Becoming Anonymous

In a new global topography of cultural movements, repressed layers of populations come to historical consciousness and demand autonomy and sovereignty: many are finding ways to engage through online communities. In the wake of rapid global and social change, groups increasingly organized and operated independently of the control and planning of states are taking shape. Elaborating these so-called “processes” as manifested by those behind Guy Fawkes’s mask is a key concern in this study. The author builds theoretical insights on the shifting semiotic vocabulary of the Guy Fawkes Mask used by the niche online community of Anonymous as a disruptive insertion of online visual communication.

Social Presence in Online Dissertation Classes

This chapter reports on the results of a study that explored doctoral learners’ perceptions of social presence in online dissertation courses. Seven doctoral graduates were interviewed to understand how social presence functions in online dissertation courses, whether social presence influences their dissertation completion, and how technological tools help improve social presence in the dissertation courses. The results of this study indicate that social presence plays an important role in online dissertation courses. Students’ course satisfaction and learning outcome were associated with the degree of social presence. The use of emoticons, emails, and phone calls in online dissertation courses increased students’ sense of social presence. Students were more satisfied with instructors who interacted with them frequently and who provided detailed and constructive feedback in a timely manner. Recommendations for further research are included.

Levelling (Up) the Playing Field

This ethnographic study explores how feminist video game players mobilise in online environments. The main research questions of this chapter involve identity and learning. How are identities formed in online feminist gaming communities, how much of one’s identity is disclosed, what determines these choices in identity disclosure, and for what purpose? What kind of informal learning is promoted and produced in online feminist gaming communities, and how does this learning take place? After analysing posts, articles, comments, and interview responses from members of feminist gaming blog The Borderhouse, it was found that feminist gamers prefer identity disclosure to concealment. While identity disclosure can be traumatic for some feminist gamers in non-feminist online gaming communities, identity disclosure is encouraged in feminist gaming online forums, as it contributes to a member’s credibility and garners trust from other members. The trust and credibility garnered affects the learning that takes place, as those who are trusted help influence the content and production of discussion. Furthermore, it was found that informal learning occurs with participants of the blog through regular informal feedback, networking, and the encouragement of critical thinking skills.

Gleaning Strategies for Knowledge Sharing and Collective Assessment in the Art Classroom from the Videogame, “Little Big Planet’s Creator Spotlights”

This chapter examines the notion of videogames as a resource for teaching practice. Games are often used as teaching tools, but not often used as resources for informing pedagogical practice. Media Molecule’s game, Little Big Planet (LBP) for the Playstation 3, is a constructivist game with a niche online community of practice known as LBP Central. The game, along with the community, exemplifies multiple learning strategies in a constructivist environment, lending itself as a potentially powerful resource for studying constructivist teaching/learning strategies. In this chapter, the authors look closely at a community assessment and knowledge sharing strategy known as the “creator spotlight” and, based on the premise that art classrooms tend to be more constructivist by nature than other subject areas and because LBP has strong links to visual art, they suggest ways in which this process could be explored and applied with secondary visual arts students within a constructivist learning environment.

The Online Community of Second Life and the Residents of Virtual Ability Island

This chapter provides a detailed introduction of Second Life, a three-dimensional environment that operates over the Internet. As the community comes together, it may partake in a wide range of activities and opportunities for pedagogical purposes, as well as socialization, exploration, and creative practice. Within the introduction to this chapter, emphasis is placed on how people from diverse geographical locations join together in an effort to design a virtual environment based on the concept of user-generated content. The author uses a narrative research approach and using her avatar; she provides insight on how issues of community strength unfold and how community challenges are dealt with. Furthermore, various behaviours and actions are explored in greater detail. With this foundation, the rest of the chapter focuses on how a group of friends with disabilities came to discover Second Life. The evolution of Virtual Ability Island, which boasts over 700 community members with and without disabilities, is also examined, particularly looking at how community members contribute to growth and viability in their own personally distinct way.

Some People Aren’t People on the Inside

So-called alternative online niche communities are prone to ridicule, derision, and dismissal owing to the challenges they pose to prevailing onto-normativities, those ingrained modes of thought that dictate how we describe reality. Relying on the divergent approaches of classic SWOT analysis and post-structuralist philosophy and queer theory, this chapter explores how online connectivity shapes expressions of one niche community, the Otherkin. Otherkin are conceived as flows of desire, difference, and becoming rather than as a marginalized sub-culture occupying virtual space. As such, Otherkin are queering and destabilizing established norms in ways that call forth radically new ethics, aesthetics, ontologies, epistemologies, and social connections. This chapter relies upon Otherkin online texts and expressions to make the case that such destabilizations are essentially creative acts and that online connectivity affords Otherkin strengths and opportunities as well as revealing weaknesses and representing threats to their niche community.

Ratchet Head Pedagogy

This narrative autobiographical study is a tribute to do-it-yourselfers who have long worked on their own, patiently troubleshooting motorcycle-related problems often without having all the information or the parts at hand and frequently without having the proper skills to do so. The authors address a peculiar phenomenon that emerged at the same time as Web 2.0 technologies, deemed to be more social: the capacity for anyone to solve problems that would be otherwise impossible. The specific narratives looked at are the authors’ own experiences with Italian motorcycles and how they learned to customize and tune them through joining asynchronous online discussions. The authors present the context of the study, the theoretical framework inspired by Csikszentmihalyi, Foucault, Freire, Dewey, and Wenger, and the methodology. They make an effort to present the results sequentially so that the reader is given a good sense of their experience. The authors offer a discussion that shows the relationships between their experience and progressive concepts of education, which could be useful for the traditional educational system that is currently adrift.

Gendered Subjectivities and Cyberspace Dialogues in Lebanon

This chapter explores the use of a feminist website that raises awareness about issues related to Lebanese women. By uniting women’s voices via blogging, story narration, and comic strips, the Nasawiya feminists strive to challenge the hegemonic discourses that currently constitute the reality of women from Middle Eastern countries such as Lebanon. The author inspects the discourses in that space and how they articulate the meanings of what is said and cannot be said, thereby conditioning the way gender and citizenship reality is constituted. The author concludes that cyberspace provides a new form of resistance for women in the Arab World. It is a promising advocacy medium for confronting patriarchy and all its intersections, hopefully paving the way for a better future for all citizens.

Niche and Community Online

This chapter addresses ethical aspects of digital life by analyzing the idea of niche community from two approaches: through the lens of the inoperable community as theorized by Jean-Luc Nancy (1991, 2000) and through artistic interventionist practices that dig deeply into normative assumptions of neoliberalism, which have been carried online. It considers the nature of digital citizenship by examining creative activities facilitated by DIY (Do-It-Yourself) culture and tactical media intervention. These activities disrupt standard social conventions, and as forms of pedagogy, educators might engage with students about constructive social change within the global potential of digital communication. While stronger connections between formal learning environments and social networking activities are appropriate, the author critiques some of the underlying economic influences on the user/member so that the educational, psychological, and behavioral nature of niche online communities can be considered in light of disruptive artistic activities and subjectivity supported by Nancy’s philosophy.

Constructing Quilts, Online Communities, and Quilter Legacies

Quilting is a fertile ground for exploring sociohistorical issues related to women in society as they are shaped by greater access to online tools and environments. Such tools and environments have many affordances in terms of personal expression, community building, and female empowerment. This narrative case study presents the story of an online quilting artist named Faye, whose family quilted for generations and who now advocates for women’s rights, the broadening of permissible themes in quilting art, and an end to censorship. The story of the author’s personal relationship to quilting is also provided. The chapter concludes that Faye’s and the author’s stories embody the concept of family legacy in quilting and the honoring of this tradition across generations. Additionally, it is suggested that Faye’s story highlights deep divides within the online quilting community as online female quilting artists challenge traditional quilting themes and approaches to self-expression. Lastly, the chapter argues that more work needs to be done in exploring the roles of women in textile-based arts as they develop self-governing online communities using modern technologies.