I’ve just read an article by Helen Kennedy titled Beyond anonymity where she argues:

that online identities are often continuous with offline selves, not reconfigured versions of subjectivities in real life; for this reason it is necessary to go beyond internet identities, to look at offline contexts of online selves, in order to comprehend virtual life fully. […] If internet identity research is to reposition itself conceptually […] then it needs to engage with and learn from ongoing debates within cultural studies which call into questions the usefulness of the context of identity.

She draws on a history of research into online identities that was started by Sherry Turkle’s seminal work, Life on the Screen. For Kennedy, we have historically viewed online identity as something played out, performed, enacted as if we were actors on stage. She believes that this view falls short of the real story of people’s engagement with their online selves, and that cybercultural studies needs to acknowledge that the playing out of identity happens in the flow between our online and offline selves.

Though I found the article useful, it was kind of a “like d’uh” moment when I read this. My experience of blogging, and my reading of bloggers, tells me the formation of identity online is intrinsically linked with offline experiences. Bloggers in my sample tend not to separate their blogging journey from the rest of their lives, but endeavour to incorporate their experiences in the real world in the virtual.

It’s making me think that we should not consider blogging identities as things that are “formed”, but things that are “-formed”, i.e. we need some prefixes here. I can think of three; what do you think?

  • Conforming identities: bloggers endeavour to fit into a blogging community, whether it be the EC blogosphere, the anti-Bush or the pro-working mothers blogging community. Bloggers talk of their experiences, desires and attitudes as similar to some others, and different from others still.
  • Transforming identities: bloggers place themselves on the screen, and enter the virtual world, for experiences that will change them, lead them to new aspirations and desires, enlarge their small notions, meet strange new people.
  • Reforming identities: bloggers meet to promote change in their offline lives.

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