Social Media Identities:Practices, Performativity, & Platforms

Bonnie StewartUniversity of Prince Edward Island

bstewart@upei.ca

Who are we when we're online?

http://www.onlineschools.org/blog/facebook-obsession/

How are online identities interwoven with our offline lives?

Performativity

The self can only ever be known in process & in relation to the other.

Norms govern the social intelligibility of action.

The self IS the various acts and practices which constitute performance.

The inner self – identity – is an effect.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/susan402/4067807003

Practices

“I like to think that we are not teaching subjects but subjectivities: ways of approaching, understanding, and

interacting with the world.” - M. Wesch, 2009

Social media practices ARE identity practices.

They perform versions of self within networked, participatory, reputational

spaces.

Social Media Platforms

Identity is non-anonymous, recognizable, and sustained over time.

Pseudonymity increasingly challenged by platforms and monetization.

Downswing in forced reciprocality (friending), increased asymmetry and control of affiliation groupings.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/daniloramosweb/3854330282/

Participatory

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hendrikspeck/3887169238/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/barmony/6224153051

Augmented Reality

Produsage:a networked economy in which creation and consumption are

combined.

http://www.slideshare.net/ConstantContact/10-quick-facts-you-should-know-about-consumer-behavior-on-twitter?from=ss_embed

Identity in a Celebrity Economy

Deleuze's society of control?

Identity in social media is distributed, branded, and accustomed to heterarchical participation in an environment rife with hierarchical metrics.

Social Media

Self-directed

Focused on filtering knowledge

Audience = World

Crowdsourcing

Branding

Learner = networked identity

Always accessible

Traditional Education

Institutionally-directed

Focused on finding knowledge

Audience = Teacher

Plagiarism

Commodification

Learner = discrete, rational individual

Bounded by time & space

Implications for Higher Education

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pasukaru76/3998273279/sizes/z/in/photostream/

?

Thank you.

@bonstewart