Why?

Well, as i was coding (and talking to Wei helped), i realized that .txt files were missing a lot of information that was specific to the web. i’ve been half-assedly looking for articles on sociolinguistic discourse analysis (SDA) of CMC or websites and one thing i can argue for sure: most SDA of CMC strips the web features away from the analysis of text. i completely understand why; if you’re looking at forum postings or chat interfaces, you should be focusing on the interactions between participants.

Because i’m arguing for a community’s presence on the web, however, i need to make note of the features of the web that are incorporated in that community’s presentation of self. For example, if i’m arguing that many of my blogs represent black identity, i have to simulataneously discuss features of weblogs and features of weblogs that promote black identity, capisce? i can’t say “this hyperlink offers a context for understanding black identity as expressed in this online space” without mentioning why there’s a weblog in the first place.

it’s not like i didn’t know this in the first place…but my excuse is that i was hamstrung (i’ll shamefacedly admit) by the lack of CAQDAS software for the Mac. I paid for a license to HyperResearch because they said they could analyze multimedia. stupid me…$370 gone. HR can analyze multimedia…just not in the ways i need it to.

so TAMS…i’m using TAMS alongside DTPro’s feature of converting Web Archives to RTFD documents. RTFD documents are formatted exactly like webpages (which is not the best solution), but they DO include hyperlinks and images. therefore, these can be included in my analysis – even if it’s just “see – here’s a contextual element expanding/expounding upon the author’s words”. For images, i plan to double code as Image and as one of my ID codes. For hyperlinks, i’m going to code the text of the link (a href=”" for those watching at home) and then input the actual URL as an annotation to the code. not sure if i’m going to double code…that could be a whole HEAP of trouble…we’ll see

UPDATE: i’m glad i chose this approach…as i was converting webarchives, i realized that for many of the sites that i coded as “Black” i had to access linked profiles (re: Blogger) in order to ascertain identity. so i will be double coding, after all.

*sigh* January, anyone?

so now i’m adding the code HYPERLINK and annotating each code with the appropriate hyperlinked URL. fortunately, i started by doing the smaller sites first, so this should only set me back a couple of days.

My other codes for Black discursive identity (pardon my vernacular codes, i’ll make em pretty when i need to) operate from Hughes’ definition of ethnic identity (“talk, act, and behave as if they are a separate group) and draw upon my synthesis of DuBois. because discursive identity relies upon the exposition of values, beliefs, and common cultural touchpoints, these codes are less formal and more interpretive

INGROUP EXEMPLAR – identify notable (or notorious) figures in the Black community; may not correspond with mainstream-identified exemplars.

MAINSTREAM EXEMPLAR – Blacks identified as exceptional (positively or negatively) by the mainstream. Usually cited as a counter-example to Black normality

RESOURCE-ALLY ID – allies or resources for the Black community that are not necessarily part of the Black community. these may be organizations providing aid or individuals providing information.

BLACK ACTIONS (can be either positive or negative) – behaviors or actions by Black folk. will be personal or anecdotal; may be a link to media accounts of Black behavior. may include speech acts. usually is followed by BLACK VALUES

BLACK VALUES (can either be positive or negative) – beliefs OR values attributed by Blacks or Whites to the Black community. usually starts with “Black folks think/believe”

CULTURAL INFLUENCE (can either be positive or negative) – specifically Black influences on and contributions to American arts/culture/music/film/language, rather than White influences on Black culture.

RACISM ID – identifies violations of rights, instititutional or individual racist acts, denials of privilege/immunities/benefits, or unsupported stereotypes (e.g., looters vs finders). these IDs will not be limited to explicit actions, but if they are implicit there will usually be an explanation. usually followed by THE STRUGGLE or STEREOTYPE REFUTATION

THE STRUGGLE – articulate personal or historical struggle to acheive American norms/ideals (economic, political, civil, criminal). e.g., discusses effects of discrimination (environmental, legal, education, medical, cultural, etc)

STEREOTYPE REFUTATION – articulate and dissect limited portrayals of Black identities by contextualizing them in a sociopolitical or historical matrix.

from my pilot studies and observations during my first runs through the data, i also began coding for discursive actitivies that weren’t necessarily limited to articulations of Black identity but had lots to do with the hurricane. These included MEDIA CRITICISM, GOVERNMENT/INSTITUTIONAL CRITICISM, and PERSONAL COMMENTARY.

second coding group (WEBSITE) came up as a way to distinguish between blogs and websites, initially. As i went thru, though, i saw that i was getting types of non-blog websites, so i expanded the group to include Business, Entertainment, General/News, or Other categories. an “Other” category would include charities, churches, and professional organizations. I left that category as “Other” rather than breaking it down further because the uniting characteristic of those types of websites was that they were publishing a specific declaration of their hurricane relief effort, which was why my search pulled them up. a little spelunking into these types of sites revealed that they ain’t had nann notha thing to say about Katrina, so i feel comfortable with that grouping.

the third grouping was a little difficult. i realized as i was going thru the websites i had collected that the critical discourse analysis framework i picked up from Van Dijk simply wasn’t going to work (thank you Simeon Yates!).

The problem was that i was trying to evaluate discourse about Black identity…not about discrimination. so while the principles of Van Dijk’s CDA analysis helped me immensely, in practice i was trying to evaluate discriminatory discourse by Blacks in the same way as i was evaluating discriminatory discourse by Whites. even for the comparative model i was originally planning on doing, this approach rubbed me the wrong way. it didn’t fit my aims for the dissertation to argue that Blacks could be as discriminatory as Whites (or less)…i was much more interested in seeing how people used discourse online to construct offline identity.

i had to go back to my lit review for help. Mitra and Cohen’s chapter in Jones’ Internet Research was where i initially got a lot of inspiration; they call for a critical cultural textual analysis of websites for ideological effects. Their argument is that websites should be examined for their content and the significance of that content to the content providers (and their audience). Theirs is a 3-step approach: formal analysis, intertextual analysis, and the role of the audience.

Coupled with Mitra and Watts (2003) argument to consider the Internet as a discourse, i felt that i could comfortably apply rhetorical analysis to how African American websites generate a discursive identity based upon their worldview, moderated by the medium. My approach is based on my contention that African American public discourse is explicitly intertextual; that is, Blacks have always been engaged in arguing for their humanity on many levels with mainstream America. Thus, i centered my theoretical approach on DuBois’s observations of historical and cultural conditions for Blacks in America to contextualize why they presented themselves on the web in the ways that they do.

Corollary: Internal Validity – This communal identification based on racial discrimination holds true whether the individual has been subjected to discrimination or not.
Corollary: Internal Validity – Any significant Black achievement should be considered “normal” instead of labeling it ‘exceptional’ and placing the achiever outside of the Black community (‘not like them’).

Corollary: External Validity – Regardless of socioeconomic reality, the Black community is perceived as holding a lower social, cultural, and economic status by mainstream America.
Corollary: External Validity – Regardless of skin color, American custom assigns anyone with Black ancestry to the Black community, with a corresponding loss of social and economic standing

Proposition Two
The Black community coalesces around the recognition of our struggle against historical discrimination and an understanding that discrimination against Blacks still occurs.
Corollary: Internal Discourse – Blacks contribute to human endeavors in all aspects of society, not just entertainment or sports.
Corollary: Internal Discourse – Portrayals of Blacks should not solely consist of instances of deviation from societal norms (e.g., poverty, criminality, sexuality, illiteracy).
Corollary: Internal Discourse – Any Black failure should be attributed to individual shortcomings or institutional failure instead of the perceived cultural, intellectual, or moral failings of the entire Black community.

Corollary: External Discourse – Blacks are consistently portrayed by the media as criminal, hypersexual, violent, poor, lazy, unintelligent, or some combination of the above.
Corollary: External Discourse – Institutional discrimination, in varying degrees, is a fact of life for ALL Blacks at some point in their lives – regardless of economic status or social standing.
Corollary: External Discourse – Many Blacks face cumulative institutional barriers in housing, education, employment, the justice system, health care, and other area despite the efforts of well-meaning but poorly implemented social programs.

Proposition Three
Blacks are fully enfranchised citizens of the United States of America

Corollary: Internal Rights and Privileges – Blacks are entitled to all legal rights due a citizen of the United States.

Corollary: External Rights and Privileges – Although most laws explicitly discriminating against Blacks are no longer on the books, many laws use proxies for Blackness (e.g., geography and/or poverty) to deny Blacks the social/cultural/economic privileges, immunities, and benefits enjoyed by mainstream America.

Proposition Four
Black culture is always in dialogue with mainstream American culture; it can be representative, oppositional, or varying degrees between the two.

Corollary: Internal Values – Black standards of beauty and art are a different aesthetic rather than a corrupt or primitive version of Western values.
Corollary: Internal Values – Blacks and Black culture are an enormous influence on American art, music, style, and language.

Corollary: External Values – Blackness is used as a metaphor for “cool”; as physical, sexual, or spiritual prowess; it also serves as an iconic representation of crime, lust, evil, or death.
Corollary: External Values – When American values such as violence, hypermasculinity, and misogyny are found in Black art forms, they are attributed to deficiencies of the Black artists and the Black community.

The American Negro, therefore, is surrounded and conditioned by the concept which he has of white people and he is treated in accordance with the concept they have of him.  On the other hand, so far as his own people are concerned, he is in direct contact with individuals and facts…[this environment] gives him a social world and mental peace [Dusk of Dawn p. 173].

the net effect for my theorizing is that i can’t (and won’t) discuss Black identity as a self-contained worldview, nor will i approach it from a ‘culture of poverty’ perspective.  i’m arguing for a Black identity that contains ideological elements of American culture (white supremacy and nationalist ideology), resistance to said American culture (including remnants of African diasporic language practices) [cf. Gates Signifying Monkey], and values and beliefs derived from one, the other, or both.  This doesn’t slide me into the dreaded “victimology” perspective (i hope); instead it allows me to acknowledge the influence of the majority culture on the ways Black people see themselves and the world.  This approach has had practical results:  i can comfortably link the widely divergent set of worldviews within the Black community to a single Black identity as a (very) political strategy to upend stereotypical views of Blacks as a monolithic set of Internet users (and eventually to argue against a monolithic view of Blacks as a monolithic community).

This just in…the reason why i ain’t been posting is because i dipped back into the literature (thanks, Google Scholar!) to see what researchers say about how offline identities affect online identities.  man.  ain’t much…but what there is doesn’t significantly address race.  gender?  absolutely.  ethnicity? from time to time but only international stuff.  but Blackness hasn’t garnered much attention.  The closest thing going is Miller & Slater’s work (which is SO good…i want to be on that level) so i’m on a good track here…now back to our regularly scheduled programming…

or maybe i’ll go to bed.  it is late, after all.

next up:  more DuBois – Can a n*gga get a code?

An ethnic group is not one because of the degree of measurable or
observable difference from other groups; it is an ethnic group, on the
contrary, because the people in and the people out of it know that it
is one; because both the ins and the outs talk, feel, and act as if it were a separate group. (Hughes [1971] 1984, 153-54)

i’m building my thesis on Goffman’s performance of the self and on the rhetorical construction of identity, so the above quotation fits in neatly for a couple of reasons.

• Goffman argues that people perform “self” according to whatever context they find themselves. This performance stems from what the individual understands to be a valid “self” as well as what the prospective audience [context] expects from an authentic performer. *needs work…come back*
• The rhetorical performance of identity [to me] is a combination of Aristotle’s ethos, logos, and pathos. My memory of my rhetoric work suggests that most rhetoricians would argue for identity as primarily located within ethos. I’ve felt all along – without the appropriate references, of course – that any appeal for rhetorical authority requires the rhetor to be versed in the worldview, understanding of truths [logos], and values and beliefs [pathos]. i think i can support this from Jasper Neel’s book, but i’ll have to polish it up when the time comes.
• The Hughes quotation, then, provides me with space to contend that Black people online are Black people because they talk and act like Black people (“ins”). The interactive nature of the Web provides me with the “outs”; that is, many of the blog posts and website articles are situated as responses to what “outs” have said about offline Black actions during Katrina.

Next up: back to DuBois

DuBois and Stuff

I used three of DuBois’ writings: Dusk of Dawn (1940), Souls of Black Folk (1903), and A Negro Nation within a Nation (1933) to compile my synthesis of his writing on Black identity. i’m not a DuBois scholar, but i’m aware that DuBois had several different conceptions of what being Black in the US was like (and should be like) over his intellectual trajectory, but i’m sticking with him. He examined Black identity from a sociological perspective and articulated it thru a critical positive lens.

i appreciate his approach because it’s not high theory, which (to me) is often abstract and purposely obfuscatory. It’s also not based on an unsophisticated understanding of individual effort in American culture, which leads to a ‘culture of poverty’ standpoint and Black culture in a deficit position. Instead, DuBois builds a concept of race and class embedded in his studies of American culture. Therefore, DuBois’ articulation of Blackness plays off of his understanding of White supremacy, which dictated social relations in his day. Although White supremacy isn’t openly expressed in today’s discourses, it is still a vital part of American culture and everyday life. Thus, i feel DuBois’ concept of race is still relevant.

NOTE: Because i’m posting this on the web, i’m not going to put page-by-page citations up.

So when i was going thru DuBois, this quote from DoD really caught my attention:

“Black culture is conditioned by concepts that Blacks hold about Whites, while Blacks struggle against an existence dependent upon the concepts Whites hold about them”

I was feelin’ this quote because it is a logical evolution of DuBois’ statements in SBF “How does it feel to be a problem” and the ever-popular double-consciousness citation. i believe that this statement gave me the freedom to discuss the complex, often contradictory positions that Black people feel about Black people while maintaining pretty consistent views about their position in the American socioeconomic matrix. let me give you an example of how i thought this out:

• Proposition One: The Black community coalesces around the recognition of their struggle against historical discrimination, and an understanding that discrimination against Blacks still occurs.

when converting this to code, i’ve tagged this one as “communal affiliation“. Because it has to be articulated by an individual, it could have easily been “individual affiliation with x community”, but one given in this study is that i’m arguing for a “real”, discursively-expressed Black community online.  How do i know i have websites and weblogs generated by Black authors and webmasters? i often joke during presentations using the Chris Rock quote about Whites not wanting to be Black even if they could be rich and Black (“i think i’m going to ride this white thing out”)

Of course, this raises the specter of “how are you defining community”?  i’ll come back to that later…for now, when it comes to online blackness, we’re going on the Rock-ian definition: nobody wants to be Black in these United States.

back to bidness…so i’m looking to see how identity is articulated discursively and i need to map how “community affiliation” expresses identity.  let’s jump to the next post to talk about that.

The Plot So Far…

I’m working on my dissertation, which is a discourse analysis of African American websites (including weblogs). I selected these sites on the basis of whether they had anything to say about Hurricane Katrina and Black identity, as i am interested in how Black identity is articulated on the Web.

My issues thus far are:

- Operationalizing DuBois’ writings on Black identity into discursive categories
- Accounting for patterns in the data that can’t be accounted for by DuBois
- Trying to stay away from Grounded Theory, which doesn’t seem to work well with ideology
- Aligning my analysis with precepts of Critical Discourse Analysis
- Aligning my analysis with precepts of Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis

more later…i’m going home to think about this.