MMCC2141 WK 6 Social Media and Identity: An In-Depth Exploration

Speaker: Rowan Tulloch
Topic: Intersection of social media and data, focusing on identity, privacy, and control.
- Key questions:
- Who has access to our information?
- What is done with our information?
- How does this shape identity and engagement in cyber cultural spaces?
Purpose: To encourage reflection on how identity is formed and expressed through engagement with social networks and media technologies.

Theoretical approach, includes complex ideas that will be explored further in tutorials.
Importance of grappling with dense theories to foster understanding of identity.

Focus on the historical and philosophical notion of identity and subjectivity.
- Subjectivity: Refers to the notion of the individual as a subject (the question of 'I').
Discussion of:
- Cohesive individuals vs. fragmented subjectivities.
- The identity problem in early social media and how it relates to fragmented identities.

Sherry Turkle: Influential theorist on online interactions and communities.
- Key points from Turkle:
- Individuals possess multiple identities based on roles (e.g., student, employee, friend).
- Online personas should be regarded as legitimate expressions of identity rather than secondary or inauthentic.

Postmodernism's influence:
- Shift from a singular identity (modernity) to contextual, fragmented identities (postmodernity).
- Identity perceived as fluid, context-dependent, and performative in various situations.

Rise of authenticity discourse alongside social media.
- Social media emphasizes the need for presenting a singular, "true" identity.
- Issues with reductive concepts of authenticity, which often assume a static notion of identity.
- Recommended reading: Alan Taylor's "Authenticity as Performativity on Social Media."

Early platforms allowed for identity experimentation and anonymity (e.g., bulletin boards, Usenet).
Users could present varied identities without real-world constraints.

Sean Parker: Co-founder of Facebook.
- Facebook's goal: Connect real lives with virtual identities.
- Identity Problem: How to facilitate social networking when users were not using real names?
- Commercial implications: fragmented identities lead to decreased accountability and challenging advertising targeting.
Facebook's Solution: Single Profile Creation
- Required users to register with real names, initially via college emails to ensure authenticity.
- Enforced the idea of a singular, cohesive identity in contrast to pre-existing online freedoms.

Facebook's model established norms for subsequent social media platforms.
Debate regarding whether this is a regression to modernist identity notions or a step towards improved accountability.

Introduction to Foucault's notion of power and societal functions:
- Sovereign Society: Absolute power invested in a sovereign (king/queen) where individuals lack agency.
- Disciplinary Society: Power established through institutional norms and self-regulation, emphasizing societal norms.
- Control Society: Shifting towards managing individuals' data and electronic surveillance.

Surveillance: Ongoing observation of individuals leads to self-regulation.
Normalizing Judgements: Establishment of behavioral norms resulting in societal rewards/punishments.
Examination: Systems assessing adherence to norms, impacting societal progress and personal agency.

Panopticon: Metaphor introduced by Foucault to symbolize constant surveillance and self-regulation.
- Design allows prisoners to feel observed without knowing when.
- Encourages individuals to behave in accordance with societal norms.

Dividual: Conceptual shift from individual identity (cohesive self) to a multitude of data points defining a 'dividual'.
Control Society: Focus on data management rather than individual behavior or identity.

Jacques Deleuze: Philosophy that underpins the concept of control society;
- Individuals represented as data sets rather than singular identities.
- Society's power structures increasingly reliant on data rather than human judgment.

Threshold Mechanism: Individual data checked against preset criteria for access.
- Example: Algorithms processing loan approvals rather than personal evaluations by bank personnel.

Social media revolutionizes user interaction by emphasizing the dividualism of identity.
Importance of data is emphasized over qualitative identity measures.
Key takeaway: The success of social media lies in its ability to treat users as data sets for targeted advertising rather than recognizing complex individual identities.