Identity in the Online Age

I thought I’d take the time to reflect a bit and evaluate on a few issues that were touched upon in my previous post ‘what is the difference between online and offline communities’, in particular, the issue of identity. As I stated in that post there are various online communities where one’s identity cannot be taken for granted and one has no true idea of who they may be interacting with. The issue of identity in a virtual age is a complex one and sparks a myriad of questions including, just how important is one’s identity in on online environment and to what extent do one’s offline and online personas reflect or effect the other?

It is important to first of all dispel the viewpoint that one instantly becomes anonymous in an online environment. That their personality, background, gender and race are irrelevant in the virtual world. This view is highly simplified and short-sighted for it discards the massive influence these factors have on ones characteristics as well as suggesting online communities are a culturally and racially neutral place. Don’t believe the hype - there is not a gender-blind and color-blind utopia on the web, race is not invisible or irrelevant in cyberspace (Ess & Sudweeks, 2005). To claim as much insinuates a cultural neutrality when in fact there is a definite prevailing ‘whiteness’ that operates in these environments. Minority races and cultures are thus forced to actively work in order to make invisible their own characteristics invisible in order to participate equally (Flew, 2005, 67).

So despite the fact that all the features of one’s true identity are not automatically unknown once online there can be no doubt that, for many, it is that very possibility for anonymity and the ability to play with personas that is a major appeal of online communities. This fascination can be seen in many online forums not least of which being the vast amounts of people who participate in online games. Online gamers create their own characters which serve as there representative in that environment and these avatars can be as different from their creator as they wish. According to Murray in Wiszniewski & Coyne the ability to play with masks, assume new identities, and present oneself through the mask of the avatar, is one of the strengths of the new, emerging narrative forms of cyberspace. In this regard the excitement regarding what online identities are capable of is well understood. An argument is beginning to surface, however, that due to these online communities it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to remember that “the mask is artifice. The face behind it is the true object” (Wiszniewski & Coyne, 2002, 202). This belief has at it’s heart the fear that online identities are corrosive to ones true identity which I don’t believe to be invalid for it is clear that there are close ties between identity and virtual cultures and it is too early to understand that relationship fully. These claims have been disputed, however, on the grounds that identity is “an idealist fiction” to begin with and therefore it is irrational to claim that “discontinuities in identity are products of information technology” (Ibid. 195).

The issue of identity has always been of great concern to the world at large. Establishing, maintaining and questioning one’s identity is part of what it means to be human and as such there is no more important side to virtual culture as an issue then this one. For it is clear from the areas explored above that there is a general consensus that this area of online community has definite ramifications for the issue of identity. As technology continues to advance the possibilities of what we are capable of continue to expand and as race, culture and gender continue to diverge online that most important of questions – who we are? – will become increasingly difficult to answer.

Ess, C., and Sudweeks, F. (2005). Culture and computer-mediated communication: Toward new understandings Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1), article 9.

Flew, Terry. (2005). Virtual Cultures in Flew, Terry, New media : an introduction, Melbourne: OUP, pp.61-82.

Wiszniewski, D & Coyne, R. (2002) Mask and Identity: The Hermeneutics of Self-Construction in the Information Age in Renninger, A & Shumar, W. (Ed.) Building Virtual Communities (pp. 191-214). New York, New York: Cambridge Press.