Digital Identities: Who are We in a Networked Public?

Bonnie StewartUniversity of Prince Edward Island

#etmoocMarch 25, 2013

Who are YOU online?What aspects of your life & self are visible?

Identities within Social Networks

Facets of Ourselves

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorenjavier/6319823219

Affordances

How does the way the Internet works alter how you can be yourself?

The “quacks like a duck” school of identity

Digital Identities = Public Aware of being

watched Aware of scale of

attention Build identity by

repetition Build ties by visible

communicationshttp://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfgangfoto/2755774089/

“Public is used to signal places that are accessible to anyone (or at least anyone belonging to a privileged

category like adults).

In reference to actions or texts, public often implies that the audience is unknown and that strangers may bear

witness.

As a noun, public refers to a collection of people who may not all know each other but share “a common

understanding of the world, a shared identity, a claim to inclusiveness.”

- danah boydWhy Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites, 2007, p. 7

Networked Publics

• Multiple, overlapping, global networks• Always accessible• Identities are visible, traceable &

searchable • Different audiences all in plain sight

See Kazys Varnelis, danah boyd, Alice Marwick, Mizuko Ito for more

Digital Identities = Multiple

How do we navigate multiplicity?

Context Collapse =…that awkward moment when you

remember you friended your grandma on Facebook

Worst

fear?

Different contexts have different legitimacy practices

Academic Learning Networked Learning

product-focused process-focusedinstitutionally-directed self-directedmastery participation

bounded by time/space always accessiblehierarchical ties peer-to-peer ties

plagiarism crowdsourcing authority in role authority in reputationaudience = teacher audience = world

Who we are is shaped by the context(s) we’re addressing

The Performative Self

The Quantified Self

The Participatory Self

http://etmooclearnings.blogspot.ca/2013/03/no-sorry-here-just-thanks.html

The Asynchronous Self

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vylen/6158720720/

The Enmeshed Self

http://www.flickr.com/photos/seanrnicholson/6449890509/

The Neoliberal Self “Me, Inc.”

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikebaird/4880623547

Who did I miss?

In terms of “quacks like a duck” identity, in what directions has #etmooc helped you explore your own digital selves?