How Identity Is Constructed And How A Collective Is Formed In The Digital World

Social Media

To learn how identity is constructed and how a collective is formed in the digital world there it make sense to take a closer look on social media. Of course, identity is always constructed and negotiated through social interactions but the internet and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter change or expedite the process. In today's Web 2.0 the internet's founding principle of interactivity seems to be implemented quite well. The internet has developed into a place where the lines between consumer and creator have blurred (cf. Dijck 3). Of course there are different levels of participation. Some users simply contribute by commenting, others create videos and even others could better be described as visitors who simply

One chooses what pictures to upload and what information to share to paint a specific picture of one's self. Friend list or lists of followers and people one is following are public. This leads to the fact that by carefully considering which people to befriend or follow online one can also influence how one is perceived. Tools for public communication like commenting or posting are also a way to create an image of one's self. Although comments on other people's profiles are often trivial and perfunctory, they act as a form of social performance akin to greeting associates on the street. Status updates or Tweets work in a similar way in that they don't necessarily contain important information but instead give the users a general sense of the people around them and with this a sense of community (cf. Boyd 52). What all these features have in common is the fact that identity is constructed through exterior means and dependent on a third person's gaze. The idea of panopticism can be applied here. The possibility of constant visibility that in this case is the public nature of the profile makes the subject act in a way that they believe the viewers will accept. Identity is a performance of what we want others to see, even more so online then offline. This is because offline, one has less control over others people's perception of one's self. Although one can affect hair style, clothing, speech and behaviour to some extent the tools provided by social networking sites are much more effective. The user's identity becomes measurable as a list of likes, follows and comments as well as membership of groups which will be talked about in more detail later on. Still, one also has to keep in mind that one doesn't have complete control over identity construction online since interaction with others also plays a big part. Other user can contribute to one's profile by commenting or posting on said profile. How followers react