Week3 | Topic 1

In what ways can the Net be thought of as an ‘open architecture?’
I think the term Open Architecture is synonym for the way in which "produsers" can design and build a world/environment around themselves. It is their own decision what online communities and activities they engage in and how they customise it by who they talk to and can pick & mix online services to form a set of online platforms that are suitable in respect with the online "world" they want to live in. To be honest, I had some trouble with trying to understand the concept of Open Architecture, but this is pretty much how I understood it.

Do you think that assuming an online persona (via screen name/handle/avatar etc) encourages people to play with the identity they present online and take risks in the ways the express themselves?
I think a lot of the things I said for task two need to be taken in consideration when answering this. I think the tendency of people to assume an alternative online persona does depends on the platform/service it is on. Web forums and online communities can make it very easy for produsers to play around with their identity and if it doesn't work out or they end up ebing hated by other users there is always a hundred million other places where they can play around with new characteristics. I guess this brings back the whole ethical debate again, and different analists have had very different views as of wether or not this is a possitive or negative thing. Some would think it is just a harmless phenomenon, others reckon it might not be entirely free of side-effects as it does not provide certain parts of "actual" identities have like social struggle as the niche communities on the web do not come with the prejudes and dominant ideologies that mainstream society does have. Also, produsers can get their own adopted new identity wrong by basing it entirely on stereotypes, thus confirming them.

What do you think of postmodern views which stress the fluidity of online selves and their apparent disembodied status, which has been argued frees people from being represented through signs of their race, gender, class etc?
I believe the book suggests that, even though the internet is the same for everyone, the produser's real-life background does affect their behaviour online as they have still been raised with the same ideologies. It is very similar to one of the things that was described in the Living Culture unit last semester. I, annoyingly, cannot think of the right term now but it was about people, no matter how much their financial status has changed, they will still have the same tastes and ideologies. I'll look up what it's actually called in my notes from last semester. (Might take a while to find it, though!)

Do cyberidentities constitute an alternative to ‘normal social reality’?
I suppose it can be seen as a way to escape everyday reality and, indeed, try out different identities or a different side of your identity that isn't as accepted in real life as it might be in a niche online community. That way it could be a way off expressing things you can't express elsewhere. So in that sense I agree that they are an alternative to "normal social reality" as they have different ideologies and are therefore different from the usdual everyday 'norm'.

Are online relationships the same as offline ones?
It really depends on who the relationship is with and where the 'online relationship' takes place. On niche web-forums the changed standards would affect the type of relationship two produsers have, especially if the two don't know eachother in the outside world. But, like on facebook, one-to-one conversations can take place between people who see eachother all the time, and I guess that doesn't change the relationship between them.