Power: who has it online?
Firstly I signed up to a website known as
BigFooty, a forum primarily discussing Australian Rules Football for my Blogs. Unfortunately
I have been a member of this forum since 2007. Members from across the globe gather
to a central location to discuss various topics of interests, not just
specifically AFL related, which are archived. Additionally, Moderators are the enforcers
of the website, charged with upholding the established posting rules.
Members all go by an alias, thus stripping away the social
barriers that otherwise restrict individuals within a physical conversation.
This in turn reduces ad hominem attacks whilst highlighting the relationship
of powers involving Domination, Competition and Cooperation (Petray, 2013).
However; since everyone starts on equal footing, power is shared with those who
create rational, critically argued content (Competition). Accordingly, other
members tend to react positively and ‘like’ a post that adds value to the
discussion (Cooperation). Moreover; since power “is a relational effect of social
interaction” (Allen, 2003, p.2), members possess the ability to report
offensive content and moderators in turn issue penalties, usually in the form
of censorship of content and/or account infractions (Domination).
Although the anonymity of an online pseudonym provides a
measure of disconnect between one’s identities in the physical world and
online, a sense of self-surveillance looms as your behaviour online can be linked back to you by those
who know how to Dox an individual. Basically the aim of doxxing is to “poke
through internet documents to try to reveal real-life names behind anonymous
identities” (Davison, 2012).
Through search engines such as Google, this information can
be easily available. In other words; whilst a nom de plume can empower one to
express opinions much more freely and openly, the anonymity if far from infallible
and you never know who may be lurking in the shadows.
Reference List:
Allen, J. (2003). Introduction: lost geographies, Lost geographies of power (p. 2). Malden, MA: USA.
Davison, J. (Oct 22, 2012). CBC news.
Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/10/19/f-doxing-tracking-online-identity-anonymity.html
Petray, T. (2013). Power:
big brother and self-surveillance (Lecture slides week 2). Retrieved From: https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-1234213-dt-content-rid-940576_1/courses/13-BA1002-TSV-INT-SP2/BA1002%20Lecture%202.pdf?target=blank
Reed, M.
(n.d.). Flame Warriors. [Photograph]. Retrieved August 15, 2013 from
Great post, Stephen!
ReplyDeleteYou wrote: "an online pseudonym provides a measure of disconnect between one’s identities in the physical world and online"
I thought so too, until I read A Rape in Cyberspace. It's set in LambdaMOO, a virtual reality site whose members have avatars they can program to do as they wish. Seems someone had a rampage and upset (to put it mildly) a couple of female players. Author Julian Dibbell (1998) wrote: "To participate, therefore, in this disembodied enactment of life’s most body-centered activity is to risk the realization that when it comes to sex, perhaps the body in question is not the physical one at all, but its psychic double, the bodylike self-representation we carry around in our heads — and that whether we present that body to another as a meat puppet or a word puppet is not nearly as significant a distinction as one might have thought."
That's an interesting notion, and it made me think these MUDs are more closely allied to real life than they are to the forums and social networks we're writing about here. If they’re generating real emotion – and why should that surprise us? – online attacks will have the same psychological effects as real ones.
But just how safe are online social networks? I stick to forums precisely because they don’t intersect with my real life. Facebookers, even those with fake usernames known only to friends and family, run the risk of an online spat (or an offline spat that continues online), after which potentially their entire online network can start taking sides. In public. That would... generate unpleasant emotion, wouldn’t it?
REFERENCE
Dibbell, J. (1998). A Rape in Cyberspace (Or TINYSOCIETY, and How to Make One). My Tiny Life. Retrieved from http://www.juliandibbell.com/articles/a-rape-in-cyberspace/