IdentityBy: Alison Knecht

Queering Internet Studies: Intersections of Gender and Sexuality By: Janne Bromseth and Jenny Suden Purpose: Discussion on play and power of imagination in shifting

Internet cultures. Moves to contextualize notion of play, questioning credibility,

accountability, and genre. Finding inter-links between gender and sexuality and

subcultures online Ending with questions of body, spatiality, queer feminist

politics Cyberspace

Unbound by physical bodies Create/recreate yourself, allowing for flexible gender identity Experimental and liberating

Cyberfeminist “Boys and toys” 80's/90's women were positioned as computer illiterates

5 different scenarios Sexual/sexuality based Change in personal reaction/others reaction

ContinuedAccess to online communities both on and

off screen more widespreadCompeting understandings

Identity, gender, and bodyAlso accountability

ConclusionOverview of research on gender,

sexuality, and Internet technologies.Addressed changes in mediation and

ownership Web 1.0 to Web 2.0More needs to be studied on the Internet

and discourses on gender and sexualityQueer critique of the study of gender,

sexuality, and the Internet“Establishing online selves is also always a situated process and dependent on genre as well as the social frame created within a group” (pg. 277)

DiscussionDo we actually have gender

freedom online?Is the Internet a new breading

ground for the next gender debate? Are gender differences as important

online as they are offline?Can we ever escape this need for

known gender roles?

Self-disclosure, privacy and the Internet By: Adam N. Joinson & Carina B. Paine Purpose: focus on disclosure in CMC and web-based forms, finding links

between privacy and self-disclosure, and proposing three critical issues that unite the ways in which we understand the links between privacy, self-disclosure, and new technology.

Determine self-disclosure: bonds of trust, solidarity, and strengthen identity Measure self-disclosure: different from F2F and CMC Self-disclosure and the Internet: New technology contains high levels of self-

disclosure. Findings suggest more is being disclosed through internet relationships

compared to real-life relationships. Online and automated interviews and surveys, report more sensitive

information “Very few individuals actually take any action to protect their

personal information, even when doing so involves limited costs.”(pg. 239)

Models of self-disclosure online: Paradox of being able to express yourself and also allowing more access to self.

What is privacy?: various functions and dimensions to privacy

Continued Privacy and the Internet: clash between privacy and new technology.

Concerns about the Internet eroding privacy. Personal information being a commodity. “Double edged sword”

Linking models of privacy and CMC: privacy is prerequisite for disclosure. Trust and disclosure: Establishing trust and not always having to reduce

privacy Control: self-disclosure online is control. Volunteering info, privacy may be

compromised, uncontrolled use. Conclusions: Focus on micro-level media is ignored which limits how we

conceptualize online behavior.

Examples: Facebooks use of personal info to conduct research Privacy setting on Facebook Commercial use of our browsing history Online dating

DiscussionWhat is your definition of privacy?What are some of your ways to

protect your privacy online? Do they work sufficiently?

What are the moral and ethical implications to using our personal online information even if it is supplied voluntarily?

How has the increased use of new technology changed our self-disclosure patterns?

The real problem: avatars, metaphysics and online social interaction By: David Gunkel Purpose: addressing social issues regarding CMC proxies or avatars,

distinguishing what is reality vs virtual reality. Online we are free to be who we wish to be

Manipulate avatar characteristics Neglects to recognize limitations of real physical bodies Cartesian Thinking

Online behavior/Avatar behavior vs Real behavior Shedding race and gender without “real life” consequences Violent actions not tied to real behavior

Will the Real Please Stand Up Case of Julie Earliest recorded accounts of avatar identity crisis To Tell the Truth Show One would need access to appearance and real thing

Continued Plato

Differentiates between object as it appears to us, through our senses and the thing itself

Kant Adds further qualification that

access to the real thing is forever restricted and beyond us

Zizek Real= already a virtual construct Truth= no longer resides in what

is assumed to be the “real state of things”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMA4x7aXJT0

DiscussionHow is identity determined in the age of the

Internet?Do social media groups such as Facebook,

allow us to access the “real” thing?What are some ways that we might be able to

protect ourselves from “fake” identities online?

Is Facebook Changing Our Identity? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios

Facebook has 955 million users Helps to create memories

Our identity Hair, clothes, music we listen to, car we drive etc. We create our identity off what we know and remember from

our past experiences Facebook is doing to our memory what Google does for simple

factsDunbar’s Numbers

Describes cognitive friend limit Facebook increases this number from 150 to 5,000 Browse self to help construct more about identityEX: The usage of Facebook as it relates to narcissism, self-esteem and loneliness By: Madeline Schwartzhttp://digitalcommons.pace.edu/dissertations/AAI3415681 /

DiscussionHas Facebook become our memory

surrogate?Has our society become lazy with our

interactions due to increased Facebook use? (i.e. remembering birthdays)

In what others way has Facebook influence dour behavior?

ReferencesGunkel, David J. "The real problem: avatars, metaphysics and online social interaction." new media & society (2010).

Ioinson, Adam N., and Carina B. Paine. "Self-disclosure, privacy and the Internet." The Oxford handbook of Internet psychology (2007): 2374252.

Is Facebook Changing Our Identity? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios.

Perf. Mike Rugnetta. Youtube.com. PBS Digital Studios, 12 Sept. 2012. Web. 10 Sept. 2014.

Schwartz, Madeline. "The usage of Facebook as it relates to narcissism, self- esteem and loneliness." (2010).