Created: January 23 2020

IDENTITY AND PERSONAL BRANDING

What makes up an identity?  Identity is who a person is, or the qualities of a person or group that make them different from others (Cambridge Dictionary, 2019). People may mention their religion, ethnicity, politics, sexuality, or their personal traits. There are three ways to define identity: subjectivity (how we think of ourselves), representation (how different facets of identity are depicted in culture and media); or self-presentation (how we present ourselves to others). Personal identity refers as an individual, while social identity as a member of a group (Marwick, 2013).

There are a various theories on identity and how they are based, the five main ones are: static, meaning it is singular, fixed, and unchanging throughout a lifetime or an essential personality that remains constant, for example, race, class, and gender; context (where they are) and audiences (who they’re with); ‘race’ and ‘gender’; mass media and consumer goods; or project, something that can be actively worked on (Marwick, 2013). However, postmodern researchers have focused on identity as a text or discourse than behavioral observations, and we must “approach identity as a source of mobilization rather than a product of it” (Altheide, 2011).

Identity online is also the “authoring of self as a living-out of these states of being, becoming, belonging, and behaving through a range of everyday social and discursive practices that are connected with the body. Yet it is also about a close editing of self, ‘it’s me, but minus the things I don’t like about me’” (Thomas, 2007). The construction of identity is through customization, personalizing profiles signal status, and cultural affiliation (Marwick, 2013).

There is a difficulty in the maintenance of online identity, which results to “context collapse”. It is a concept of “flattening out of multiple distinct audiences in one’s social network, such that people from different contexts become part of a singular group of message recipients” (Vitak, 2012). In return, people created various techniques in handling context collapse, such as producing multiple accounts for specific audiences. Like myself, who has one account for family and friends and another for artworks.

As an aspiring video game programmer, it’s essential to have my own identity, especially having a reputable online presence to gain large base of ‘followers’ which is an edge for getting recruited. My favorite example is Angela He, not because of her massive audiences, but it’s because of her ability to maintain professionalism, yet giving behind-the-scenes of her works, which draws the audience in to know more about her.

References

Altheide, D. (2011, December 22). Identity and the Definition of the Situation in a Mass‐Mediated Context. Retrieved from Wiley Online Library: https://doi.org/10.1525/si.2000.23.1.1

Cambridge Dictionary. (2019). Identity. Retrieved January 1, 2020, from Cambridge Dictionary: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/identity

Marwick, A. (2013). Online Identity. In I. J. Hartley, J. Burgess, & A. Bruns, A Companion to New Media Dynamics (pp. 355-364). West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell. Retrieved January 5, 2020

Thomas, A. (2007). Youth Online: Identity and Literacy in the Digital Age. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Retrieved January 7, 2020

Vitak, J. (2012). The Impact of Context Collapse and Privacy on Social Networking Site Disclosures. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 451-470. Retrieved January 7, 2020

Bibliography

Barbaschow, A. (2019, November 25). Australia Post floats QR scanning or mobile number entry alongside its digital ID to watch porn online. Retrieved from https://www.zdnet.com/article/australia-post-floats-qr-scanning-or-mobile-number-entry-alongside-its-digital-id-to-watch-porn-online/

Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2015, September 24). How different are your online and offline personalities? Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2015/sep/24/online-offline-personality-digital-identity

Kimery, A. (2019, November 22). Consumers still wary of digital identity security risks, study finds. Retrieved from https://www.biometricupdate.com/201911/consumers-still-wary-of-digital-identity-security-risks-study-finds