Virtual Ethnicity By Hassan Rone 6 April 2010

What Is Ethnicity? “Ethnicity is a more particularistic form of identification than race: it allows for a spectrum of color, not just black and white. Nor does it purport to have a scientific or biological basis as race does. It embodies a wide range of experience.” (Leung 12) The idea of race is distinguishable from ethnicity (Leung 22-25)

How Do We Understand Ethnicity? Offline Physical Characteristics Language or Dialect Cultural Aspects Historical Past Online Language or Dialect Personal Details

So What Exactly Is Virtual Ethnicity? Virtual ethnicity is best defined as the “categorization as to which representation of ethnicity could be said to be objectified or self-produced or found to be fragile where the web is concerned” (Leung 173).

Where Exactly Am I Going With This? Online Ways of Identifying Ethnicity Language and Dialect ObjectificationSelf-Presentation Two Models for Comprehension Personal Details Self-Presentation + Objectification

Language and Dialect

Language and Dialect: Objectification For this category, the main issue is being judged based on your linguistic background With this comes the assignment of a virtual ethnicity This is a prominent idea in McLelland’s article about “2- channeru” and the racism towards Koreans Failing to use correct Japanese or using English automatically earns the label of Korean (McLelland 823) Assigning this label is equivalent to objectifying someone and assigning them an ethnicity based upon language use

Language and Dialect: Self-Presentation This is a topic that is addressed by Poster Simply using a widespread language like English on the Internet gives “the presumption that one is interacting with a white American person” (Poster 204) Self-presentation through language is important because the can (mistakenly) indentify ethnicity, which can later indentify culture and allow for interaction “Language, though deeply rooted in personal and social history, allows a greater flexibility than race and ethnicity, with a person able to consciously or unconsciously express dual identities by the linguistic choices they make -- even in a single sentence” (Warschauer 155)

Two Language and Dialect Based Models Positive-use Model Using a more widespread language on Internet, such as English, allows one to present an image of belonging to ethnicities such as American, British or etc. Use of these languages allows one to indentify with the culture associated with the language or to mask their true ethnicity behind it There is an idea of a shared virtual ethnicity that allows for interaction Negative-Use Model Using a more widespread language on the Internet, as opposed to the national language of a country with a large native Internet Community disconnects a person with that community Rejection of the language is equated with rejection of the culture There is an idea of separate virtual ethnicities to prevent valuable interaction between different virtual ethnic groups.

Personal Details: Objectification + Self- Presentation With personal details, there is not the same degree of anonymity as there is with language alone Personal details such as a paragraph description on CyberJew are objective to the degree that the person wants to reveal information (Poster 204) The only detail that becomes close to being completely objective is a birth name

Personal Details: Objectification + Self- Presentation McLelland’s gaming example (cited from another author) shows how names can be used to present a virtual ethnicity that is not necessarily one’s own (816)

Conclusions There are a variety of different ways to engage with the topic of virtual ethnicity However, the examination of language provides more ways to examine the issue of virtual ethnicity The conflict of shared virtual ethnicity versus separate virtual ethnicity corresponds to the positive/negative model Virtual ethnicity is a fragile concept dependent upon the type of Internet environment

Works Cited Leung, Linda. Virtual Ethnicity: Race, Reistance, and the World Wide Web. Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Limited, McLelland, Mark. "'Race' on the Japanese Internet: Discussing Korea and Koreans on '2-Channeru'." New Media Society (2008): Poster, Mark. "Virtual Ethnicity: Tribal Identity in an Age of Global Communications." Computer-Mediated Communications and Community. Ed. Steven Jones. Sage Publications Warschauer, Mark. "Language, Identity, and the Internet." Race in Cyberspace. Eds. Beth E. Kolko, Lisa Nakamura and Gilbert B. Rodman. New York, NY: Routledge, Data for pie chart taken from