Why online communicators must understand online identity

I was at the Chinwag event the Dark Side of Social Media on Tuesday night which explored the down side of social networks and the growing culture of openness and participation.

A lot of the event covered Andrew Keen's favourite issues like cyber-stalking; spam and other malicious activity by internet-users. While still valuable, these discussions still strike me as a social problem rather than one created by technology. But that's another post for another day.

Anyway, what really got me thinking were discussions about online identity - as raised by panellist, Luke Razzell - but a train of thought originally kick-started by Elizabeth Albrycht from the Society for New Communications Research over at her Corporate PR blog.

Elizabeth examined the nature of online identity following initial explorations by the late French philosopher Jean Baudrillard. Elizabeth's article was a fantastic example of somone applying Einstein's maxim "a problem cannot be solved with the same mindset with which it was created" to the online world and the roles of individuals within that world.

I won't go over the article in-depth as you can read it for yourself, but the argument goes something like this:

• For a few years people have claimed that the internet has opened up a new era where 'everyday' people can enjoy political power;
• This argument uses the idea of a "dualism" - or could we say dialectic? - which places a traditional "command/control" process against a disintermediated or distributed media network
• This dichotomy positions people as either "spectators" (passive readers or media consumers in a traditional world) or as "actors" (in a social media, participatory media world";
• While some evangelists of social media claim this fragmentation leads linearly to a destruction of institutional control (media, government, business etc), surely the outcome of this would simply be the direct opposite of the exisiting situation?
• What Elizabeth proposes - after Baudrillard - is a post-structuralist re-working of this dualism whereby individuals online are (in Baudrillard's original) 'figurants interactif' - which she translates as 'by-standers' or 'extras' in a theatrical sense;
• The interpretation of this leads us to a situation where individuals online are both part of the action ("actors") while at the same time standing by and watching the action ("spectators");
• Baudrillard refers to this as the "interactive extra" - ie. someone who is both taking part in the action by being online and yet watching the action by not contributing to the distributed media they are part of;
• What this leaves us with, is a revised notion of online identity; different from the offline conceptualisation of individual identity we currently have;
• This revised identity refuses the traditional, dichotomous position of "command/control" vs. "distributed networks" and gives us an entirely new way of viewing and understanding indivduals in their online existence.

As a PR or marketing professional you may well be wondering what does this mean for me? The answer of course lies in the fundamental role for communication experts: understanding your audience (or more accurately network).

So, even practitioners who "get" social media have been - argubly - still rolling out Web 2.0 tools and technology from the standpoint of 'mass media' where we have had traditionally deliniated audiences or markets.

If we take this one-step further then we must start to appreciate that individuals may have started to develop new identities that are unique to our existence in  networked, online world; and in fact these new identities actually resist the identities with which traditional frameworks and conventional media/society have built up and made us comfortable with over the past century.

My point is: when we start to connect the new ways individuals are behaving in an online, networked world with the possibility they/we are developing new identities to match we are all the more closer to undertanding how to communicate with more effectively.

Technorati tags: online+identity; virtual+identity; Chinwag; Luke+Razzell; Elizabeth+Albrycht; Jean+Baudrillard; post-structuralism; social+media; new+media; online+communications

Comments

[Suzanne]

Interesting food for thought. As a traditional direct marketer from way back, I feel like I can segment a customer base in my sleep, while drunk :) I know my audience. I can target that audience, and all the segments within it with the right message, the right offer and through the right channel.

But, how do we deal with new, made-up identities? Hmmm. Will have to think on this one.

[Suzanne]

Interesting food for thought. As a traditional direct marketer from way back, I feel like I can segment a customer base in my sleep, while drunk :) I know my audience. I can target that audience, and all the segments within it with the right message, the right offer and through the right channel.

But, how do we deal with new, made-up identities? Hmmm. Will have to think on this one.

[Simon Collister]

Hi Suzanne. Thanks for stopping by. I was thinking more about this on the tube this morning.

Essentially, people are all complex beings with a myriad of overlapping interests/needs/desires etc.

Problem is, marketing has always had to simplify these complex personas (personae?) in order to target them.

The Cluetrain Manifesto authors point out that this approach has never been successful (response rates of 1%?).

The internet allows to explore our complex needs/desires and our challenge as communicators is understand how this is developing and adjust our behaviour accordingly.

[Ian Green]

Great post Simon. I've been thinking about this for a while now particularly with Fuelmyblog because every blogger on the site has completely different needs.
It is the same with social media - which makes our job in communications not so much difficult but rather hard graft.
Web2.0 does allow for the broadcast but more an more we will broadcasting to an audience of one as well as millions.
Getting the balance right is the main thing.
Ian

[Sam Michel]

Great write-up. Anyone referencing a French philosopher in relation to online identity is clearly thinking this through.

The event really got me thinking about the nuance of representing real-world relationships online. But I think you're right about how the online world creates mechanisms for entirely new relationships.

And we're really only at the start. I hope we'll be able to explore this in more detail at future events. Thanks for coming along.

[Simon Collister]

Goodp oints, Ian. two things stick out: 1) social madia should make communicating with other peopke much easier on a human, level if we can be open and honest. From a professional pov, it can make things harder as we still get over the hang-up on 'mass communication' and learn to speak to groups of 3 or 4. Problem logisitically comes when we need to speak openly and engage fully with big groups of individuals. This is different from MASS communication and is extremely time/labour intensive.

@Sam - good event! I think a really exciting part of all this is trying to understand how we can view emerging technologies and ideas through an existing worldview that is not yet ready to accommodate them. More please...!

[dan mcquillan]

I hear a lot of post-structuralist echoes in the way social web participants describe what they're up to.

Just take a couple of Lynetter's Interesting Snippets as an example;

online readers compose their own beginning middle end
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lynetter/2724108355/in/set-72057594139269787/

in order to exist online we must write ourselves into being
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lynetter/392485945/in/set-72057594139269787/