Thursday, August 7, 2014

ALC201 Module 1 exercise - Identity Online.

The prominence and power of the internet as a worldwide communicational tool provides the platform for individuals to construct and maintain online identities, identities which may or may not be far removed from their 'real life' personas. As Smith and Watson point out, "opportunities for composing, assembling and networking lives have expanded exponentially since the advent of Web 2.0... thus, online lives exist in complicated relationship to offline lives" [2014, pg. 70]. The astounding figures associated with the consumption of material available on this 'Web 2.0' -perhaps most prominently, social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram- is indicative of just how incredibly powerful and, most importantly, easy it is to portray yourself in a certain way to hundreds of millions of people via this construction of an online profile or 'identity'.

As someone who regularly uses social media as an tool for communication and entertainment in my daily life, I undoubtedly shape and control my internet presence to most accurately match the type of person I want to be perceived as. 'Identity', in relation to the online world, can be seen as a fluid concept in which one can attempt to portray themselves as a particular kind of person [Gee, 2001, pg. 1] Personally, the 'identities' I maintain through my social media presence span many different platforms and are rarely 100% consistent with one-another.  For example, I have two different Twitter accounts- one which I use recreationally as an avenue to express relatively personal details of my daily life, and another which I made specifically to use in a much more professional manner that correlates with how I would like to be seen by future employers. I control and maintain these separate identities by 'locking' my personal Twitter account and thereby dictating who can access the information on it, and leaving my 'professional' account public. I was prompted to do this after it became apparent that employers use social media to investigate their potential employees. The informative graphic below demonstrates how common it is for this to occur in our digital day and age.

SOURCE

As someone who aspires to become a journalist in the future, I purposely use my 'professional' Twitter account to comment, share and voice my opinion on relevant world and local issues. I do this in order to accentuate the part of my identity that is knowledgable and interested in these topics. Examples of this are embedded from my Twitter feed below.

Therefore, by controlling who can access certain social media accounts of mine, I can attempt to portray myself in a particular manner to those who may be looking for an indication of the type of person I am.

 However, it would be untrue to assume that this manipulation of social identity, if you will, does not correlate with ones true, internal identity. While I consciously choose and shape my social media presence based on how I want to be perceived on that platform, these projections of myself are still a part of my greater identity, perhaps just in a more concentrated form. On my public Twitter, I am merely choosing to accentuate one side of my personality that suits the public perception I am aiming for. Matic suggests that "when it comes to self-representation, the Internet users... represent themselves... in accordance with the audience expectations" [2011, pg 19]. This theory explains why I am more inclined on my public Twitter to portray myself in a professional, knowledgable manner- because I know that the majority of people who will be looking at it will be potential future employers. This can be contrasted with my personal Twitter account, on which I have an audience of mainly friends and acquaintances with whom I would much prefer to perceive me as funny or interesting.

Marshall theorises even further on this topic by suggesting that the "sites and the exchanges that develop on them are extensions in the production of the self and are vital to the maintenance of one's identity" [2010, pg. 42]. Interestingly enough, this idea seems to suggest that our online identity contributes to the formation of our 'real life' identity. When I thought about this introspectively in regards to my own social media presence online, I came to the conclusion that perhaps by identifying the personality traits you would most like to be identified by- such as knowledgable and professional, for myself- you become more likely to accentuate them in reality also. In that way, our online identities fuel the growth of our true identities, just as Marshall suggested.


Resources:

Gee, J 2001, 'Identity as an Analytic Lens for Research in Education', in Thomas, A 2007, Youth Online: Identity and Literacy in the Digital Age, Peter Lang International Academic Publishers, pg. 1, retrieved August 5.

Marshall, PD 2010, 'The promotion and presentation of the self: celebrity as marker of presentational media', Celebrity Studies, vol 1, no. 1, pg. 42, retrieved August 5, <http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy-f.deakin.edu.au/doi/full/10.1080/19392390903519057#tabModule>

Matic, I 2011, 'The Social Construction of Mediated Experience and Self Identity in Social Networking', International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, 5, 11, pg. 19, retrieved August 8, <http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy-m.deakin.edu.au/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=d9842934-f3fa-473f-8200-bfa3bd297628%40sessionmgr4002&vid=18&hid=4210>
Smith, S and Watson, J 2014, Virtually Me: A Toolbox about Online Self-Presentation', in Poletti, A and Rak K, Identity Technologies: Constructing the Self Online, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, pg. 70, retrieved August 7, <http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy-m.deakin.edu.au/lib/deakin/docDetail.action?docID=10822251?

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