The Ends of Online Identity

Tama Leaver / @tamaleaver The Ends of Online Identity? 11 October 2011

Outline
Movie of the (absent) Book
Looking Beyond Agency?
Facebook, Timeline and the Future?
11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle.

I. The Movie of the (absent) Book The Final Cut (2004) 11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle.

The Final Cut (2004) 11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle.

A world where unborn babies are wired for life-long recording (to be accessed after death). 11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle.

After death, a life-history is presented as a movie, a ‘rememory’ shown at the funeral. 11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle.

Rememories (history) are shaped by cutters … 11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle.

Cutters see life histories as an elaborate database to be carefully shaped, forming a legacy … 11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle.

For those wired, escape means elaborate privacy intervention (tattoos filled with disruptive metals). 11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle.

Protests occurs, believing the surveillance fundamentally changes who we are … 11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle.

But rememories last ‘forever’ … 11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle.

The Final Cut …
Agency?
Parental choice about children’s identity and surveillance?
History?
The right to forget?
The right to be forgotten?

II. Looking Beyond Agency? 11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle.

The Networked Self / Networked Publics
Persistance
Replicability
Scalability
Searchability (boyd, 2010)
+ Ownership (Aufderheide, 2010)

Identity 2.0 (Helmond, 2010)
In Perpetual Beta
Networked
(other) User-generated identity
Distributed
Indexed
Persistent

Web Presence (Allen, 2010; Leaver, 2010)
Internet Footprints
Digital Shadows
Social Media Rivers
 “Content-generated users.”

Shared assumptions of Identity 2.0, the Networked Self, and Web Presence
Individual agency is central.
Presumption that identity should be controlled, curated and managed by the ‘self’ being presented.
When agency is not the controlling influence, this is seen as an issue to be overcome.

What about the Ends of Identity?
Following Goffman (1959) if frontstage is self performed, and backstage is more essential self, who builds the stage, and who remembers the performance(s)?
Before (online) agency: before birth, until the ‘reigns’ of online identity tools and performances are inherited?
After (online) agency: who looks after online traces of self once the self they refer to dies?

Parents as initial identity curators …
Parents/guardians set the initial parameters of online identity.
From ultrasounds photos to cute toddler pics, losing that first tooth etc …
How do and should young people ‘inherit’ online identities?

Parents: Framing Online Identities? 11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle.

Memorializing Performed Digital Selves?
What happens to profiles, accounts, photos, videos and other social traces after someone dies?
Do we have the right to delete it all?
Should it be memorialized?

Gravestones as Databases
Living Headstones comes with 5 years of QR-code driven database access about the deceased person.
www.monuments.com/ livingheadstone

PassMyWill.com 11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle.

legacylocker.com 11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle.

Who Do You Think You Are? 11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle.

III. Facebook, Timeline and the Future 11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle.

The Shift to Real Names (nymwars) … 11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle.

Facebook: Deletes Kids
Source: https:// www.facebook.com/help/search/?q = kids+on+facebook

But … Timeline: Starts at birth . 11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle.

Timeline: Curate Losses 11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle.

Facebook: Memorialize or Delete
Source: https:// www.facebook.com/help?page =842

Facebook: Memorializing Accounts
Source: https:// www.facebook.com/help?page =842

Gravebook? 11 October 2011 Internet Research 12, Seattle. Gravebook? Legacybook? Historybook?

References
Allen, M. (2009). Web Presence: Understanding persistent and interlinked content as the basis of identity formation and promotion through the contemporary Internet, Communication, Creativity and Global Citizenship: Australia and New Zealand Communications Association Annual Conference, Brisbane.
Aufderheide, P. (2010). Copyright, Fair Use, and Social Networks. In Z. Papacharissi (Ed.), A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites (pp. 274-303). Routledge.
boyd, danah. (2010). Social Network Sites and Networked Publics: Affordances, Dymanics and Implications. In Z. Papacharissi (Ed.), A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites (pp. 39-58). Routledge.
Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life . New York: Anchor Book.
Helmond, A. (2010). Identity 2.0: Constructing identity with cultural software. www.annehelmond.nl , PDF: http://www.annehelmond.nl/wordpress/wp-content/uploads//2010/01/helmond_identity20_dmiconference.pdf .
Leaver, T. (2010) I tweet therefore I am? Challenges in learning identity by teaching web presence, Teaching and Learning Forum, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup.
Papacharissi, Z. (2010). Conclusion: A Networked Self. In Z. Papacharissi (Ed.), A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites (pp. 304-318). Routledge.

Questions? Comments?
Or find me later …
www.tamaleaver.net
@tamaleaver
[email_address]

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The Ends of Online Identity

by Tama Leaver on Oct 11, 2011

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