5/7 Draft Questions - Albert Lam

1. In "Missed Connections: What Search Engines Say About Women", we learn how "Search engine results don't only mask the unequal access to social, political, and economic life as broken down by race, gender and sexuality - they also maintain it." What is another example of a technology that masks, advances, or maintains such inequalities?

2. Given the material learned in "Missed Connections", what does this mean for us as users and consumers? How might one balance or navigate the decision to continue using a convenient and commonplace product or service that makes life significantly easier, versus boycotting it?

3. As we learn from "How did social media unite and empower DREAMers?", it is difficult to classify something as broad as technology as either unilaterally good or bad. Aside from the damages that search engines can cause and the uniting force that social media has brought, what are some other pros and cons of technology looking at it from a social or political lens?

4. In "Deus ex Machina", Catherine Ramirez states that "Hispanos have been excluded from the world of science, technology, and reason", where "the tourism industry in New Mexico is responsible in great part for manufacturing many romantic myths about the state." How might industry's incessant capitalization of other culture's inhibit that culture to thrive? Would you consider the increase of reach and spread of the culture of Hispanos a positive outcome of the tourism industry's actions, or has it merely been a cheap shouting of illegitimate and appropriated culture?

Comments

Popular Posts