So if Scarlette O'Harlette and fried chicken (along with some maps, which, we'll certainly talk about--those aren't so innocuous either!) are the images that show up for a search of "southern," what happens when something called "religion" gets thrown into the mix? Well, I'm glad you asked:
Hmm, so now we've got tiny churches, a lynching, the book "Baptized in Blood," and Jerry Falwell (among other things). This offers a pretty specific brand of Protestantism to partner with images of the South. Fair? Unfair? Falwellian? (no, I'm not sure what that means)
This is a very interesting data set that you have chosen to represent "southern religion". I say that because of the use of "tags" that identify these images to Google.
ReplyDeleteAt first glance, it appears that this is how Google defines "southern religion", but it is not Google's definition. Instead it is the way Google responds to users that define "southern religion" with particular images.
This data is very problematic, because we don't know who the authors of these individual data points are. Also, we do not know how much of the author's actions are influenced by their perception of how Google will respond to their actions.
Most importantly though, might be the question, "How much agency does Google have?". Can Google, or at least the people behind it, influence the authors and react accordingly? Is Google merely responding, or is Google forcing our(the authors) hand.
Yes! This is an excellent point--Google identifies and reproduces data already posted on the web by all sorts of people with all sorts of ideas about things like "religion" and "the south". Put the two tropes together, and Presto!--a very problematic set of data indeed. But a set of data nonetheless, no? So if someone from, say, Spain (or from Arkansas or anywhere else, for that matter), looks up "Southern religion" in the so-called universal search box, this is the stuff that crops up. So is there something to be said for that? Does it suggest anything about the way "we" (whoever "we" are) define and represent all things Southern?
ReplyDeleteHow much agency does Google have, indeed...There are big debates about this going on right now in Google's international expansions (think Google and debates over internet censorship in China)...
There's a good chicken/egg relationship you're bringing up here. Do we submit these provocative images and Google responds to them because they're provocative? Or does Google as a media filter with its finger on the pulse of internet users (if we buy the search engine's own self-representation) showcase images that then people internalize and start understanding as "Southern religion" (as one example)?
Whether it is google or the tags associated with the images that compiled these results for "southern religion", it still came from somewhere. Honestly, the first thing I thought about when mentioning "southern religion" in our initial class meeting was, the incident during the civil rights movement, where those four black girls were killed in that church in Birmingham (i.e., 16th Street Baptist Church bombing). So there was really no shock value to some of these photos when I saw them. Maybe its not google. But if I can see these photos as an accurate representation of "southern religion" and these images are similar to the first thing that comes to my mind, then possibly other southerners, northerners, and even google can as well.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that the whole separation of church and state thing is null and void after you hit the Mason Dixon. Whether we want to believe it or not, it's a whole new ball game down here.Those pictures showed up because that is the perception of the South at a glance.For those who don't look passed it, this is all you will ever see.
ReplyDeleteI agree with spc_holder. Whether or not it is Google itself or previous data posted by outside sources, these things are majority views of the South. A lot of my family is from Buffalo/Niagara Fall, New York, and they fit most sterotypes of an American Northern Italian family. And I can tell you, I have never seen any of them eat fried chicken, drink a glass of sweet tea or complain that somethign was too "liberal". It is not just the South that has certain stereotypes. Not all stereotypes fit all situations/people/things that they are targeted at, but all stereotypes do come from a generalized idea somewhere at some point in time that fit the stereotype.
ReplyDeleteI agree that not all stereotypes fit certain people but they have been assigned to certain regions because of the generalizations of the MAJORITY that has populated in that area throughout history. The stereotypes didn't come from thin air. Each stereotype is important and significant to historical and regional context.
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