Self Identity Creation

Abstract

Key Term

What is Self Identity Creation?

Self-Identity creation is a phrase used to describe the way in which a person uses certain aspects, of themselves or of others, to create an identity or persona. This process can happen both consciously and unconsciously and develop through an extended period of time.

Creating a Digital Identity

In creating an identity on a social profile, several factors should be considered. The first step to creating an identity is choosing a name. Depending on the type of social media site you are creating, you can choose you own name or a 'user' name which doesn't publicly display your real name. When choosing a name, you must consider public or private concerns to your audience. It is important to understand that when creating a digital identity, this identity is openly available via 'inter-web' and needs to be addressed accordingly.
The creation of identity process is full of different categories you can choose to use to build your page or profile. Consider pages like Facebook. On a Facebook page, there are several ways of adding information to you profile from, your bio, self-interests, preferred books/artists/movies, relationships, education, and work. Though, all of these options are available, it is up to you to decide what information you want to be displayed.
There are many different reasons, today, that people create digital identities. It can be for commercial use for advertising, band pages, company pages, and just people profiles. Creating an identity doesn't have to be a personal identity. It has become more common to see pages on Facebook that aren't people pages. There can be product pages like "Vic-Firth"

Differential Expression of the Self Varies with the Site Used

People alter the way they act according to the “social setting” that they are in. Evidence of this can be seen when comparing two social media sites; Facebook (FB), and the lesser known Experience Project (link to another page describing EP?). The degree to which users choose to express themselves (online) varies according to many aspects and topics of digital media. The first of these “filters” that many people use is the choice of how many characteristics of themselves they wish to make public. A question posed on Experience Project (EP) asked members how much they felt they could reveal about themselves (as opposed to a mainstream social media site like FB). Most people seemed to convey that they could express more, if not everything, about themselves on EP as long as their identity wasn’t compromised. This demonstrates that online anonymity is a central, deciding factor in degrees of expression, and is supported further by the FB group “Have you been fired because of Facebook???.” In this group, members express how their FB posts, pictures, or messages have been discovered by their employers and eventually resulted in termination. Situations like this raise awareness about how people should express themselves, and it is likely that these situations change how people use digital media, and how people think digital media should be used Media Ideologies. How users interact on both of these sites also determines what they choose to reveal about themselves. In EP, there are groups devoted to discussing attempted suicide, cutting, and many other revealing topics that most members of FB choose not to discuss. It is likely that the reasons for this are rooted in the focus of both sites; perhaps this can be explained in the slogan of each site. EP’s homepage states, “Life is full of experiences, what are yours?” Whereas FB states, “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.” EP’s slogan presents the “campfire” setting, wherein free flowing discussion of all facets of life can be discussed and FB specifies the interaction of people in your life. Both social networking sites allow users to reveal as much, or as little, as they want. And based on the structure and purpose of the site, this disclosure changes.

Self-Identity of the Community

While individuals have certain preferences in the amount of information they choose to express as their identity, there can also be group of people who indentify themselves as a part of a certain community. Communities can have various ways in which people create their identity to express themselves, which in turn affects the identity of the overall community. There are distinctions between the types of information that certain communities express besides just how much the information is expected to be seen on a certain community website. These distinctions can be studied in detail by using websites of two communities, facebook and quirky (LINK), and comparing and contrasting them. Facebook is not only a social networking website which enables one to communicate to their friends and family, but it is also a medium through which certain communities communicate to people who they intend to target. Consider the Facebook page of Indiana University . This page is created for those who want to know about Indiana University. However, the main purpose of having this page on Facebook proves that it would be for IU fans who are interested in knowing about new recent activities and events going on at IU. The writer on this page, therefore, would only include information needed for IU fans on Facebook, such as timings for IU games, any information about any helpful organizations or any events, etc. The Facebook page of Forever 21 is more informative about the sales and new products at their stores. The community members of Forever 21 page agree to use only information necessary about the store. Both of these communities, Indiana University and Forever 21, on Facebook use writing in order to share the information that they intend to share and to express their identity as an overall community. Both of these pages allow Facebook users to share their opinions by allowing them to comment on the "comment" box. Both pages of these communities have different aims that they intend to achieve by creating such pages on Facebook. Thus, they use information appropriately in order to express the identity of their community.
[Repeat Key Terms, Definitions, and Examples as necessary]

Conclusion— Self-Identity of the Internet "Troll"

troll_face_gif.gif

Digital writing enables special character creation for the rhetorical connection of social-diversification via inter-web. These connections can serve individuals as well as the community. Yet, this social diversification and connection can be hampered by internet "trolls" who seek to degrade other users, depending on the genre of digital writing. Specifically targeted genres of digital writing are blogs, question forums, and discussions. Trolls are a genre of user unique to digital writing. Because of the ease of access, anonymity, and publicity that digital writing provides, as opposed to other forms of writing, trolls exist. Trolls are a growing sub-culture of digital media, which tend to breach accepted ideas of idioms of practice. They have gained notoriety as the delinquents of many online communities, and appear to be the "roadblock" of social expansion and self-identity expression that digital writing rhetorically enables.
For more information on the Troll meme see — Troll Rage Face

References

http://www.facebook.com/vicfirth.company?sk=app_201143516562748

http://www.experienceproject.com