Week 10- The Cyberself (comment)

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Here is my second comment on Alison Bell's blog post titled, 'What are the implications of the online for sociological understandings of identity and interaction?' You can find her post here.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Alison's post. It was very informative! She found a relevant scholar article that made an interesting correlation between a personal blog and a bedroom. I agreed with this point, as a blog provides users with the freedom to 'decorate' their own multi-dimensional space. I actually enjoyed choosing the layout, font and colouring for my SOC250 everyday interaction blog. The reading states that a person's blog is constantly renegotiated because of the information that they put online, which also brings into being bodies, personas, and personalities framed according to the same categories that exists in the offline world.

Blogs allow people to connect with other blog users anonymously. The condition is that you show some level of respect for the person controlling the blog. Alison found two examples that showed anonymous individuals attempting to undermine the control of the blog owner. Cyberbullying! It was great to see the owner take back control of their personal space and gain face though humorous retorts. I think it is much harder for a person to control their identity on their Facebook page. Since 'friends' have the freedom to post whatever photographs or statements they like, and this in turn, interferes with the Facebook page owner's image. Hodkinson and Lincoln are correct in assuming that users wish to/and produce a certain online identity for themselves. 

References-

Robinson, L. 2007, 'The Cyberself: the self-ing project goes online, symbolic interaction in the digital age,' New Media and Society, vol.9, no.1, pp.93-110.