The League Manager is one of the actors in the community I'm looking at and I want to look at his identity, his power and the practices he is engaging in. I've noticed the majority of League Manager's Notes have centered around his personal life. Three weeks ago he went to the Bahamas and he posted a picture of Atlantis. The week after he rented a beachhouse in Massachusetts and he posted a picture of the house and this week he posted the following picture and offered details about how his son is in the Little League World Series.
As a League Manager for football, I took the opposite approach. I intentionally made my notes about others, and even tried to include details for as many of the 14 teams as I could (which was a challenge). If my team won, or did something exceptional (almost never happened) I usually selected to focus on something else. I also made fun of myself and my team (along with everyone else). I'm not pointing this out to say one way is right and the other is wrong but more to ask why. Is this difference a gender-related difference? In other words, have I been conditioned, as a woman, to not focus on myself, to focus instead on others while the current League Manager, (a man) feels free to focus completely on himself with a type of uninhibited bravado? I think we have a type of power as a League Manager because in a way, not matter what happens, we have the final say because we get to comment publically about it. In a way we have the power to shape what people think. We can use words to manipulate events and situations (I'm not saying we do that) but depending on how others react and "use" or take in what we write, I do believe there is a type of power involved.
Should the League Manager make the Fantasy Baseball page about himself? Is that narcisistic? How does he go about developing his identity as the League Manager? Is he aware that he has made the page about himself? Why is he engaging in this particular "practice" and do others notice it and how do they feel about it? The current League Manager for Fantasy Baseball is currently disgruntled with fantasy overall, is this his way of dealing with these feelings?
Friday, June 7, 2013
Observations About the League Manager
The League Manager is one of the actors in the community I'm looking at and I want to look at his identity, his power and the practices he is engaging in. I've noticed the majority of League Manager's Notes have centered around his personal life. Three weeks ago he went to the Bahamas and he posted a picture of Atlantis. The week after he rented a beachhouse in Massachusetts and he posted a picture of the house and this week he posted the following picture and offered details about how his son is in the Little League World Series.
As a League Manager for football, I took the opposite approach. I intentionally made my notes about others, and even tried to include details for as many of the 14 teams as I could (which was a challenge). If my team won, or did something exceptional (almost never happened) I usually selected to focus on something else. I also made fun of myself and my team (along with everyone else). I'm not pointing this out to say one way is right and the other is wrong but more to ask why. Is this difference a gender-related difference? In other words, have I been conditioned, as a woman, to not focus on myself, to focus instead on others while the current League Manager, (a man) feels free to focus completely on himself with a type of uninhibited bravado? I think we have a type of power as a League Manager because in a way, not matter what happens, we have the final say because we get to comment publically about it. In a way we have the power to shape what people think. We can use words to manipulate events and situations (I'm not saying we do that) but depending on how others react and "use" or take in what we write, I do believe there is a type of power involved.
Should the League Manager make the Fantasy Baseball page about himself? Is that narcisistic? How does he go about developing his identity as the League Manager? Is he aware that he has made the page about himself? Why is he engaging in this particular "practice" and do others notice it and how do they feel about it? The current League Manager for Fantasy Baseball is currently disgruntled with fantasy overall, is this his way of dealing with these feelings?
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Wonderful. Your observation about the different "style" for representing league activities is certainly worth pondering. Because you are not going to do a survey of league manager's styles (are you?) but rather a close analysis of the posts, interactions, identities, etc in the leagues you participate in (is that right?) = you can support this claim about gendered writing through characterizations by linguists - right? The Handbook of Language and Gender (eds Holmes + Meyerhoff) is available in our library, and would be a GREAT place to start in terms of characteristics of gendered discourse + a list of the important researchers in this field.
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