Instructor Wrap Up - Be Who You Want to Be - Ellis

From last week's assigned reading........

Be Who You Want to Be

When someone thinks of 'media', a few things usually come to mind: the internet, and news.  Am I right?  Rarely do we think about older forms of media, and even more rare do we think of self-representation in newer forms of media.  This brings us to the Ellis article.

Be who you want to be: The philosophy of Facebook and the construction of identity

It's interesting to sit back and simply ponder the title of this article, isn't it?  Without reading the article, one can wonder how 'they' have constructed themselves on the internet, specifically when it comes to social networking.  We have a number of different camps to consider:

1). Those that simply do not engage at all.
2). Those that engage completely, meaning everything on FB is public.
3). Those that engage in social networking but have 'tried' to limit public information (by keeping a close watch on FB's ever changing privacy settings).
4). Those that engage in social networking but have failed to keep up their privacy settings appropriately to block others from seeing what they don't want them to see.

It is my assumption that some people fall into category #3, but unknowingly fall into category #4.  In either case, along with #2, we should be concerned with self-representation or our social identity.  Here's where Ellis' article becomes quite important to think about.

Ellis starts out the article by talked a bit about identity and social behavior.  She then justifies how she will consider FB an example of 'communicative identity'.  I have read over many articles of folks losing their jobs because they posted something inappropriate on FB.  Folks simply aren't aware of how they portray themselves on the internet.  This representation does not stop at social networking, but can be applied to many other areas of media as well.

Here are some quotes from the article with some commentary where appropriate:

pg. 37 "A decreasing level of anonymity brought about through social networking has led to the adoption of different strategies depending on the individual's goal for social interaction.  Communication via Facebook is changing the face of social communication on an interpersonal level."  There are a few things going on in this quote.  I will focus on the phrase, "...different strategies depending on the individual's goal...".  It is worth us asking ourselves, "What is my goal with having a FB profile?".  Really, what is your goal?  Is it to keep in touch with folks from your past/present?  Is your goal to keep family in the loop of what is going on in your life?  Is FB a replacement for f2f social interaction?  A social networking participants, we all have different goals, right?  It's worth it to ask yourself why.

pg. 38 "On Facebook we take our own name and seem to be willing to part with our personal information than were previous net generations."  (emphasis mine)  Yikes!  I will let this quote speak for itself.

pg. 39 "Although I really enjoy my Facebook friends and feel a strong connection and a sense of community with many of them, most of the time these people are little more than objects of entertainment."    We can debate all day long about FB and 'real friends', etc...  but think about this quote for a minute.  Are most of your friends on FB entertainment for you?  Do they serve as a community?  Support?  Act as 'real' friends would?  Honestly, this can be debated until the cows come home, but the point of this quote is to critically analyze your FB interactions.

pg. 39 "When Facebook users communicate 'what's on [their] mind', of update their status, they are offering a representation of the self or a 'me' based on socialization they have already experienced."  Representation of the self is something to critically evaluate - thus the first journal entry in this course.

pg. 39 - Ellis then goes on to explain Mead's three step process.  You can read that on your own.

pg. 40 "The idea the Facebook users can no longer differentiate between representation and reality has led to calls for people to go offline.  Communication overload has inspired a teen movement of 'switching off':..."  I'm sure we can all agree that how we 'represent' ourselves is quite different than who we really are, or 'reality'.  Think about how different our social interaction is now then it was perhaps 20 years ago.  Folks did not need to worry about how they were representing themselves so much online, though they did have to answer the A/S/L question as Ellis writes on page 38.  That was the extent of representation. Now, however, there are a myriad of things to consider when representing yourself online.

So the question remains, how do YOU represent yourself online through social networking?  I thought the journal assignment would be an interesting one because folks rarely ask the question How or Why?  Critical evaluation of self-representation happens in small micro-bits when we ask ourselves, "Should I put that on FB?" or "Will someone take this the wrong way if I post this to my status update?".  We rarely take a look at the whole of our self-representation.  This is the very reason for the journal assignment.  I want you to look at how you have represented yourself, report on that without changing your Facebook page at this stage, and come to some conclusions.  Do you need to change your page?  Un-tag some photos?  Remove photos?  Watch what you are saying on your status updates?  Watch your 'side' conversations with folks on FB?  It is the evaluation that is going to lead to some eye-opening things.  At least that's my hope.


Until then......
The Blogging Prof