I came across a reading by Zhao, Grasmuck &
Martin (2008) called Identity construction on Facebook: Digital empowerment in
anchored relationships.
The study looks at identity constructions on
Facebook, and explores the online environment. According to Zhao, Grasmuck and
Martin (2008),
“As the corporeal body is detached from social encounters in the online
environment, it becomes possible for individuals to interact with one another
on the Internet in fully disembodied text mode that reveals nothing about their
physical characteristics.”
An important characteristic of this emergent
mode of identity production is the tendency for people to play-act at being
someone else or to put on different online personae that differ from their "real life” identities (Stone, 1996; Turkle,
1995). They use the example of,
“in the online world, a man can pretend to be a woman, a nerd to be a
star athlete, and an introvert to be an extrovert.”
The control users have over the privacy settings
of their accounts enables them to separate their Facebook pages into many "back” and "front” regions (Goffman, 1959). This
allows them to stage different identities for different audiences.
The topic on mediated identity was of great
interest to me as it is sparking public concern in the world of Facebook and
other forms of CMC. It is interesting to see first-hand how people manipulate
their identities through CMC like
Facebook with the intention of creating a “socially desirable self”.
I agree with Zhao, Grasmuck & Martin (2008),
“identities are what we convince others to think of us as; it matters not
whether that happens online or offline, or whether they are anti-normative or
socially desirable.”
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in
everyday life. New York: Doubleday.
Stone, A. A. (1996). The war of desire and technology at the close of the mechanical age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the screen: Identity in the
age of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Zhao, S., Grasmuch, S., & Martin, J. (2008).
Identity construction on Facebook: Digital empowerment in anchored
relationships. Computers in Human Behavior, 24, 1816–1836.
