard to identity and ultimately homogeneity, ironically. Of course, subjects in this framework tend to find each other. Rak concludes that queer blogging does exist – “in the sense
that the activity of blogging itself, like offline activity, produces its own subjects,
whose relationships to offline discourses of truth and reality are designed
to create identity as its special effect” (180).

As one whose fields of expertise include authorship/identity, cultural studies, and critical theory, Rak is more than qualified to discuss the aforementioned issues. Those interested in digital composition and queer theory would find this article very useful.

2. Ashford, Chris. “Queer theory, cyber-ethnographies and researching online sex environments.” Information and Communication Technologies Law 18.3 (2009): 297-314. Web. 1 Feb. 2015.

We traditionally view research as an action detached from ourselves – we research, then we retreat from out work – but researchers often immerse themselves into societies long after they have completed their “research.” As technology has transformed sexuality, this immersion often includes queer researchers immersing themselves into online queer-sex spaces. In these virtual spaces, selves exist as textual bodies, but images of bodies – specifically those of organs associated with queer sex – dominate these spaces. Such images pave the way for the formation of virtual identities. This allows for marginalized bodies to interact with each other in new ways. Researchers can additionally practice fluid, multiple identities. The virtual spaces for these interactions queer and blur lines between sex and sexuality. This space also permits people to be (virtually) close without being (physically) close, and allows for anonymity and ease of finding partners. A further examination of these spaces could further challenge still-existing dichotomies, such as how researchers see the world around them, queer representation(s).

Ashford’s gender-studies credentials give him a unique lens through which to view these virtual spaces. Much of this is focused on the research of others, but the questions raised could lead to fascinating primary research.

3. Ribbat, Christoph. “Queer and Straight Photography.” Amerikastudien/American Studies 46.1 (2001): 27-39. Web. 1 Feb. 2015.

The practice of queering straight photography creates new binaries and poses Straight as the Other. When it comes to “straight photography,” artists and critics attempted to masculinize photography in the early twentieth century; it was about moral imperatives, not style. Here, photography is yet another club for the boys where aggressive masculinity is the norm; cameras become weapons. When straight photography was the norm, the photograph was seen as objective. “Queer photography” undercuts the supposed stability of identity. However, the recent prevalence of queering renders a categorization of each specific queering, which presents an obvious, paradoxical problem; “[i]t seems as if ‘queer’ had joined the crowd, as if its destabilization of identity had become a staple of contemporary culture” (34). In all, photograph presents an illusion. A focus on power potentially blinds us to other issues, like those of possibilities and ambiguities.

“Queer” seems to be more general than Ribbat’s other works on photography, which makes this a useful tool for those studying gazes.

Directions: Pick on topic you are interested in. Find 3 “scholarly” articles from peer-reviewed journals. Write robust annotated bibliography entries for all three articles.

1. Hubbs, Nadine. “‘I Will Survive’: Musical Mappings of Queer Social Space in a Disco Anthem.” Popular Music 26.2 (2007): 231-244. Web. 22 Jan. 2015.

               The article begins by setting up a context for the argument about Gloria Gaynor’s disco anthem, “I Will Survive” – 1979’s “Disco sucks!” brouhaha at Comiskey Park and the homophobic social climate surrounding the (in)famous moment. Hubbs goes on to explain that “homophobia” here denotes hatred toward anything related to homosexuality. The argument here is that “I Will Survive” functions as a queer anthem with multiple possibilities: mainstream passing or mainstream apprehension, the latter providing the ability for either status-quo hatred or “inspire[d] identification on the basis of experienced marginalisation” (234). Hubbs describes musical elements that back up her claim: the “high-drama opening gambit”; the minor mode; and Gaynor’s vocal performance. As far as the lattermost criterion is concerned R&B critics Martha Bayles (Hole in Our Soul) and Nelson George (The Death of Rhythm and Blues) are less than enthusiastic, condemning disco music as detached from human feeling; queer readings of Richard Dyer and John Gill herald disco as a potential space for bliss and transcendence. Hubbs embraces both points of view; she finds a certain lack of emotion in the vocals attributed to disco music but, in “Survive,” suggests that the Latin-Mediterranean- and Catholic-influence music carries emotion – “triumph […] tethered to vulnerability” (236). Additionally, certain phrases in the song blend experiences reflective of gay camp and Signifyin(g), a mostly African-American discourse that juxtaposes playful and serious performativity. “Survive” has, well, survived throughout the years as both a pop classic and a gay anthem – songs like Pet Shop Boys’ “It’s a Sin” and Erasure’s “Love to Hate You” carry traces of the song as well, which further signifies the song’s queer status; the song additionally appears as an indicator of queerness in films like In and Out and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

               According to her University of Michigan profile, Hubbs examines music’s relationship with gender, sexuality, class, and race in her work; scholars and scholars of tomorrow who seek to do the same should find this article both useful and fascinating.

2. Guan, Xiaoyi, and Mary Tate. “The privacy implications of online bonding, bridging and boundary crossing: An experimental study using emoticons in a social network map.” Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace 7.2 (2013): 1-13. Web. 22 Jan. 2015.

               As its title suggests, this article studies how much information users will disclose with others in an online setting and, more specifically, how users’ non-digital (“real-world”) relationships with others will affect their likelihood to disclose information. The article begins with a literature review of online social networks, social capital, and privacy and boundary crossing. In the review of online social networks, Guan and Tate point out that one’s online connections might reflect neither the nature nor the strength of her social ties. The article defines social capital here as the collective (perceived) value of one’s social connections. For their look at privacy and boundary crossing, Guan and Tate base their view on Warren and Brandeis’ definition = “the right of ‘all persons whatsoever their position or station, from having matters which they may properly prefer to keep private, made public against their will'”; complex privacy issues and boundary crossing tend to have a reciprocal relationship (2). The actual study incorporates three propositions: bonding, wherein participants show no concern for privacy and freely disclose emotional statuses; bridging, wherein participants are more cautious of their privacy; and boundary crossing, wherein participants show great concern for their privacy and refuse to disclose emotional statuses to anyone who “crosses boundaries.” To indicate their emotional states, participants used emoticons as their profile pictures. The bonding proposition found that online social networks can enhance real-world relationships; those who adhered to the bridging proposition worried about being perceived as exhibitionists – and did not convey signs of voyeurism of exhibitionism, as other studies had suggested; and the boundary-crossing proposition saw that participants were uncomfortable with unveiling emotional statuses in boundary-crossing relationships.

               Guan and Tate are both at Victoria University of Wellington, according to the website for Cyberpsychology. Guan is a business information analyst with background in online social networks; Tate is Senior Lecturer for the university’s School of Information Management. The article fits neatly into their field(s) of study, of course. Some of the language in the article is a bit disconcerting – for instance, “Disconfirming previous studies” is used to describe the differences between the study detailed here and another, when the results of such studies may have been different simply due to the limitations mentioned before the article’s end. Still, those with a particular interest in how online social networks affect our online (and offline) interactions might enjoy this article.

3. Pardoe, Iain, and Dean K. Simonton. “Applying Discrete Choice Models to Predict Academy Award Winners.” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (Statistics in Society) 171.2 (2008): 375-394. Web. 26 Jan. 2015.

               Pardoe and Simonton seek to predict the winners of the Academy Awards for picture, director, actor, and actress from 1938 to 2006. We already know the winners (obviously), but as its title suggests, the article depicts the application of discrete choice models to the Academy Awards. Variables integrated into the results include Golden Globe wins and, for persons, previous Oscar nominations and previous Oscar wins, which had different effects on the outcomes. Variables absent from the discrete choice model are release dates, film genre, and even nominations and wins for supporting actors (regardless of gender); some of these variables were excluded due to difficulty of reliability, while others simply did not improve on already-included variables. The study then proceeds to detail complicated equations for applying the variables to the Oscar wins. Pardoe and Simonton experiment with maximum likelihood estimation and Bayesian estimation using statistical software packages NLOGIT and WinBUGS, respectively. The results are hardly surprising – winning a Golden Globe still gives you a boost in the Oscar race, etc. – but they nonetheless fascinate an awards nut like me.

               Number-cruncher Pardoe and psychology professor Simonton make for an interesting match here – this study is all about the numbers, but this research provides at least a little insight into the human mind, too. Admittedly, the methods detailed in this article went over my head quite a bit, but I find the results fascinating since many like to write off the Globes’ alignment with the Oscars. And with a new system for picking picture nominees now in place, I would be very much interested in reading a continuation of this study (if it exists) – or at least the results. (Pardoe’s Oscar website lists the nominees for 2013 but no information on winners; his most recent predictions there seem to be about the 2010 ceremony/winners.) Those wishing to compare solely numerical methods of determining Oscar winners – or simply to see if such methods hold any legitimacy – would have great interest in this article.