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| Svoboda, M. (2013). |
Online identity is no longer a "real", "authentic" or truthful enterprise, for the "notion of identity is the story of what happens to a particular body over time" (Luyn, 2013). This notion can be taken from personal information entered into the network, posts and comments which appear on a users profile and unwittingly provide the networks owners with a great amount of information. Users' personal details are then sold to companies. McNeill (2012, pp.116) uses Facebook as an example in that "even though Facebook trumpets that the site is "free and always will be," Facebook members- and their "stories"- may not be".
Network diversity can constitute whether or not a network will remain prominent or simply fade away. The sense of diversity is not of great consequence in the online network I have infiltrated, as university students are the major contributors. Other users include lecturers, field experts and university representatives. These users infiltrate this social network, delving into other users' information, and seek out their desired target audience. Equality between users is a considerable influence in how the network runs. Stanner, (1979, pp.30) using the example of Indigenous Australians, states that"our own intellectual history is not an absolute standard by which to judge others".
Individuals through expressing their mutual identity split to form specific communities. This "split", of the studied online community, is based on the field of study. The users map or place in the network is found through literal folders and links on the homepage. The division into communities is also classified by the apparent importance of the field of study to society, that is, lesser fields of interest are less important or prominent.
Aboriginal Songlines can be used as an example to contrast and amplify differences between virtual and real networks. Songlines map literal space and create places of importance for specific people (Chatwin, B.1987). They also have "no sense of literal time" (Luyn, 2013) which is an important difference to virtual networks. In contrast, virtual networks are a movement towards post-humanism and have no literal space or place, but an illusion of one. Although this is of different significance to Songlines, it is not any less significant.
References:
Chatwin, B. (1987). Chapter 3, in Songlines (pp. 11-15). London, England: Jonathan Cape. Retrieved from: http://www.learnjcu.jcu.edu.au
Van Luyn, A. (2013). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, Narratives and the Making of Place, Week 4 notes. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from: http://www.learnjcu.jcu.edu.au
McNeill, L. (2012). There is no "I" in network: Social networking sites and posthuman auto-biography. In Biography, 35(1), pp. 116. Retrieved from: http://www.learnjcu.jcu.edu.au
Stanner, W.E.H. (1979). The dreaming (1953), in White man got no dreaming: Essays 1938-1973 (pp.30). Canberra, Australia: Australian National University Press. Retrieved from: http://www.learnjcu.jcu.edu.au
Svoboda, M. (2013). If I forgot my identity would you remind me?. [blog image]. Minnesota, U.S.A. Retrieved from: http://mikesvoboda.com/2013/if-i-forget-my-identity-would-you-remind-me/
Nice post Rebecca :)
ReplyDeleteI think the key part of the definition of post-humanism that you linked to is this bit:
"The word "posthumanism" has also been used in other senses, for example to refer to a critique of humanism, emphasizing a change in our understanding of the self and its relations to the natural world, society, and human artifacts." (Posthumanism, n.d.)
This is the way McNeill (2012) uses it, as a counter position to the notion of the singular, unified "self" and a way of acknowledging that we all perform different roles in different contexts (but that none of these is any less "real" than the others).