online identity, near synonyms
Online or Internet identity or persona is also referred to as digital identity. Users are urged to be strategic about impression, reputation, or online identity management. All online environments introduce variations of online identity (e.g., forums, MMOGs, blogs, email, social networking environments).
identity management online
1. Level of Dissociation and Integration: the multiple aspects of one's identity may be dissociated, enhanced, or integrated online.
2. Positive or Negative Valence: Negative aspects of identity can be acted out or worked through. Positive aspects can be expressed or developed.
3. Level of Fantasy or Reality: One's online identity can be real-to-life, imaginary, or hidden.
4.
Level of Conscious Awareness and Control: People differ in how much their unconscious needs and emotions surface in their online identities.
5. The Media Chosen: Different communication channels express different aspects of identity.
From Suler, J. R. (2002). Identity management in cyberspace. Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 4, 455-460. Available online: http://users.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/identitymanage.html
nc state and facebook
Smith, K. (2005). NCSU Students Face Underage Drinking Charges Due to Online Photos. WRAL.com, October 29. Available online: http://web.archive.org/web/20051031084848/http://www.wral.com/news/5204275/detail.html
Credit: Gigya.com: Social Optimization for Online Business.
From Schroeder, S. (2010). What Identies are we using to sing in around the Web? Available online: http://mashable.com/2010/07/07/multiple-identities-infographic/.
online identity articles
√ Burbules, N. C. (2002). Like a Version: Playing with online identities. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 34 (4), 387-393.
The Internet challenges our assumption that our bodies are necessary or essential for our sense of identity. Reviews Hubert Dreyfus' argument that face-to-face interactions should never be replaced by virtual ones.
√ Chretien, K. C., Greysen, S. R., Chretien, J-P., & Kind, T. (2009). Online posting of unprofessional content by medical students. Journal of American Medical Association, 302 (12), 1309-1315.
Context: Web2.0 applications, such as social networking sites, are creating new challenges for medical professionalism. The scope of this problem in undergraduate medical education is not well-defined [Author Abstract].
√ Floridi, L. (2011). The informational nature of personal identity. Minds & Machines, 21, 549-566.
In this paper, I present an informational approach to the nature of per- sonal identity. In ‘‘Plato and the problem of the chariot’’, I use Plato’s famous metaphor of the chariot to introduce a specific problem regarding the nature of the self as an informational multiagent system: what keeps the self together as a whole and coherent unity? In ‘‘Egology and its two branches’’ and ‘‘Egology as synchronic individualisation’’, I outline two branches of the theory of the self: one concerning the individualisation of the self as an entity, the other concerning the identification of such entity. I argue that both presuppose an informational approach, defend the view that the individualisation of the self is logically prior to its identification, and suggest that such individualisation can be provided in informational terms. Hence, in ‘‘A reconciling hypothesis: the three membranes model’’, I offer an informational individualisation of the self, based on a tripartite model, which can help to solve the problem of the chariot. Once this model of the self is outlined, in ‘‘ICTs as tech- nologies of the self’’ I use it to show how ICTs may be interpreted as technologies of the self. In ‘‘The logic of realisation’’, I introduce the concept of ‘‘realization’’ (Aristotle’s anagnorisis) and support the rather Spinozian view according to which, from the perspective of informational structural realism, selves are the final stage in the development of informational structures. The final ‘‘Conclusion: from the eg- ology to the ecology of the self’’ briefly concludes the article with a reference to the purposeful shaping of the self, in a shift from egology to ecology [Author Abstract].
√ Henderson, M. (2008). Shaping online teaching practices: The influence of professional and academic identities. Campus-Wide Information Systems, 25 (2), 85-92.
This paper aims to investigate the influence of professional and academic identities in online teaching practices in higher education [Author Abstract].
√ Hongladarom, S. (2011). Personal identity and the self in the online and offline world. Minds & Machines, 21, 533-548.
The emergence of social networking sites has created a problem of how the self is to be understood in the online world. As these sites are social, they relate someone with others in a network. Thus there seems to emerge a new kind of self which exists in the online world. Accounting for the online self here also has implications on how the self in the outside world should be understood. It is argued that, as the use of online social media has become more widespread, the line between the two kinds of self is becoming fuzzier. Furthermore, there seems to be a fusion between the online and the offline selves, which reflects the view that reality itself is informational. Ultimately speaking, both kinds of selves do not have any essence, i.e., any characteristic inherent to them that serves to show that these selves are what they are and none other. Instead an externalist account of the identity of the self is offered that locates the identity in question in the self’s relations with other selves as well as other events and objects. This account can both be used to explain the nature of the self both in the online and the offline worlds [Author Abstract].
√ Hughes, G., & Oliver, M. (2010). Editorial: Being online: A critical view of identity and subjectivity in new virtual learning spaces. London Review of Education, 8 (1), 1-4.
Being a learner, becoming a learner and belonging to learning communities are important themes for both educators and educational researchers. This special issue explores these issues, theo- rising and exploring how identities are developed online, and asks what the educational impact is. Here, we set the scene for this work, locating it in terms of wider educational concerns of identity, inclusivity and change [Author Abstract].
√ Kim, H-W., Zheng, J. R., & Gupta, S. (2011). Examining knowledge contribution from the perspective of an online identity in blogging communities. Computers in Human Behavior, 27, 1760-1770.
Knowledge contribution is one of the essential factors behind the success of blogging communities (BCs). This research studies knowledge contribution behavior in a BC from the perspective of knowledge con- tributors and their characteristics using the lens of social identity theory. Social identity theory asserts that individuals are fundamentally motivated to present or communicate their identities in everyday social life through behavior. A similar line of reasoning can be used to argue that members of a BC would also be motivated to communicate their online identities through their behavior, that is, through knowl- edge contribution in the BC. Specifically, this study conceptualized the online identity and examined the effects of its personal (online kindness, online social skills, and online creativity) and social aspects (BC involvement) on knowledge contribution. The data was collected using an online survey from the mem- bers of Cyworld, a popular BC in South Korea and a few other countries (members from South Korea were included in this study). The results indicate that both the personal and social aspects of online identity and their interactions significantly influenced knowledge contribution. Based on the findings, this study offers suggestions to organizers of BCs to enhance the knowledge contribution from their members [Author Abstract].
√ Olson, E. T. (2011). The extended self. Minds & Machines, 21, 481-495.
The extended-mind thesis says that mental states can extend beyond one’s skin. Clark and Chalmers infer from this that the subjects of such states also extend beyond their skin: the extended-self thesis. The paper asks what exactly the extended-self thesis says, whether it really does follow from the extended-mind thesis, and what it would mean if it were true. It concludes that the extended-self thesis is unattractive, and does not follow from the extended mind unless thinking beings are literally bundles of mental states [Author Abstract].
√ Williams, B. (2008). "What South Park character are you?": Popular culture, literacy, and online performances of identity. Computers and Composition, 25, 24-39.
In this essay, I study MySpace and Facebook pages, as well as interviews with the university students who created them, in order to address how online literacy practices of contemporary convergence culture both use and are filtered through popular culture. Though their answers to questions of intent, audience, and rhetorical choices varied, students shared a common reliance on popular culture content and references appropriated from other sites to compose their identities and read the identities of others. They used popular culture icons, catch phrases, music, text, and film clips in postmodern, fragmented collages that seem simultaneously sentimental and ironic. The construction of these pages illustrates how popular culture practices that predate online technologies have been adopted and have flourished with new technologies that allow content to flow across media as well as increase the ease of audience participation. Online technological changes have changed what it means to be part of an “audience” by changing how individuals respond to and adapt popular culture texts to their own ends, such as the construction of identities on web pages. By creating potentially global audiences for any web page, these online technologies have changed the relationship of the popular culture audience members and their peers. The intertextual nature of popular culture texts creates opportunities for multiple readings of social networking web pages in ways that destabilize the identities students believe they have created [Author Abstract].
additional identity issues
What does it mean for an academic to have a personal website? What should go there and what should not? What are possible genre structures for academic websites? What are other online spaces that academics should explore?