Cheung%202004.pdf

Chapter 4 IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION AND SELF-PRESENTATION ON PERSONAL HOMEPAGES: EMANCIPATORY POTENTIALS AND REALITY CONSTRAINTS Although it is dillindt to COUllt the dispersed and ever-changing number of homepages on the Web, a look at the press relations sections of a handful of the sites offering free Web space shows that the numbers must add up quickly: large colHl1lunit}' sites like Yahoo! GeoCities and Angelfire claim over 4.5 mil- lion active IlOlIIepage builders each, f()r example, and FortuneCity claims a fur- ther 2 million (lull' 2(J(J3). Millions nlOre hornepages resicle in the numerous other Ji'ee webspace services, alld witllin cOlHnH~rcial alld educational sites. Persollal hOIIH~[>age websitcs arc also a popular Web destination. Nielsen/NetRatings' Market View report shows that Yahool GeoCities had more than 27 million unique visitors within one !I1omh (October 2002). ComScore Media Mell'ix smveys also show that Tripod and Angeltire had around 16 and 12 million lIIonthly unique visitors respectively (September 2(02). If you are curious enough to browse through some personal homepages posted on the Web, you may quickly observe the following phenomena. ? Generally, pNsonal homepages are websites produced by individuals, or sometimes a couple or family. On a personal homepage, people can put up any information about themselves, including autobiography or diary material, personal photos and videos, creative works, political opinions, information about hobbies and interests, links to other websites, and so on . ? People from all walkS of life have started to use the personal homepage to tell personal stories about themselves: cancer patients, retired scientists, kids with disabilities, vinyl collectors, kung fu movie fans, transsexuals, DIY enlbusiasts, porno~ gnllphic movie lovers, to name but a few. ? Certain personal homepages seem to be made to display the strong personality and identity of the hornepage authors, as if declaring: 'It is me! I'm cool!' These pages usually have stylish design, and contain details of specific aspects of the author's life. ? Some personal homepages seem to be made more fOl' self-exploration than for mak~ ing a strong identity'statemenL These pages usually contain an online diary or jour- nal, in which the homepage authors put down how they feel about wbat happens to them every day. ? Having said all this, many personal homepages tell you little information about the author. These pages are unbelievably dull - they only include things like vital statis- tics, one or two photos, some links to other websites, and nothing else, ? Even worse, many homepagesare listed in Web directories but actually not available. Personal homepages have their critics, of course. Some Internet (Olllillelitators, for example, suggest that the coutellls or personaillolllepages rel1eet nothing but the narcissism and exhibitionism of many net users and the 'content. trivjalization' of the Internet superhighwa)' (DiGiovanna, 1905; Rothsteill, 199(1). Some web designers are appalled by the amateur appearance 01" lllallY personal IWlllepages. But these responses are inappropriate. This chapter argues t!l:ll, to make sense of the above phenomena, we need to take the personal hOl1\ep:lge seriousl), as a sig- nificant social phenomenon. This chapter h:lS two ,lrgUll1elllS, 4.1 Personal homepages are traditionally where people put big p'lC!ures Df their friends - and their cats IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION AND SELF-PRESENTATION 55 ON PERSON/JIL HOMEPAGES 1 The personal homepageis an emancipatory media genre. The distinctive ml~dium char- acteristics of the personal homepage allow net users to become active cultural pro- ducers, expressing their suppressed identities or exploring the significant question of 'who I am', often in ways which may not otherwise be possible in 'real' life, 2 Nevertheless, the fact that many personal homepages are poor in content, 01' have even been abandoned by thei r cweators, suggests that the emancipatory potentials of the personal homepage are limited and often not fully exploited. In daily life, there can be a range of factors which preclude some people from producing 'content-rich' personal homepages. People tell storiesallOllt themselves by making personal homepages, but not - to paraphrase Marx - ill conditiolls of their own choosing, as this chapter will show. 'THIS IS ME!': THE PERSONAL HOMEPAGE AS A STAGE FOR STRATEGIC SELF-PRESENTATION The Erst enulllcip:llory use of the personal homepage is strategic and elaborate sel!~presentalion. In everyday life, we usually try in vain to tell our partners, fam- ily,friends, employers, or at times even strangers who we 'really' are. Although we can one-sidedly complain that other people misunderstand us, sociologists suggest that self-presentational failure in everyday life actually involves other factors, such as social interactional contexts and our presentation skills. According to Coffman (1990), in everyday encounters, the social settings and audiences we face always define the kinds of 'acceptable' selves we should present - a teenager perlin'llls as a hard-working student in front of teachers in class, an office worker as a respollsible employee ill front of his or her boss and colleagues, a CEO as a responsible company leader who cares lor shareholders in front of financial journalists at press conferences, and so on. Nevertheless, sometimes we may wish to presellt certain identities but tllay not find the 'right' social settings , and audiences, and if we present these identities in inappropriate social settings, we experience embarrassment, rejection or harassment. For example, a boy may entertain his friends with rap songs about his sexual conquests, but his grandpar- ents might be a less l'cceptive audience, In lace-to-Iace intel-action, we present ourselves through the use of 'sign vehicles' such as clothing, posture, intonation, speech pattern, facial expression and bodily gesture. But Collinan also emphasizes that total. control over these sign vehicles is dif- ficult, since most face-to-lace interactions proceed in a spontaneous manner and do not include ,lll assigned block of time in which we can present ourselves in an order- ly and systematic !;lshiorL More often than not, our pres'entation of self in everyday life is a delicate enterprise, subject to m()ment-to~moment mishaps and unintention~ al misrepresentations. These mishaps typically lead us (again) to experience embar- rassment, rejection or harassment and, consequently, the failure of self-presentation. 'Ii) put it silllply, till' corl' prohklllS or our sl'WprC'St'lllatioll ill <:\'eryday lile are that we lack ellough contl'Ol ()\'t'!" (I) wllal 'seIH:'s' II'e should display ill :1 particu, lar social sl'lIillg alld (~) II()\I' "'ell IIC' CIII preselll 1hell I. Tht:' pl'l'sonalllOl1lepage, however, C';1I1'l'\II;lIlcipalt" us rr()lll tlIC'Sl' 1\\'0 proll!t-III.', First, the personal hon\lvage ;1I1'I\\'s IlIuc'lI 111II/io!), III ,Iclditioll, elTn iI'slJlIIl' people dislike our 'hollH::p;lge seh'es' alld sl'lld us negatiw' l'espollsl'S hy e-Inail, these responses are not inSlalllant'Ons, so we 11:l'!less pressure to n','IHIIl(! 10 lhl'l1\ - in bct, we GUI e\'en ign,)I'e these COIIIII\enls, For eX;llllpk, ir a kUllg Iii 1l1O\'ie lover really wants to tell others that he is an l':-;perl in kUllg- I'll Illol'ies, his SilllpleSt solu- tion is not 10 IIJr<~estl'angers in pubs to listetl to hiltl but 10 C01Jstruct ,I \H:rsonal homepage, By creating a wl'bsite l(:,llllring his ess,l)'s on kung I'u nIOl'ies, photo collection of kung ILlstars, or el'en digital "ideos or hi In doing bl'ale, he would have millions or net browsers who lle's pl'olessional IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION AND SELF-PRESENTATION 57 ON PERSONAL HOMEPAGES , achievement in w,lys which nlay nut otherwise be possible in everyday !ife. People seeking jobs, I(Jl' instance, lIse the personal homepage to highlight and embellish aspects or Iheir prutes,sional achievements, so as to I'each potential employers or tu create lJlure lasling impressions than briel' phone or hlCe-to-lace job interviews (Rusenstein, ~()\)(I). Likewise, a1'lists use their websites to promote their artistic persona (ParisC!', ~()()O), ~uld young acadeillics use !;Iculty homepages to gain wider exposure (tv!iller alltl Arnold, 200 I). As one young academic confessed: 'For the person visiting the webpage of Illy department, I am more visible than the professors [who don't have pages], Ol)id,: 1(5), Some hOlllepages are Inore relationship-oriented, On these homepages, the authors orten highlight particular personal qualities (personalities, hobbies or political opiuions) so as to share opinions and experiences with like-minded indi- viduals (Walker, 2()()O) , or to attract potential ronl;ullic partners who admire those qualities (Rosenstei II, 20(0), The personal hOlllepage is also particularly valuable j()\' those with dillicult)' pre- senting themsel\'es in f;lCe-to-lace interaction, such as introverts with weak self-pre- sentational skills, and people with allY kind of visible or invisible disability such as amputees, the visually impaired, or the hearing impaired. As one home page author with traulllatic brain injul)' said concisel),: 'Our disability is invisible so people can't respond (original elnphasis; l-Ievel'l1, \WOU: 10). These Itolllepage authors may feel better able tu express themselves through the use or biogl'aphies, online writing or their photos (Chandler, 1\)98). l'eople with OOWII'S syndrome, for example, have used the personal hOll\epage to asset'[ that in 11Iany ways they are no different from other people, because, like anyone else, they have distinctive cultural tastes and are knowledgealJle abollt certain things - such as Iliaking wel>pages (Seale, 200 I). ~? l~he personal h01l1ep~·\ge l11ay be 1110St eillancipatory for those \vhose identities are misunderstood or stigmal izecl in society - teenagers, gays alld lesbians, tat people, the mentally ill, and so on - since they can reveal their idelllities without risking the rejection or harasslnent that may be experienced in everyday life. One gay respondent, [III' instance, explained how the personal home page helped him to cOllie out 'steadily': I was looking for some way of having a gay presence in the world and still feel protected from the adverse effects. [Making my personal homepageJ was great because I didn't have to just 'come out' to somebody and risk rejection. I could do things a little at a time and build levels of trust along the way. (Hevern, 2000: 15) Another gay author reports a similar expel-ience. He would say to friends, 'Check out my website', and let them see his positive expressions of gay iclentity, ancl 'think abollt it bel(JI'e reacting' (Chandler, 1998). 4.2 Personal homepages today are more often well designed, and bUiltaround a regularly updated bJog In 1~\Ct,the emancipatory v,due of the personal homepag-c [iJl' sl'il~pl'l'Selltatioll is even more evident if' we look at hol\' lr"diliollal 11Is the prot;lgollisl or Ille story, and we know clearly 11'110we arc, !lOll' liT l>eC9). Some authors, however, lllay fash- ion 1I1'Widclllilil's. For c:-:alllple, by IJililding wl'bsiles which provide health inl!)r- Illation, pcopk wllosl' lilTS have been disrupted b), serious accidents or chronic illness ma)' SlICl'l'ssl'ully re-establish a positive ic!t:ntity, as a health inl(lrmation pro- ducer (I-I\:\l'lll, ~(J()(J; ILirdey, ~(J(J2). The personal homepage surpasses the internal dialogue and other traditional media in one more respect. Tile internal dialogue and traditional diary writing are 'pril'ate' idl'ntit)' construction activities, the audience of which is generally the authol' hilll/ltl'l'sdL But the global re,lchabilit)' of the personal homepage enables the hOlllepage author to gl't validatory feedback Ii'om net browsers who empathize or share with the author's identity or narrative, I am not arguing that we cannol consider our sell~idelltities in the absence of others, but getting recog- nition frOlll other people is still illllJonant lor establishing alfirmative identities (Cooley, I\)()2; Blumer, 19()\), After all, ir no one ever tells you that you are smart, lur holl' long call you cOlll'illce yourself that you really are? This identity validation function of the !JeTsoll,1I hOlllepage is illso identilied in recent research, Uudeniably, sonle hUlllepage .nlt/wrs do not actively .leek readers at all (Rosenstein, 2000: 9G-9), As one author said: 'I was the inlended audience, as strange as it soullds' (Chandler, 1998). Yet, In;nlY homcp,lgc autlHJrs lIse the personal homepage to re-est,lblish their sel!~idcnlilies by g<.~llillgpositive com- ments frolll other net brolVsers. One disabled homepage author said: 'Do yuu have any ideil how ll1l'lnatioll to peers, and so on (Buten, Im)(;: I'apacharissi, ~()O(): Walkl'l', ~(){){)),This argu- ment, however, canllot really cxplain \I'h,' SOllIe personal IlI,nll:p;lges \\'hich are built it)r the purpose or sl'll'-prl'sl'llt,llion or idelllity l'IJlIS11I1((iol\ slill tack thoughtli.d and in-depth sell~expressiol\ (Killor;nl, 10(J~). 'Ii) ,ok called MCl.Iculinities _; that "'masclilinit},,, does not exist except in contras~ with "femininity'" (ibid His poillt iSlhat the concept of' masculinity does not\have any meaning in it is only IVh~n men and women are assumed to possess particular and dlfj'erml acter trails associated Ivith their genders tltat notions"!f' what it means to be arise. For our purposes, Stel'e Craig's aSSel'liOll that 'masndinity is what a ('I expecq of'its men' (199~: :1) is a useful one because it suggests that masu essentd,lly exists only in a cultural context; as something rooted in the tradi codes allll- in particular - e.\jJectaliolls collllllonly held by society. Similarly, G Mosse's deliuition oj' masculinity as 'the way men assert what they believe their manhood' (I ~n)(j:el) implies that it is widely understoocJ as a way of belt