## <span class="censor">Digital Identities and Social Media // S02</span> <!--Pablo--> <img src="https://i.imgur.com/yiI1kno.png" width=40%> Pablo Velasco // Information Studies // [pablov.me](https://pablov.me) --- ### plan for the day 1. Theories of identity 2. BB1 update --- ## Classical (but mostly modern) theories of identity --- **Ship of Theseus** Heraclitus/Plato (Cratylus 401d, Parmenides 139) <img src="http://trainbeyondthebox.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Theseus.jpg" width=40%> Identity metaphor: the wood planks of Theseus ship are progressively replaced. Is it the same ship? Hobbes adds: what if the original pieces of wood were used to construct a "second" boat? <!-- identity as body: planks, atoms, butterfly --> --- ### Existential/Metaphysical identity > I am who I am (God [arguably] exodus 3:14) <!-- Victoria: Iam, I end--> ### Logical identity > For all a: a = a > var x = 12 <!-- logical - used in programming -- and metaphysical identity--> --- <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/Descartes2.jpg/1200px-Descartes2.jpg" width=50%> <!-- Patrick: The world exists seperate of me, whether i recognize or not Mieke: I am a thinking self. --> --- ### In-dividual and Dualisms - Descartes Dualism: body & mind (proof of existence) - Berkeley Subjective idealism: reality is dependant on the minds of the subject - Locke Identity as consciousness: memory theory <!-- the mind body problem -- identity through time - - moments are connected (how much would you agree with your kid-self? Or teen self?) --> --- ### Identity as continuity > If you ask, then, where directly in your own experience the ‘I’ comes in,the answer is that it comes in as a historical figure. It is what you were a second ago that is the ‘I’ of the ‘me’. It is another ‘me’ that has to take that role. You cannot get the immediate response of the ‘I’ in the process. (Mead 1972 [1934], 174) --- ### Categorical identity *Identical* to certain categories Social identity: * identification with... * identified as (by others)... --- ### MINI-ACTIVITY: *What kind of cheese are you?* *(psychometric test) Personality Quiz “popular culture identity”: https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/characters/ 1. Do the 30 question version of the test (not the emoji one) 2. Do you identify yourself with the fictional character that "statistically" represents your personality? How so? 3. If you don't know the character, ask a colleague to describe him/her/they. Does thisdescription represents your own sense of self? <!-- Simone: the office characters--> --- ### Identity as *unknown* Freud : unconscious selves <!-- also Marx: economy; and Nietzsche: "values": the school of suspicion (as by Paul Ricoeur) -- as opposed to having faith and trust--> Lacan: the mirror stage <!--alienation, objectification outside of the body--> Identity as a black box (Elias 1994): but a learned one <!-- but this black box a consequence the civilizing process of the west: inside(individual) and outside (social)--> <img src="https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/spiked-online.com/images/marx_freud_nietzsche.jpg" width=50%> --- ### Symbolic Interactionism (Mead <!-- Mind, self, and society-->1934) All aspects of identity are social, interrelated, and processual: produced through language and communication, and interaction with others <!-- the self is a social and temporal phenomenon: reflecting back --> <!-- symbols as representing something: semiotics: Eco, Bakhtin, Barthes, Saussure, Pierce -- interpretation within a larger given structure--> --- ### Identity as performativity Goffman <!--the presentation of seflf in everyday life--> (1968): a) personal identity <!--unique characters--> b) social identity <!-- categorical identity. being danish--> c) ego identity <!--how do we think of ourselves as a person--> Identity based on: - roles - ascriptions to other people - social constructions and performances --- ### Narrative and given identity The story you tell about yourself about your self (how do you describe yourself on a first date? An interview? A class? Through which stories you *make sense* of your self as a continuity?) #### Given identity e.g. Nationality, religion, etc <img src="https://cdn-rdb.arla.com/Files/arla-dk/2678888261/f2fe448a-738b-4e32-8f54-2f6061893507.jpg?mode=crop&w=991&h=694&ak=6826258c&hm=bae65f96" width=50%> <!-- passport --> --- ### Baym and Woodward - Did you find something particulary surprising in the many empirical studies described by Baym? <!-- some obvious things, generationally. but mainly to offer us a landscap, and frame the kind of questions we can ask--> <!-- arto.dk --> <!--latent ties (Haythornthwaite)-> friends of friends in SNS: frihed eller fascismus event in fb--> - For whom are these texts written? (what are the "audiences") <!--*age gap... Is there one? "Natural skills" eg. Editing. Not necessarily but back to Internet history an age gap of a internet-less time --> <!--woodward: is there a crisis of identity toda? [immigration] --> - How is the way people make sense of identity in everyday life different from how scholars or theorists make sense of identity? - Is there a crisis of identity today (beside the ones poined by Woodward 20 years ago)? <!-- -”disembodied identities”: separating self from the body -- S Turkley: windows metaphor --cyberaffairs (no legal framework for cheating without bodies)--> --- *Latent ties* <img src="https://i.imgur.com/faYqj7d.jpg" width=40%> <img src="https://i.imgur.com/OHOtYfZ.jpg" width=45%> --- Baym: - body/presence (social presence, media richness) - face to face communication vs mediated interaction - 7 keywords: interactivity, social structure, temporal structure, social cues, storage, replicability, reach, mobility --- ### KEY FRAMEWORKS FOR THINKING ABOUT SOCIAL IDENTITY: - Technological Determinism - Social Constructivism (Social Construction of Technology) - *Social Shaping of Technology - agency (*choice* in Woodward) & structure - similarity & difference - classical social structures: class, gender, culture <!--examples of structures, and our agency --> - new structures and new agencies, enabled by new media? > New technologies appear to challenge certainties and the constrains of biology, opening up questions about 'who we are' in situations where we might have thought there was no question (Woodward 2000) --- ## BB1 update <style> .reveal{ font-family:mono; font-size: 25px; } .reveal .censor{ background:black; color:white; } </style>