Collaborative Virtual Environments : Identity Construction in Online Environments with a Focus on Facebook

Sammanfattning: Abstract My essay focuses on the construction of identity in virtual spaces but with an emphasis on Facebook. The purpose of my thesis is to analyze the construction of identities online and the characteristics attributable to online identities. Also, I attempt to draw a comparison between the modernist and postmodernist concept of self presentation and how they operate. With my essay, I demonstrate that the modernists view of self presentation online is arguably faulty by showing that contrary to their views identities are not stable nor fixed bur are fluid and constantly changing through the availability of technologically advanced computer languages and again by outlining the availability of tools that enable users create, and/or distort their identities Also, with my essay, I explain how these identities are maintained through a process called “impression management”. I analyze identity construction through the eyes of theorists like Erving Goffman, who proposes that we actors performing our identities, Sherry Turkle, who evaluates identity construction in the age of the internet and other theorists like Judith Butler, Joanne Finkelstein, Peggy A Thoits, Annette N Markham, Zizi Papacharissi among others. Digital Artifact: creation of a website that adopts a performative nature to depict the unstable locus of identity on Facebook. In order to achieve this, I would work on HTML, Flash, Photoshop to create a constantly changing array of texts and images using actual images from selected Facebook users’ accounts and actual status updates. Keyterms: Identity, Medium/Media, Nomenclature, Hyperreality, Representation, Culture and Performance.