The topic for week two, Performing Me: Maintaining Visibility on the Social Stage, explores the construction of self and personal identity through the use of New Media. Enabling a creative and often edited version of ourselves, the content we display and share are conversations of ourselves (Leong, 2011).
Pearson (2009) refers to the online sphere as a stage, a place where we act out our lives. On this stage we are whoever we want to be, ourselves, a portion of ourselves or somebody different entirely. Pearson also explains the role of the audience, both the seeing and the unseeing, those who are participating in our play as silent viewers and those who are providing active commentary. Donath and Boyd (2004) explain that the images we share provide a carefully selected snapshot of our lives, images of things which we believe people would aspire to have. We choose images which allude to the perfect life, perfect partner, perfect holiday and so on.
Sometimes our online persona is living the dream; pictures of the overseas holiday many hope for, updates on the festival others wish they were at and education information that some would be jealous of. Perhaps then, our online persona is not entirely fake, simply the more flattering and appealing aspects that we deem share worthy. An image of ourselves, albeit a little blurred.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
References
Leong, Susan. “KCB206 New Media: Internet, Self & Beyond: Week 2 lecture notes.”
Accessed March 13, 2011. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au
Donath, J. and Boyd, D. 2004. Public Displays of Connection. BT Technology
Journal 22 (4): 71-82.
Pearson, E. 2009. All the World Wide Web's a stage: the Performance of Identity in
Online Social Networks . First Monday 14 (3).
No comments:
Post a Comment