week10:cyberculture

In the information age, computers is playing a more and more important role in our daily life. On the Internet, we are no longer who we are. As Don Slater indicates, “In cyberspace, bodies and identities alike may lose their concretion to terrestrial limits, extending through a new range of possibilities, and in the process may reflect back upon the supposed naturalness, giveness, reification or territorialization of real life bodies and identities.”(cited in David Bell 2001, 113) In other words, cyberspace provide a stage to present different identities of us. But how does this happen? How can we use different visual representations in the cyberspace to create these different new “me”s ? That’s the question I am going to answer.

This video shows how people create different identities in the cyberspace. In cyberspace, you can create your own identity. You can be a 16-year-old high school student or a 21-year-old college student. You can be a male or female. You can live in Orange country or Los Angeles. You can choose different avatar to represent your different avatars in cyberspace. For example, in this video, Johnny is a 16-year-old high school student in real life. And this is his physical appearance.

But in this avatar, he can be a mature, smart-looking man with mustache to fit in his 21-year-old university student identity.In the game, his avatar can be this one. As he is the “night elf” in World of Warcraft., he chooses a mysterious profile picture to represent the role he plays in the game.

Ting Toomey indicates that “Individuals acquire and develop their identities though interaction with others in their culture group.”(cited in Larry A. Samovar, Richard E. Porter, Edwin R. McDaniel 2000,163). It can be applied in the acquisition of cyber identities in cyber space. In cyberspace, individuals use words, images, video, music to reveal themselves. Others interpret the texts according to their understanding and get to know each other. In this interaction process, cyber identities are created. What’s more, cyber identities can reflect on our real life. Pramod K. Nayar argues that “cyber culture and identities” are “recursively linked to the real.” He also mentioned that “the ‘mixed reality’ paradigm does no privilege one reality over the other, but proposes that access to one form of reality is always mediated the other.” 

References:

1.            David Bell.(2001). An Introduction to Cybercultures. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.bn/books?id=MRNlLK6ZlMYC&pg=PA3&dq=cyberculture+identity&hl=zh-CN&ei=fc3PTNORCY70vQOQxL3CBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=cyberculture%20identity&f=false

2.            Larry A.S, Richard E. P. & Edwin R. M.(2000). Communication between cultures. Uk: Oxfaord International Publisher.