It’s been a busy few weeks, and most of it’s been taken up with school. Here’s a quick overview of the high points. That is: here’s a look at the three 7,000+ word papers I’m writing.
History of Ancient Philosophy – I’m doing a discussion on Aristotle’s take on creation, destruction, generation, and obliteration. This is interestingly related to the stuff we’re doing in Metaphysics, so I think I can do some cool synthesis work. It should be fun, and not too hard.
Social Stratification – I’m doing a significantly more challenging paper on the social implications of the Digital Divide (the stratification between those with regular computer/internet access and those without it). I’m doing this in two parts. First I’m laying out the problem of the Digital Divide as it has been historically articulated, pointing out some of the more recent (and more useful, I think) formulations of the problem, and demonstrating some of the ways in which it is self-perpetuating (stratifying). Then I’m going to lay out some of the specific implications the Digital Divide has on other areas of stratification. I’m going to talk primarily about productive socialization (via third places) and the tendency of internet communication to up-shift social ties (specifically the tendency to actualize latent social ties). This is a dang fun paper, even if it involves lots and lots of research.
Deviance – This is the big paper. This is the one I’m intending to use as my grad school writing sample. Unfortunately, it’s extremely difficult. Not to write, and not to think about, but to research. The thrust of the paper is that the fact that we are unable/unwilling to use internet pseudonyms in everyday conversation artificially fragments communities across the internet/’real world’ split. It is extremely difficult to import ideas, and especially discussion, from the internet to local communities because it is difficult to identify the source. I don’t tell people that ‘unrequited Thai’ came up with such-and-such.
The problem is that I can’t find any research on the topic. There’s plenty of research for some of my secondary points (the value of anonymous/pseudonymous communication, that internet communities provide valuable information). But as far as I can tell, no one has done any research on referencing online pseudonyms in face-to-face conversation.
So, I call on you, internet genie! I call on the power of weak ties! Anyone know of any published research on this subject? How about people doing research who haven’t published yet? And if neither of those are in existence, how can I construct this argument?
At the moment, my fallback is going to be to demonstrate the perceived unreliability of anonymous sources and then try to draw a link between anonymity and pseudonymity. But I’m not sure that’ll be possible.
Help!
Thomas
Hmm. I KNOW that I know stuff about this, but I’m having trouble pulling it out of the junkbin that is my mind. Have you tried Sherry Turkle, Judith Donath or Dmitri Williams? IIRC Judith Donath has a whole paper about connecting online and offline identities. I feel like Julian Dibbell might have something on it too, but his stuff tends to be more journalistic.
You could also try looking at stuff around ARGs and MMORPGs; maybe poke through the Escapist archives to see if anyone there is doing journalism about this & can point you to their sources?
anecdotal: I have friends that do have IRL conversations using internet monikers. This correlates to a microculture with a high rate of altered self-image.
I wonder if you could tie it to American Indians and other groups with meaningful names using more common names? I’d imagine there are papers on why “Runs Like a Horse” calls himself “Robert.” There are possibly also papers talking about why some hardcore pagans use names like “Raven Stormfollower.”
I noticed the effect you’re talking about when Tetsujin28 died. People would awkwardly call him “Britt” though that’s not how they knew him… Likewise when Gharlane of Eddore died some years back, it was a big thing for the Usenet folks to find out his real name and identity.
As the leader of a fairly large online community with annual RL get-togethers and a small group of locals who get together fairly often IRL, I can say that we use online identities somewhat interchangeably with offline identities. I don’t know if that’s useful to you or not.
This happens every so often with me, but there’s an important note here, and I’m wondering if it’s the same with you: I only use internet pseudonyms when talking inside the group. I would never talk to my sister about the latest thing ‘Latent Blue’ said. I might to you or to Jon or to someone else I take to be already inside, but never to an outsider to the social circle. Is it like that with you?
Thomas
It is. I mean, I’m not really familiar with Firan (as you know), but I’ll ask you the same question I asked Annie:
Do you use these references only within the group, or do you do it outside the group too? Like, if I’m talking to my friend Nikki (who doesn’t know you and who you don’t know), and I wanted to tell her about some clever thing that you said or were working on or whatever, I would never use a pseudonym. It wouldn’t feel right. I’d credit you by name or as ‘this guy I know online’.
Does that match up with your own experience, or do you find yourself using pseudonyms to refer to members of the group when talking to outsiders?
Thomas
I’d say no, because I’m not part of the aforementioned group. People use the psudonyms to/near me without ever explaining who they “really” are. If I ask, the person talking will tell me where they know person X from, not what their real name is.
Are you going to do any tangent research about people changing their first names with having nothing to do with the internet?
One day I plan on doing quite a bit of research on identity construction (of which name-changing is a part). It’s a fascinating topic, and one that everyone in my family is sick to death of hearing me babble about. Sadly, there’s no space in my current schedule to do any. But never fear, one day I shall win the lottery and be able to do whatever research I want!
Thomas