Rethinking the interface: how the Internet/computer spectator is engaged, rendered, and regulated; theoretical models and case studies that range from text-based and graphical communication settings and women's webcams to male programmer's physical and psychic pain.
Internet and computer users are often represented onscreen as active and empowered―as in AOL's striding yellow figure and the interface hand that appears to manipulate software and hypertext links. In The Body and the Screen Michele White suggests that users can more properly be understood as spectators rendered and regulated by technologies and representations, for whom looking and the mediation of the screen are significant aspects of engagement. Drawing on apparatus and feminist psychoanalytic film theories, art history, gender studies, queer theory, critical race and postcolonial studies, and other theories of cultural production, White conceptualizes Internet and computer spectatorship and provides theoretical models that can be employed in other analyses. She offers case studies and close visual and textual analysis of the construction of spectatorship in different settings. White shows that despite the onscreen promise of empowerment and coherence (through depictions of materiality that structure the experience), fragmentation and confusion are constant aspects of Internet spectatorship. She analyzes spectatorship in multi-user object-oriented settings (MOOs) by examining the textual process of looking and gazing, contrasts the experiences of the women's webcam spectator and operator, describes intentional technological failures in net art, and considers ways in which traditional conceptions of artistry, authorship, and production techniques persist in Internet and computer settings (as seen in the creation of virtual environment avatars and in digital imaging art). Finally, she analyzes the physical and psychic pain described by male programmers in Internet forums as another counternarrative to the common tale of the empowered user. Spectatorship, White argues, not only affects the way specific interfaces are understood but also helps shape larger conceptions of self and society.

The Body And the Screen: Theories of Internet Spectatorship

Computers & Technology

White, Michele

Computer Science

Mit Pr

Technology companies claim to connect people through touchscreens, but by conflating physical contact with emotional sentiments, they displace the constructed aspects of devices and women and other oppressed individuals’ critiques of how such technologies function.\nTechnology companies and device designers correlate touchscreens and online sites with physical contact and emotional sentiments, promising unmediated experiences in which the screen falls away in favor of visceral materiality and connections. While touchscreens are key elements of most people’s everyday lives, critical frameworks for understanding the embodied experiences of using them are wanting. In Touch Screen Theory, Michele White focuses on the relation between physically touching and emotionally feeling to recenter the bodies and identities that are empowered, produced, and displaced by these digital technologies and settings. Drawing on detailed cases and humanities methods, White shows how and why gender, race, and sexuality should be further analyzed in relation to touchscreen use and design.\nWhite delves into such details as how women are informed that their bodies and fingernails are not a fit for iPhones, how cellphone surfaces are correlated with skin and understood as erotic, the ways social networks use heart buttons and icons to seem to physically and emotionally connect with individuals, how online references to feminine and queer feelings are resisted by many men, and how women producers of autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) videos use tactile strategies and touch screens to emotionally bond with viewers. Proposing critical methods for studying touchscreens and digital engagement, Touch Screen Theory expands a variety of research areas, including digital and internet cultures, hardware, interfaces, media and screens, and popular culture.

Touch Screen Theory: Digital Devices and Feelings

Web Development & Design

The MIT Press

Producing Masculinity: The Internet, Gender, and Sexuality

Thoughtful, witty, and illuminating, in this book Michele White explores the ways normative masculinity is associated with computers and the Internet and is a commonly enacted online gender practice. Through close readings and a series of case studies that range from wedding forums to men’s makeup video tutorials, White considers the ways masculinities are structured through people’s collaborations and contestations over the establishment of empowered positions, including debates about such key terms and positions as “the nice guy,” “nerd,” “bro,” and “groom.” She asserts that cultural notions of masculinity are reliant on figurations of women and femininity, and explores cultural conceptions of masculinity and the association of normative white heterosexual masculinity with men and women. A counterpart to her earlier book, Producing Women, White has crafted an excellent primer for scholars of gender, media, and Internet studies.

Producing Masculinity

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Psychology & Counseling

Routledge

Thoughtful, witty, and illuminating, in this book Michele White explores the ways normative masculinity is associated with computers and the Internet and is a commonly enacted online gender practice. Through close readings and a series of case studies that range from wedding forums to men’s makeup video tutorials, White considers the ways masculinities are structured through people’s collaborations and contestations over the establishment of empowered positions, including debates about such key terms and positions as “the nice guy,” “nerd,” “bro,” and “groom.” She asserts that cultural notions of masculinity are reliant on figurations of women and femininity, and explores cultural conceptions of masculinity and the association of normative white heterosexual masculinity with men and women. A counterpart to her earlier book, Producing Women, White has crafted an excellent primer for scholars of gender, media, and Internet studies.

Buy It Now: Lessons from eBay

In Buy It Now, Michele White examines eBay and its emphasis on community and social norms, revealing the cultural assumptions about gender, race, and sexuality that are reinforced throughout the site. She shows how instructional texts, rule systems, and advertisements "configure the user," allowing eBay to indicate how the site is supposed to function while also upholding particular values and practices. White details how eBay reinforces stereotypes about gender and sexuality, looking, for example, at descriptions included in wedding dress listings, and how eBay directs individuals to the "Adult Only" part of the website when they use the search terms "gay" and "lesbian." She discloses the ways that eBay promises a caring community but its "Black Americana" category reproduces racism by allowing sellers' narratives that excuse and romanticize slavery and insult African Americans. White also looks at how participants challenge eBay's categories, rules, and values, examining widely used strategies of resistance by sellers and buyers in the lesbian and gay interest listings. By analyzing the organizational and cultural logics present in eBay, White emphasizes how other Internet settings, including craigslist, are not as transparent, community-oriented, and empowering as they claim. She proposes methods for researching and reconceptualizing new media sites.

Duke University Press Books

In Buy It Now, Michele White examines eBay and its emphasis on community and social norms, revealing the cultural assumptions about gender, race, and sexuality that are reinforced throughout the site. She shows how instructional texts, rule systems, and advertisements "configure the user," allowing eBay to indicate how the site is supposed to function while also upholding particular values and practices. White details how eBay reinforces stereotypes about gender and sexuality, looking, for example, at descriptions included in wedding dress listings, and how eBay directs individuals to the "Adult Only" part of the website when they use the search terms "gay" and "lesbian." She discloses the ways that eBay promises a caring community but its "Black Americana" category reproduces racism by allowing sellers' narratives that excuse and romanticize slavery and insult African Americans. White also looks at how participants challenge eBay's categories, rules, and values, examining widely used strategies of resistance by sellers and buyers in the lesbian and gay interest listings. By analyzing the organizational and cultural logics present in eBay, White emphasizes how other Internet settings, including craigslist, are not as transparent, community-oriented, and empowering as they claim. She proposes methods for researching and reconceptualizing new media sites.

The intention of this map booklet is to relieve some of the daily fishing pressure that exists at the better known fly fishing venues: Dream Stream and Eleven Mile Canyon. Many anglers come to South Park to experience fishing our Gold Medal Waters (Charlie Myers State Wildlife Area, aka, ¿Dream Stream¿ and ¿Eleven Mile Canyon¿). That said, there are four reservoirs in South Park with inlets and spillways and four major tributaries that comprise the South Platte River in the basin of South Park. The water above the reservoirs is recharged through run-off from the surrounding mountains and through springs and acquifers near the surface in the alluvial basin. The significance of the wild headwaters is that you can find wild resident trout year round above the reservoirs.When people come into my shop, I try to find out what their goal is for the day. Do they want to catch a grand big fish? Many fish? A variety of trout species? A shot at cutthroats? Pike? Are they fishing with a group of people? Do they have children or a dog? Would they like to hike or park next to a river? (Do they want to spin-fish, use bait, or keep a trout?) ¿ There are multuple venues for a variety of fishing methods in South Park.Prior to opening this shop, I was a geologist and GIS operator, which means I make maps using software. The back of my shop has a wall devoted to maps showing people where they are, orienting them to the region and the flow of the South Platte River, and showing a variety of options for their day. My maps have personal notes and colored lines drawn on them. People capture images of my maps using their cells phones. I began to realize that these maps in booklet form would be useful in diverting anglers to the Lesser Know Fly Fishing Venues of South Park.

Lesser Known Fly Fishing Venues in South Park, Colorado: Every Public Access in South Park Basin outside of the Dream Stream and Eleven Mile Canyon

Reference

Atlases & Maps

Much More Murray

When I've guided people, who have never been fly fishing before (or are still relatively new to the sport), I've noticed a common challenge is that they often don't see the fish, nor do they see the fish's activity (a disturbance on the surface of the water). Even when I point to the ripple or the splash, they still don't see it.Why this book? Because this book is the best book for Joe Schmo of his wife Shirley. It's simple and different. This book uses a lot of cartoon illustrations. Joe Schmo likes cartoons. If you don't like cartoons, you'll probably not like this book. I wrote this book to put into writing what I commonly tell Joe Schmo (or Shirley) on a daily basis in my fly shop here in Lake George, Colorado. There are tons of novice people with a fly rod who have taken and lesson or two and are now trying to go on their own.

Joe the Schmo Can Catch a Big Fish: Insights from a 61 year old River Woman

Sports & Outdoors

Hunting & Fishing

Producing Women examines the ways femininity is produced through new media. Michele White considers how women are constructed, produce themselves as subjects, form vital production cultures on sites like Etsy, and deploy technological processes to reshape their identities and digital characteristics. She studies the means through which women market traditional female roles, are viewed, and produce and restructure their gendered, raced, eroticized, and sexual identities. Incorporating a range of examples across numerous forms of media―including trash the dress wedding photography, Internet how-to instructions about zombie walk brides, nail polish blogging, DIY crafting, and reborn doll production―Producing Women elucidates women’s production cultures online, and the ways that individuals can critically study and engage with these practices.

Producing Women: The Internet, Traditional Femininity, Queerness, and Creativity

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by White, Michele. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by White, Michele

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by White, Michele. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Body And the Screen: Theories of Internet Spectatorship

Touch Screen Theory: Digital Devices and Feelings

Producing Masculinity

Producing Masculinity: The Internet, Gender, and Sexuality

Buy It Now: Lessons from eBay

Buy It Now: Lessons from eBay

Lesser Known Fly Fishing Venues in South Park, Colorado: Every Public Access in South Park Basin outside of the Dream Stream and Eleven Mile Canyon

Joe the Schmo Can Catch a Big Fish: Insights from a 61 year old River Woman

Producing Women: The Internet, Traditional Femininity, Queerness, and Creativity

Producing Women: The Internet, Traditional Femininity, Queerness, and Creativity