James Berlin's Social-Epistemic Rhetoric
: A paper by Dennis Ciesielski of Peru State College which focuses on how
Berlin's theory emphasizes dialogic practice.
Postmodern theory has shown a marked fascination
with emerging computer technologies - how they affect our writing, our
interaction, and our very sense of self. The social-epistemic theories of
James Berlin argue that,
since language is the medium by which writer, audience, and text are perceived
and the medium for communication, language in effect constructs the self.
Also, since the individual is a product of the interaction between the
individual, community, and real world via language, identity is never fixed,
but is fluid. In a world such as the Net that is constructed almost purely
of language, and where interaction is speeded up, both reality and identity
are even more fluid and subject to conscious control. This has led to a very
relativistic approach to identity issues, especially in an online environment,
but it is a relativism that seems to rely on binary oppositions. People are
described as being able to be either male or female, young or old, black
or white... and so on. It is a relativism that claims unlimited freedom of
identity for the online participants, but sets certain boundaries around
that freedom at the same time. I would like to suggest an alternate view
of online identity, wherein the categories are subject to an analog,
sliding-scale approach, and in which the postmodern, wholly relativistic
view does not in fact take place.
What follows is a case-study approach to the problem
of online identity and its construction. The scope of this article is not
such to allow an examination of a statistically large cross-section of the
online community; what I hope to do here is open up a few lines of inquiry,
and perhaps provide a few examples of the directions in which that inquiry
can take us.
Just how clean a slate is the Net? Most enthusiasts
of online communication will quickly point to how the Net makes everyone
equal by eliminating all appearance cues - race, gender, physical handicaps,
and so forth. Even scholarly critics such as
Lester Faigley pretty much
take this equality as a given (Fragments of Rationality pp. 181-182). The
assumption seems to run that with no visual cues for discrimination, identity
is completely in the control of each individual person, and anyone is free
to be anything they desire. But what composes our identity?
Allucquere Rosanne
Stone proposes a way of looking at identity that she calls “the
socially apprehensible citizen.” This citizen consists of physical and
“virtual” elements - the body on the one hand, and the various social tags
and relationships that associate the physical body with a place in the
socially-constructed reality around it. An I.Q. score, a telephone number,
any psychological diagnosis, a street address - all these are examples of
what Stone would call “virtual” elements. They are the tags by which a social
community transforms a Body into a Self, which can be located and acted upon
by that community.
This theory is not wholly new. Michel Foucault
has in several works drawn a connection between categorization of
identity-factors and the exercise of control over the individual. “In this
way dimensions of personal life are psychologized, and thus become a target
for the intervention of experts.” (Sawicki, p. 22) Jana Sawicki takes some
of these Foucaultian ideas farther, and argues that this sort of categorization
is one of the factors in the social construction of identity. Society gets
to define the categories in which our identity-components fall, thus influencing
how we ourselves view identity. To Foucault, there are two possible responses
to this sort of identity-construction: adherence or subversion. I’d like
to add a third possibility - that of ignoring the categories.
Since Foucault usefully examined various institutions
(prisons, mental hospitals, etc.) as a way of developing his points, I’d
also like to ground my discussion in a particular institution, namely the
Internet Service Provider (hereafter ISP), and more specifically America
Online. AOL, as it is commonly known, is currently the nation’s largest single
ISP, and one which targets “middle America” as its preferred customer base.
Like any institution, it sets certain rules and practices which the members
are obliged to follow, or else be barred from the institution; it likewise
has conventions which, though not enforced the same way, nonetheless are
followed to a greater or lesser extent.
To answer the question, “What composes our
identity?” in the offline world, we rely on visual cues for our first
impression of others’ identities. Online, all cues are visual to an
extent, but the physical body that provides them is absent. What AOL substitutes
in place of the body is the Profile. The profile consists of several
predetermined designators, with varying amounts of space for a response after
each. The form looks something like this:
Your Name:
City, State, Country:
Birthday:
Sex: o Male o Female o No Response
Marital Status:
Hobbies:
Computers Used:
Occupation:
Personal Quote:
The categories are preset, and there is no option
for a user to add or modify categories. What one does have are the Foulcaultian
options: adhere to the categories, subvert them, or (my addition) to ignore
them. Identity construction on AOL, then, begins as a dialogue between the
institution setting the parameters of identity, and the individual response
to those parameters.
It is my contention that this dialogue is going
to be influenced by purpose - both the overt purpose of the individual when
constructing the profile, and a more unconscious purpose inherent to the
profile system. The primary, obvious purpose of the profile is to enable
the user to present an identity to the other people online. I say “an
identity” rather than “his/her identity” because the information that
a user places into the profile is not necessarily true or representative
of the user in question. The limited space makes it impossible to convey
a total picture, so what emerges is a sort of verbal shorthand, a rough sketch
of identity. AOL has established what it feels are the salient aspects of
identity: age, gender, marital status, physical location, and so forth. (It
might be worth noting that these identifiers neatly combine Stone’s
“physical” and “virtual” elements.) In filling out the profile, though, some
members choose to ignore certain categories by leaving them blank. Some subvert
the categories entirely, substituting their own information, their own ideas
of what composes an identity. Frequently this will take the form of including
details of physical appearance; even so, space limitations programmed into
the system will not allow a description of great length. What emerges is
essentially a textual “cartoon” of the chosen identity.
Scott
McCloud has an interesting explanation of cartoons as they relate
to identification. Greatly summarized, that explanation runs as follows.
The more detail a picture provides, the more “realistic” we perceive it to
be. However, the more detail a picture includes, the less universal an image
is. The simpler an image, the more people it can be said to describe. Thus,
a cartoon achieves universality through abstraction of detail, letting us
focus on a few key elements. McCloud goes on to theorize that when interacting
with another person, you see their exterior self in full detail. You also
retain a sketchy awareness of your own self during that interaction - what
your eyes, mouth, and hands are doing, perhaps - in other words, key elements.
A detailed, realistic photo represents the “other”; a simplified image (a
cartoon, in McCloud’s work) invites identification with the self. (McCloud,
pp. 28-37)
This brings up the other, more unconscious purpose
of the profile system. Coupled with the profile itself is a search engine
which allows a member to search the profile database, looking for any key
words or phrases the user desires. If the chosen phrase is found in a profile,
that profile is listed for the searcher. This not only allows, but encourages
the use of the profile as a tool for identification. The Net is in large
part a social arena. In constructing a persona, entering a chat room, or
joining a listserv, one has the expectation of interaction; implicit in the
act is a search for a community of sorts. Given the large membership of even
just one internet provider such as AOL, the user needs a way of focusing
that search; thus, the textual “cartoon” of the profile, which limits identity
to manageable, searchable key elements. In this way, the profile becomes
a tool for both construction of identity and identification with a group.
But if all identity is socially constructed, if
identity is always fluid and relative, how can such a system possibly work?
One might argue that, if there are no essentials on the Net, then identification
can never truly occur. There is so much false information out there, with
no verification possible, that any imagined identification that takes place
is itself false and conditional.
Stone delivers the story of Sanford Lewin, New York
psychiatrist, who adopted the online persona of Julie Graham (Stone, pp 71-78).
Julie differed in nearly every respect from Sanford - different gender, different
physical abilities (Julie was parapalegic), different basic personalities
(Julie was far more outgoing than the reserved Sanford.) The dilemma that
resulted would seem to perfectly illustrate the above point - people reacted
very harshly when they found out that the persona they had been interacting
with was false, was a role created by Sanford to enable the psychiatrist
to interact at a more personal level with people. Was “Julie Graham” totally
divorced from Sanford, though? Is this an example of the “clean slate” idea
of the Net, wherein one can assume an identity with no connection to the
offline self?
Online roleplaying, as Stone points out, has been
around for a good number of years; almost as many, in fact, as synchronous
online communication itself. People take advantage of the fluid nature of
online identity to create personas that frequently diverge significantly
from their true selves. (One widespread phenomenon in this vein is the
frequently-noted incidence of “cross-dressing” - taking on the persona of
someone of opposite gender while online.) On AOL, a member’s account has
the capacity for five separate screen names, ostensibly for the use of family
members, each screen name carrying a separate profile and with no visible
relationship between the names. This allows a member to have more than one
online identity, an opportunity which some use to experiment with multiple
roles, multiple identities and points of view. What I have done is to gain
the permission of four such users to analyze their respective profiles, and
see whether total fluid relativity does in fact apply in online identity.
(Voluntary permission was necessary not only out of courtesy, but also because
there is no way to otherwise trace which screen names belong to which
“socially apprehensible citizen,” to use Stone’s phrase.) The sets of profiles
analyzed belong to two men and two women, of varying ages, and pseudonyms
are used to protect those involved.
Kelly has three separate profiles; each one represents
a fully separate persona. They are of different ages, occupations, and
appearances, but there are some common threads that can be pulled out. The
names are all exotic in nature, not likely to be encountered in daily life.
The “Location” item is always filled in, but usually vague. In the one profile
in which it is not ambiguous, it is accompanied by a derogatory comment.
Birthdate is never given as such, though the age is given as early 20s in
each case; sex is always filled in and always female. The striking similarities
come in two places. “Marital Status” is never answered directly, but in each
case, a comment is made such as “Men are unnecessary.” The same phrase, in
varying wordings, recurs in all three identities. And then in the “Personal
Quote” field, there is always a quote from the musical RENT.
Diane has a somewhat similar set of profiles.
Again, the personae are distinct, but with common threads joining them. The
persona names are again exotic, but in this case each one has a family or
lineage designator attached. The location given is always vague, and in each
case includes a reference to wandering. The “Birthdate” field is always vague
or omitted. “Sex” is never filled in, though the Diane’s descriptions are
always unambiguously female; Marital Status is always given as single. Two
other threads are of note: the persona is in each case described with feline
qualities to a greater or lesser extent, and Diane includes in each profile
one or more jargon words specific to the game system which she prefers.
Chris has fewer obvious similarities. Two of his
profiles are male, and two are female. Marital status varies, as do occupation
and interests. But again we can detect certain commonalities. The name in
all four cases is given as first, middle, last. The location is again vague,
but in this case always includes a reference to shadows. The
“Birthdate” field gives various ages, but the date itself is given as
“Devil’s Night,” a bit of Detroit-area slang for (I believe) October 30th.
The remainder of the profile in each case is dominated by physical description.
All four personae are well-dressed, with careful attention given to clothing
details; “The click of bootheels” figures in 3 of the 4 descriptions, with
the fourth persona being boot-wearing but without sound effects. Each persona
is described as being “otherworldly” and having a “sixth sense” for danger.
The last set of profiles has perhaps the least
in common on the surface. Steve’s persona names are alternately prosaic and
exotic; location is sometimes given, sometimes ambiguous, and sometimes left
blank; the “Birthdate” and “Marital Status” categories are treated similarly.
The sex is given as male in all cases, though one persona is identified as
gay in later description. What does run across all the profiles is careful
language use - capitalization, complete sentences, and educated vocabulary,
all of which are treated with a certain disdain in the online community at
large. Steve also uses full, visual descriptions in each case, presenting
build, face and hair, demeanor, and clothing. Also, there is an artistic
theme to the occupations - one persona is a writer, one is a musician, and
one is an actor.
At the risk of indulging in a little armchair
psychology, I would say that we can glean some insights into the people behind
the personas through looking at the common threads that run through those
profiles. Kelly does not seem to have a strong interest in or identification
with place. She either is in her early 20s or identifies with that age group
(we cannot simply assume that she is in her twenties, since the profiles
are consciously constructed roles - the common age might just as easily be
the age Kelly sees as desireable, rather than representative of her offline
reality.) One can safely deduce that she has some rather definite opinions
on marriage. Likewise, we can guess that Diane places a certain emphasis
on family, identifies with cats to a greater or lesser degree, and desires
to interact with a particular gaming community, since she uses in her profiles
terms that only that community would understand. Similar common threads can
be drawn from the profile-sets of Chris and Steve.
So does this show that the essentialists are right?
Are Foucault, Stone, and the other relativists misguided, and there are in
fact basic, unchanging qualities in a person that are purely generated from
within? To put it bluntly, no. That is not my argument. The very careful
line to walk here is that all the information in all the profiles above does
not necessarily reflect the “socially apprehensible citizen” behind the profile.
Any one of the profiles for a particular person might reflect the real individual
behind it, or none of them might. What I would argue matters is that the
individuals constructing the profiles perceive certain things as essential,
consciously or unconsciously, and those perceived essential qualities form
the “anchor points” which root the persona in ground which the user feels
comfortable. As Stone has pointed out, few people are comfortable with total
relativism, total fluidity. What I think is taking place in the construction
of online identity is that people are taking the opportunity to depart from
their socially apprehensible selves, and take on a new identity to a greater
or lesser extent, while using a set of “anchors” to keep these identities
connected in some fashion with their base selves. To turn back to the example
of Julie Graham for a moment, one of the things that was often said about
Julie is how helpful her conversations were to various people, that she provided
insight and support for folks who needed it. Isn’t that desire to help also
present in Sanford Lewin, psychiatrist? As radical a departure as Julie might
have been from Sanford’s base identity, that desire to help was, I would
argue, the anchor that tied the two selves together. Similarly, one could
reasonably deduce in Steve’s case that the persona identified as gay is a
departure from the base self, since that one profile is the only place such
orientation is mentioned, but the artistic outlook and attention to visual
appearance are anchor points which keep this persona tied to the person behind
the persona. I would view identity, particularly online identity, as an analog,
sliding-scale affair, and each scale is calibrated with reference points
that vary from individual to individual.
I also would like to point out that this whole concept
of "anchor points" which I am developing here is a bit tricky. I point
out that Kelly might not be in her twenties, even though all her personae
are. What the individual sees as essential identity tags might not
be represented in that person's actual physical or social life. A person
whose online personae are all under 5' 2" might well be 6' 6" in actual physical
fact; the identification that person makes, though, is with shortness.
That person's self-image might be one which does not match the physical
self. This fluid nature of online identifiers is both liberating and nightmarish
- liberating, because a person online can break free of accidents of
self with which he or she does not identify; nightmarish, in that determining
whether a given online identifier has been chosen from an experimental impulse
or an essential one.
Let me stress, by the way, that I am denying neither
relativism or social constructivism. The “anchor points” that the above four
people display are not necessarily all deliberate, conscious choices. As
I mentioned earlier, Foucault and Sawicki would see the consctruction of
identity as a dialogue between institutions and individuals. In the profiles
of the above four people, we can see that some of AOL’s identifiers are casually
accepted, while some are ignored or subverted. Not one of the four people
above, for example, have gender-neutral profiles. Even Chris, who is the
only one of the four to play with gender, has distinctly male or female profiles.
The validity of the identifier is not itself challenged, the way that
“Computers Used” is. “Computers Used” is, I believe, the single most ignored
or subverted field in the whole profile; the majority of profiles I examined
either left it blank or used the space for other purposes. Not many users
feel this is an identifier with any significance to them. The preset categories
do not force profiles into a certain mold, but they do require the user to
make a choice about acceptance or rejection of the given identifiers. In
addition, given the role of the profile as a tool for identification, the
information in the profile might be tailored so as to appeal to a certain
online community. Conventions are almost certainly forming among various
online sub-groups that will influence both the content and form of the profile,
certain accepted ways of subverting AOL’s preset conventions.
Obviously, this study is far from exhaustive;
what I hope I have done here is to bring conversation about online issues
of identity back into some sort of middle ground, away from extremes of either
essentialism or relativism. A reasonable next step in this sort of discussion
might be to conduct some sort of study to see how far online personas diverge
from the socially apprehensible citizens behind them: are there any patterns
to that divergence? I also limited my study to that information which is
contained in the profile itself, which I think we can agree does not comprise
the whole of even a perceived online identity; another approach might be
a sort of anthropological or cultural study of identity as expressed through
online interaction. Both of these approaches fall somewhat outside the scope
of this paper, but I believe they might yield valuable insight into the question
of online identity issues.
Alex Weirich
Northern Arizona University
Works Cited
Faigley, Lester Fragments of Rationality: Postmodernity and the Subject of Composition 1992, University of Pittsburgh Press
McCloud, Scott Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art 1993, Tundra Publishing Ltd.
Sawicki, Jana Disciplining Foucault: Feminism, Power, and the Body 1991, Routledge, Chapman, and Hall
Stone, Allucquere Rosanne, The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age 1995, MIT Press
Links to Other Sites
James Berlin's Social-Epistemic Rhetoric
: A paper by Dennis Ciesielski of Peru State College which focuses on how
Berlin's theory emphasizes dialogic practice.
Allucquere Rosanne (Sandy) Stone's
Homepage : A homepage chock full of everything you might possibly want
to know about the author of The War of Desire and Technology, including
links to some of her shorter essays.
Links to Faigley-related Sites
Excerpts from Fragments of Rationality
: A few selections from Faigley's book, in which the author examines
views of postmodernism.
Lester Faigley's Home Page : Information
about the author himself, as well as links to some of his additional works.
Links to McCloud and Comics-related Sites
Understanding Comics : The Invisible
Art : A review by Alessandro Bertolucci in Switch, an online
magazine. The review includes hyperlinked excerpts from the work itself.
Comic Books Go Digital
: An article from the New York Times Cybertimes on the interaction of
comic books and Internet technology, which includes a few thoughts from McCloud
himself on the future of the form.
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