Back stage front stage

Today I enjoyed an interesting chat with Dr. Robert Nagy over lunch in Liberec, in the North of the Czech Republic. Robert is a lecturer both at the Technical University of Liberec and also at Charles University in Prague. He's a fellow psychologist, and we had a lot to chat about subsequent to him sitting in on one of my sessions this morning.

I was discussing one of my favourite theories with the group - Erving Goffman's Drama model of social interaction. Goffman suggests that each of us attempts to 'manage our impression' before our 'audience' as if we were performing on a stage. Front stage representation draws upon scripts, costumes, roles and props, as each person tries to present themselves in their most favourable manner. Back stage is different - this is the region where we are at our most informal, and where we let our guard down. I was applying Goffman's theory to online spaces such as social networks. I asked the group how many of them had a Facebook account. Of course, as I expected, everyone did. Next we discussed how people represent themselves on Facebook through their profiles, pictures, games they play, groups they join, and people they 'friend' online. Part of the downside of Facebook, I reminded them, is when you (or someone else) posts images of yourself onto the site. It's difficult to remove them once they are posted, and if they are tagged, it is easy to find them. Most people don't mind this, we agreed, but if an image is inappropriate (falling out of a pub at 3 am, the worse for wear), this may work against you when you apply for a job and your prospective employer decides to check you out on Facebook.

The problem, I theorised, is that many Facebook users perceive the social network as a 'back stage' area where they can let their hair down a little, remove their mask, relax and banter with their friends, and generally say what they want to. The mistake of course, is that Facebook is quite public (depending on how you manage your privacy controls) and open to many people to view. In reality it is a front stage region, yet with your guard down, you are likely to make a public fool of yourself if you are not careful and think you are bacjstage. The rules of social interaction, I suggested, are changing.

Afterwards, over lunch, Robert expressed doubt that the rules are actually changing. His argument is that most social conventions are usually quite rigid and that bad or good behaviour is the same, whatever platform, real or virtual, it is acted out upon. To an extent I agreed, but I pointed out that some conventions are in fact changing because of new affordances being introduced by technology. What is considered rude or aggressive by one person may not be seen as such by another. An innocent text message sent by one person may be construed by its recipient to be offensive or threatening. This may be due to a reduction in social cues, or simply not enough supplementary information being embedded within the text. Failure to include emoticons, or other 'non-textual' communication may render the message void of emotion, and then readers are left up to their own devices to decide whether the message is in fact ironic, or sent with some malice. Lack of experience in an online environment may lead the recipient to take the least form of resistance and miscontrue the message.

For me, the rules of engagement are changing to adapt to the technology that is increasingly mediating our conversations. The reduced or 'squeezed' text that is redolent of short message services such as mobile texting has spawned a new style of communication. If you are on the inside you will ROFL when you read the message. If you are on the outside, and not used to this style of communication, you may very well take offense or miss the point. So are the rules of social interaction changing, or are they the same as they ever were, just dressed up in a different form?

Image source by Slimmer_Jimmer


Back stage front stage by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Multiple identities

Who am I? What is my online persona? Do I present myself as the same in every situation? What do I change about me when I find myself in an unfamiliar context? How do I act differently when I'm in a reduced social cue context such as text based communication? These and many other questions are currently being addressed by researchers who are interested in the study of digital identity. It's a growth area of research for at least one very good reason. Digital identity affects us all, no matter what our age or social-economic background we come from. Technology mediated communication and pervasive computing affect everyone in the Western industrialised world. Without it we couldn't pay our bills, access information or travel distances. We rely on digital media for learning, business, entertainment and a host of other daily activities. Without knowing it, when we interact with these technologies, our behaviour changes. But there are many questions: Is my behaviour dictated by my identity? Or does my identity change because my behaviour does? Does my identity change when I am on Facebook? Do I modify my speech or the way I present myself when I'm speaking on the telephone, or on Instant Messaging, or Skype, or a webcam link? When I post up a blog, how different is that style of writing to the style I would use in say, an e-mail? Or a collaborative environment such as a wiki? And does my Second Life avatar bear any resemblance to my real life persona at all?

Dave Birch thinks there is huge scope for individuals to maintain multiple identities in cyberspace. In an interesting piece called Put your game face on, Birch points out that anonymity can enable people to reveal as much or as little of their true identity as they wish, and that this kind of false identity maintenance can lead to questionable or even dangerous behaviour. This has obvious implications for child safety.

And what of the image above? Well, yes, the pictures above are of me on my Flickr site (with a little image manipulation too, for this blogpost), and some are of me with famous British entertainers such as Matthew Kelly and Johnny Ball and well known American authors and educators such as Steven Berlin Johnson and Marc Prensky. You're probably thinking now that I spend my time seeking out celebrities to have my pictures taken with them. But the truth is, I was at the same events, got talking, and it was nice to have a picture taken to mark the occasion. All except Matthew Kelly that is. We spent time at university together and we are old friends. Together, we once did a psychology field experiment where we walked Matthew (he was already famous then) into several shops unannounced, to ask for change for a £20 note, and then observed the behaviour of the shop assistants. They changed considerably, even to the point where they broke shop rules by handing over change for a £20 note when no purchase had been made. If they couldn't get the cash register open, they were opening their own purses and wallets to hand over the change. Most interestingly, when asked a question by the unknown person, the shop assistants were all observed to answer Matthew Kelly instead. Their behaviour definitely changed. We did a control experiment with two unknown people and were almost thrown out of shops or largely ignored. My explanation for this behaviour was based on Erving Goffman's dramaturgical theory in that we forced them from front stage (professional rule bound role) to back stage (relaxed and informal role) so that they broke their own rules because they had been pleasantly surprised. This celebrity effect is just one way we see changes in behaviour. If someone famous walks into the room, we stare. Or we purposefully don't stare. Either way, our behaviour is being modified. Whether or not this causes us to adopt different identities has yet to be established. But this we do know - everyone is capable of acting out multiple identities - to suit the changing environments and shifting contexts modern life presents.


Multiple identities by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Digital literacy 5: Making an impression

If all the world is a stage, I demand better lighting! I also want someone to prompt me when I forget my lines. Some better costumes would be nice. Oh, and more exotic scenery? And while we're at it, how about a better script - one that more accurately reflects my true feelings....

When William Shakespeare wrote those immortal lines ... (the ones about all of life being a stage and the people being the actors on it ... not all the other stuff above. That was just me sounding off) he was implying that not only is life transitory, but that each of us performs several roles throughout our lives. It also implies an audience of some kind. I infer from this that each of us also plays some roles reluctantly, possibly because we are constrained to act in ways that sometimes do not accurately represent the real 'me'. But what is the real 'me'? Sometimes that changes with context doesn't it? Or how I'm feeling today? Or perhaps it changes depending on my relationships with the people who are in close proximity to me while I am acting out that particular role?

The social anthropologist Erving Goffman tried to address these questions when he proposed his 'dramaturgy' model of sociology - his interpretation of the presentation of self in every day life. For Goffman, human behaviour is very much dependent on time, space and audience. By audience, he meant those who are observing the actor, or with whom s/he interacts with. In essence, Goffman argued that the way each of us present ourselves to others is carefully managed around the cultural values, norms, and expectations that are commonly held by actor and audience. Watch how a comedian, stage actor or pop singer manipulates their audience and you will see how much they desire to be liked, accepted and paid attention to. According to Goffman, the way each of us respresents ourselves to others involves some kind of role playing (self representation) and can also involve scripts (speech patterns) props and costumes, just like an actor does for a stage performance. Such management of impression is common to all humans and is used to form connections and gain influence with others.

The rapid emergence of digital media and the phenomenal growth in popularity of self broadcasting and publishing through social media, asks some new questions about how people represent themselves in virtual spaces. Sherry Turkle was one of the first people to conduct detailed studies into 'Life on Screen' by observing behaviour in multiple user domains (MUDs). Published in 1995, at the early edge of the Web, Turkle showed how many people employ multiple identities in virtual worlds, and that in some case these become as real to them as their identity in 'real life'. Her studies led Sherry Turkle to propose that new forms of personal identity are emerging as a result of prolonged interaction with others through technology - that our identities are increasingly multiple and decentred.

I won't go into details here, but there is further evidence to suggest that people portray themselves differently depending on the social media platform they use - and through text and other media. This may mean the same person using different avatars (images or animated characters used to represent real objects), usernames and forms of interaction, to suit the different norms and social expectations of the communities that frequent those various environments. In the context of my initial metaphor, some social media have better 'lighting' and 'scenery' than others. The audiences change, some more friendly than others. But how much does the actor actually change, and to what extent do they manage their impressions to suit the expectations of their audiences? And how much should each of us pay attention to the way we manage our online impression - our digital identity? Cue the opening music - positions, please.... Next week: Content creation.

Image source


Making an impression by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.