technoculture314-09

I think that a person’s online identity on social networking sites is constructed through a number of factors, including ‘authenticity’. Unlike Sherry Turkle’s idea of a fluid, uncontained identity, I believe that people still aim to create and portray themselves as a complete identity, although aspects of that identity can change and be contradictory. Taking Goffman’s idea that a major part of identity is performance for others; it makes sense that in order to make others believe the identity that we are performing, we create a sense of ‘authenticity’ in our performance.

For example ‘authenticity’ is evident in Facebook, through aspects such as photographs, personal details, interests and the ability to give status updates. Photographs give a face to the online persona. It allows closer friends to identify the person online as the one that they know in the ‘real world’. It also allows ‘friends’ who may not know the online person, or not know the online person well, to feel like they know them better as they are given a visual access to activities the person does. Details a person gives on their page such as their birthday, employer, education and even current location can also add to their ‘authenticity’. ‘Groups’ or ‘pages’ that the person joins can give a sense of who they ‘really’ are, as instead of claiming that they have an interest in something, they are in a way acting on their ‘interest’ by joining up to the page or group. Finally a person can put across ‘authenticity’ by updating their status. For example a friend of mine is a dancer, and his status updates are often about dance.

I think that most of the time ‘authenticity’ is used to portray who the person feels the ‘really’ are, rather than to promote a ‘false’ self.