Technology and the Construction of Identity

The question of virtual identities is one that is topical in the domain of contemporary culture, where the ways in which we identify ourselves are constantly changing and dependant on a variety of contexts. According to Susanna Paasonen (2002), “identity traditionally refers to the specificity of a person, of her/his personality and even inner substance” (32). In a world where we are spending more and more time in contact with machines which then enable us to reach other people through them, our definition of our own specificity now takes on a language of the virtual world. In light of this, it is not unfair to claim that our personal and collective identities are being shaped through our interaction with new technologies.

The first element of this construction of identity through technology is the development of a sense of belonging, whether it is through a direct connection to the technologies or through a group of similar consumers of these technologies. In his look at cellular phone technology in the Philippines, Vicente Rafael (2003) demonstrates how “the cell phone gives its owner a sense of being someone” (405) despite their socio-economic circumstances. This connectivity allows the individual to create a sense of identity that is outside the traditional categories such as class, and connects them to a larger picture: “while telecommunication allows one to escape the crowd, it also opens up the possibility of finding oneself moving in concert with it” (Rafael 2003: 403). Because of cellular technology, an individual can break free of an antiquated vision of one identity and subsequent place in society and develop a new collective identity based on a “we” community. “The ‘we’ is established through an identification with technological novelty and the status of the Philippines as the ‘text messaging’ capital of the world” (Rafael 2003: 411).

The previous quote from Rafael’s analysis of cellular telephones in the Philippines also touches on an issue upon which Benedict Anderson has written significantly: that of the evolving national identity. Just as text messaging is helping form a collective Pilipino identity, according to Anderson, technologies that are enabling us to connect across boundaries and geographical areas are contributing to a more intense yet fluid version of national identity (Anderson 1998: 67). Print capitalism, in the early years, allowed for information to be shared and knowledge to be disseminated across large areas, connecting people from various regions and laying the seed for a national identity (Anderson 1998: 62). Similarly, “radio brought illiterate populations within the purview of the mass media” (Anderson 1998: 66) and recent technologies have only accelerated and intensified these connections (Anderson 1998: 67). The most significant result of this, however, has been in the shift in identification at a trans-national level: ethnic groups who have migrated or live outside their national boundaries can remain connected to their national roots through new technologies (Anderson 1998: 68), thus creating a hybrid, trans-national identity that is becoming more and more prevalent.

This concept is no more evident than in the recent riots in New South Wales, Australia, where rioters organized themselves through SMS messaging in order to strike out against ethnic minorities that didn’t fit into their sense of the “real Australia.” Similar to the overthrow of Marcos in the Philippines (Rafael 2003: 399), the usage of mobile technology in Australia was essential in not only organizing the riots, but in also creating sense of belonging between those who were “in the loop” and a sense of alienation for the outsiders who were eventually victimized.

The construction of identity through technology is also no longer a personal endeavor; in fact, the strengthening of one’s identity now comes through the sharing of ideas, thoughts, and practices across boundaries that are easily crossed in a world of networked communications. McLagan (1996) discusses this through her analysis of TibetNet, an online venture that computer consultants from across the world instrumental in providing “Tibetans the technological ability to disseminate the Tibetan story worldwide” (McLagan 1996: 159). A cultural identity was no longer something that was asserted within one’s small local network, but instead could be “deployed” using “new strategies that are reflective of changing contemporary realities” including “computer-mediated technologies” (McLagan 1996: 163).

This infusion of the local identity on a global network has allowed “marginalized groups like the Tibetans to inject alternative viewpoints into the public arena” (McLagan 1996: 164), which in turn allows perceptions of cultural and social groups to be debated, mediated, and disseminated. As identity is a constantly changing and transforming concept, using technology to refine the identity of a group such as the Tibetans has allowed them to see how they, as an entity, are perceived from those outside their immediate network, and thus allows for the constructive discussion over perception and reality: important when considering the fact that identity is constantly in flux (Erikson 1968: 184).

This leads us to an important consideration: the assertion of one’s identity is only necessary when defining oneself against others. Paasonen claims that “the self is produced in interaction with others, marked by other’s actions and reactions” and likens the act of definition to a performance for an audience (Paasonen 2002: 25-26). On a collective scale, it is then clear that the necessity for a clear sense of identity was necessary for Tibetans in order to become distinct in an increasingly connected world. Technology, therefore, has been instrumental in the creation of such identification, as it has allowed everyday Tibetans to “shift positions from being consumers of information to being producers of information” (McLagan 1996: 184). Though the computer and computer-mediated technologies “will not solve the problem of spreading information” (McLagan 1996: 183), they have clearly allowed for a less-obstructed passage for information to be conveyed, and subsequently allow new voices and new identities to enter the public sphere.

With the explosion of the World Wide Web, identity has taken on a new form of expression, in an arena where “the taking up of different identities, and the exploration of the limits of ‘the self’” (Paasonen 2002: 21) are not only commonplace but in fact necessary. One of the most significant developments on the internet that has allowed for this play on the perception of the self has been the spread of blogging as a widespread online phenomenon. Like the homepages of yesteryear, blogs have recently been “studied as sites for identity construction and self-invention” and have underlined the “unruly multiplicity” of the social identity online (Paasonen 2002: 22). Paasonen argues that identity is a performance, an assertion of self through repetition of action (2002: 25), and therefore the blog presents a unique opportunity for a person to not only reinvent themselves, but also create a new version of their self through the words that they publish on the web.

One of the most striking examples of this is in the story of Kaycee Nicole. An attractive teenager supposedly dying from leukemia in the late 1990’s, Kaycee posted about her medical condition and her everyday life in Oklahoma city on her weblog, which quickly drew supporters from not only around the internet community, but celebrities and major news outlets alike. After a few years, Kaycee’s mother, Debbie Swenson, reported on her own blog that Kaycee had succumbed to an aneurysm and had passed away, soliciting an outpouring of grief from people that had been following Kaycee’s story. However, the real quandary of this story is the fact that Kaycee Nicole never did exist. Originally created by Debbie Swenson’s daughter Kelli, Kaycee was a fictional character that Debbie fostered, using photos from a real-life teenager who was not involved in the hoax, and interspersing real life family stories into Kaycee’s blog. Debbie had transformed her identity of a normal mother of two girls to one of a woman struggling to raise a daughter that was slowly dying. Other similar hoaxes have littered the internet since that time, including the famous Plain Layne character created by Odin Soli and the still ambiguous character of Amanda Doerty, otherwise known as Hot Abercrombie Chick.

“As text and visual self-presentations, home pages produce narratives of an individual’s past and present, as well as a sense of identity, and they involve characters constructed roughly according to the same principles as those in literary or cinematic fictions” (Paasonen 2002: 33). What is clearly evident that whether it be creating a completely fictional character as in the case of Kaycee Nicole, promoting a side of your identity in a shroud of anonymity as in the case of Washingtonienne, or simply creating an identity that surrounds one facet of the multiplicity of the personal experience as I have done in my blog Wholesome Goodness, the negotiation of one’s own self through the internet has allowed every individual to define themselves outside their traditional categories (Paasonen 2002: 34); instead, each one of us can create, change, and challenge new categories through the power of the virtual identity.

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