This page is referenced by:

• 1 media/images.jpeg 2017-11-14T07:10:16-08:00 Social Media: A Multi-user Virtual Environment 28 plain 556256 2017-12-15T08:05:41-08:00

   

  When discussing social media it is important to differentiate what media platforms can be dubbed as “social media.” For this distinction it is best to include all multi-user virtual environments ranging from an online game community like the popular Second Life, to the more widely accepted social media networks such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. The users of these platforms are a real life individual, or, in some cases, a group of individuals. They exist in the public sphere made up of the game or network space, as they interact with other real life users, but also are simultaneously existing in a private sphere as well, do to the fact that their real world identity is shrouded behind the virtual. For example, a user may create an avatar or profile using a name, gender, physical characteristics, or even species that does not apply to their real world identity. This then creates an anonymity or unknown quality about the actual real life individual, keeping the social media grounded in the private as well as public. When discussing this threshold of virtual versus actual identities it is important to note that one cannot assume or assign a “true” identity as some users believe that the virtual identity is a realization or extension of their actual or true identity. For example, in Micha Cardenas piece, "Becoming Dragon: A Transversal Technology Study," Cardenas discusses a user who identifies as a fox since seven years of age and that the virtual world of Second Life offers her reprieve in allowing her to be in this form, “ For Alynna, Second Life is the only place where she can be her ‘true self’...” (Cardenas). This is also applicable on the more largely used platforms like Facebook or Twitter, as one can use any image, whether it is their own, a friend or family member’s, or one pulled from the web of a complete stranger, as their profile picture and other images of “themself.” While interacting in the public sphere without having to actually be a physical part of the public sphere, anyone can make themselves appear differently online than they do in the physical world. Cardenas corroborates this in the statement, “In multi-user virtual environments one has the ability to test out a new body, a new kind of hair, or a new gender in a social realm where one has the visual image of that new body” (Cardenas).  Meaning, social media allows for a desired self-image to be reflected to a large audience of people, giving a sense of how that may be in the real world. However, this virtual identity is not the user’s current physical identity, making the user resemble a sort of cyborg as one does not fully exist in the public or the private sphere, or the physical world or virtual world.

   
• 1 media/images.jpeg 2017-11-28T07:01:22-08:00 Cyborgs in a Multi-user Virtual Environment 14 plain 556262 2017-12-15T08:13:22-08:00

  The type of cyborg that the users of multi-user virtual environments resemble is best defined by using the definition provided in Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” as she describes the cyborg as, “...a creature who lives in both ‘social reality’ and ‘fiction’ and who performs and speaks in a ‘middle voice’ that is forged in the amalgam of technology and biology…” (Haraway, 291). Meaning, the cyborg can be defined as something on the threshold between something organically made, a physical human body for example, and something virtual. This “middle voice” that Haraway discusses is the interaction that this cyborg being has both in the physical world and the virtual world, or the public and the private sphere. This definition of the cyborg and their actions within this combination between actual and virtual can be directly applied to the users of social media who may not claim their real world identity in a MUVE and instead use a different identity. Like the cyborg, the individual is comprised of the human body, which is the real world identity, and also comprised of the virtual component, or their online interactions and identity as seen by the social media. The social reality being discussed in the quote also lends itself to a reading of being a public sphere, meaning, then,  that the fictional aspect in discussion is the private sphere. While understood that social media is a public sphere that remains partially grounded in the private sphere, a user would also take on these attributes, both comprised of physical and virtual, and existing in both the private and public spheres. The user that acquired a name, gender, physical characteristics, or species, whether through avatar form or through profile images, other than their physical real world identity is existing in both the social reality and the fictional reality they have created for themselves.
   

  The reasoning for altering one’s identity virtually may be done for a variety of reasons including, entertainment, realization of fantasy, or exploration of who or what their “true self” is comprised of. This private sphere proves to be a widely used outlet for this type of exploration because of the lack of actual real life consequences. This idea is noted in “Becoming Dragon,” “While experimenting… in MUVE, one is free of the social consequences and physical dangers of such experimentation in one’s daily life” (Cardenas). In addition, Cardenas argues that when an individual is given the  opportunity to explore this new identity in a virtual public sphere it may give them further confidence to begin to show this identity in a real world public sphere as well. “By gauging the social reactions of other users of the MUVE, one can get a small taste or idea of the social possibilities in the physical world” (Cardenas). That is, an individual may feel more readily prepared or motivated to reveal their true identity after it has been lived out in a virtual manner because of the fact that the virtual world still operates in the physical world, as it deals with actual, in real life, human users. By measuring the response through a virtual lense the user is able to prepare oneself for the real world reveal if they should choose to go ahead with it. This relates to the idea of a spectrum of interactions between the two spheres. The user who took to social media and created a virtual identity without disclosing any information on their physical identity existed mainly on the solely virtual side of the spectrum, however, when they make the choice to integrate their virtual and physical identities together they move further up on the spectrum towards the physical identity and public sphere.