Do cyberidentities constitute an alternative to ‘normal social reality’?
For me, my cyberidentity does not act as an alternative to 'normal social reality.' This is because, when i am speaking to someone whether it be sending an email, speaking to someone on msn/facebook, or even as my profile on here i am always known as Hannah. It is always me who is emailing them or interacting with them, whether i am a little bit more confident on the internet or not is another point, however i do not come on the inet as an alternative to who i am actually am.
However, i do believe that some people do come on the inet to escape from the 'real world' and create a cyberidentity that isn't their 'real' identity. Lister quotes Stone's case about the online cyberidentity 'Julie Graham' (pg168-9) This is a perfectly good example of showing how cyberidentities are not real and in fact has been made as a 'pleasurable experiment.' This also is the case for when males/females pretend to be older/younger or even the opposite sex for their own pleasure. For this wouldn't be acceptable in 'normal social reality' however the inet allows it users to be who they want to be, and experiment with their identities.
Thursday, 5 February 2009
Topic 1 - d) cyber identities
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do you think that it is acceptable to pretend to be someone you want to be? When people change their characteristics they aren't acting confident, and being confident in themselves, but they are putting on a fake confidence about a fake person! I think the word experimenting is used too loosely here in the book, because your not experimetning changing hair colour, or testing your sexual preference, you are pretending to be something you could never actually be, eg a white male pretending to be a asian male'.
ReplyDeleteRincy. : )
ReplyDeletei see what you meen by experimenting being used too losely, however that is what people are doing. sometimes for bad reasons though. You do occasionally get the idiot produsers that do pretend to be a completely different person. these days it is so easy to get hold of pictures and then upload them as yourself.
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