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Emerging forms of identity online: Opportunities for extending theorising about identity through textual analysis
Abstract
Turkle (1995, p. 13) has argued that "identity on the computer is the sum of your distributed presence." The purpose of this chapter is to consider emerging forms of identity construction and performance within online spaces, and to extend ideas for theorising about and conceptualising identity within social psychology. The chapter also aims to highlight the relevance of textual analysis in contributing to an understanding of these emerging identities. There is clear evidence of the capacity to construct identity online through the immediacy of textual communication, self-reflection and defined spaces for public and private self-presentation. Combined with immersive virtual worlds and intertextuality, identity construction and performance can vary from identity tourism and identity expansion to hybridised identities. Furthermore, one's identity performance remains intact when one is physically absent (such as via a Facebook page or Linked-In profile), and can be continuously modified at one's discretion. Goffman (1959) has demonstrated that presenting oneself effectively relies on the ability to cater to specific audiences as well as maintaining their separation. Having control over information selection online affords a greater capacity to negotiate and manoeuvre one's identity construction and performance. Research has also shown how one's embodied experience is not only communicated through text but simultaneously constructs that experience, constituting an authentic experience. The division between what is real and what is virtual becomes irrelevant. Removing the correspondence between representation and reality within computer-mediated environments (Poster, 1997) and within the construction of digital information contests traditional meaning-making. Data analysis that involves the interpretation of text is ideally suited to understanding identity construction and performance online. Any interpretation of an event is not only mediated by language, but is also constituted by language. With the constantly changing social landscapes online, discursive analyses recognize that meaning is also constantly moving and transforming. Secondly, the subjectivity of self-reflection made possible through public and private online spaces is consistent with the subjective interpretation of language held by a discursive approach.
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To understand how personal home pages are used for self-presentation, we need to move beyond notions of home page as artifact. Studying the home page as a product or thing overemphasizes manifest content and functional specificity. Such an approach also tends to isolate online selves from the people and situations shaping them. It seems possible to get around these difficulties by analyzing home pages as areas for action, and self- presentations as performances staged within them. This study treats the home page as a block of personal space, and the collection of text, graphics and links within it as virtual possessions. The page is then compared with its material equivalent, the bedroom, and the self that inhabits each space is understood through a combination of participant observation, informant-led tours and indepth interviews. These methods sketch a detailed picture of how four women in college perform their 'selves' in room space and cyberspace. When building their home pages, they tease meaning out of everyday experience and translate these interpretations into symbolic objects that they can share with their audience. The findings argue against a virtual/real dichotomy, indicating instead, that their online performances are very much a part of their offline realities.
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the digitisation of our lives.
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