Identity and a third place of communication
Friday, August 28, 2009 by RH
The idea of asking what is identity and whether or not there is a crisis in modern identity is arguable. I’m not sure if identity is in a crisis but the online paradigm does challenge traditional forms of identity within society.
Hall’s notion of ‘identity’ and ‘identification’ is a good place to start, as Halls notion makes it clearer to understand this idea of toying with partial identities online. Identity is considered your true self, alluding to a static form of identification. Identification according to Hall connotes notions of an ever changing identity, where it’s continuous and adaptive over time. This adaptive identity leads to the idea of fragmented identities online and how our fragmented and changing identification is a suggested link to our social shift into postmodernism.
This shift in postmodernism reiterates the extension of wider social changes, and this idea of breaking away from traditional forms of communication. The online world of chat-rooms offers this ‘third place’, where it’s not completely public and not completely private. The communication in this third place allows the ability to form relationships that have two separate people giving ‘partial identities’. Online interaction can therefore have the ability to bypass cultures, cultures that are embedded in an individual’s identity. This third place of communication allows the ability to forge relationships that could be considered fake, in the way these relationships have two people engaged in communication without really knowing the other person. Perhaps this third place of communication is creating a ‘second relationship’, different from traditional forms of relationships.
Hall’s notion of ‘identity’ and ‘identification’ is a good place to start, as Halls notion makes it clearer to understand this idea of toying with partial identities online. Identity is considered your true self, alluding to a static form of identification. Identification according to Hall connotes notions of an ever changing identity, where it’s continuous and adaptive over time. This adaptive identity leads to the idea of fragmented identities online and how our fragmented and changing identification is a suggested link to our social shift into postmodernism.
This shift in postmodernism reiterates the extension of wider social changes, and this idea of breaking away from traditional forms of communication. The online world of chat-rooms offers this ‘third place’, where it’s not completely public and not completely private. The communication in this third place allows the ability to form relationships that have two separate people giving ‘partial identities’. Online interaction can therefore have the ability to bypass cultures, cultures that are embedded in an individual’s identity. This third place of communication allows the ability to forge relationships that could be considered fake, in the way these relationships have two people engaged in communication without really knowing the other person. Perhaps this third place of communication is creating a ‘second relationship’, different from traditional forms of relationships.