online identity and social community
With the popularity of internet, people around the world enter the virtual world in different ways, for example, homepage, blog, online forum, online game, and online chat room. Engaged in virtual world, a new identity is recognized called online identity. This paper is to study contemporary issue over online identity and social community. The construction process of online identity will firstly be discussed with ideas of self-presentation and self- censorship. It will then follow by an in-depth investigation on the relationship between online and real life identity. Factors influencing the relationship will be illustrated with various scholars’ studies and researches. A great hit Japanese movie: “Denshaotoko” will be used as a reference to discuss online identity and the impacts of it on social community and relationship.
Construction of online identity
Online identity is a social identity that net users establish in virtual world. As other identity like social identity and cultural identity, it consists in part of who one thinks herself to be, how one wish others to perceive her, and how they actually perceive her.[1] However, online identity is slightly different from the above two in the sense that online identity does not require face to face interaction and it is hard to verify one’s identity in the cyber space.
Because of the difficulty on verifying one’s identity online, it is greatly depends on the internet users. The question of ‘how one wishes others to perceive her’ particularly plays an important role on the construction of online identity as a result. The process of building an image one wants others to perceive her is known as self-presentation.1 Again, one exerts greater control over his identity in the virtual environment than in face-to-face interaction. In online environment, one is recognized only by the verbal cues that he wishes others to know while both verbal and nonverbal cues are possible in face-to-face interaction. Language is therefore the primary and important vehicles for constructing identity. In other words, what people say about themselves and how they behave with others contributes to a perception of personal identity online.
However, online identity is not fixed. It is changeable instead. A personal online identity presented at the first place may not be the same as that of it after three months. Chandler pointed out that many personal homepage’s authors would like to use ‘under construction’ sign to inform the visitors that the website is temporarily closed but it will be reopened soon. But the truth is that they are building a representation of themselves for the consideration and approval of others.[2] Such a process is identified as self-censorship. Based on Cambridge Dictionaries Online, it is an act of controlling what he says or does in order to avoid annoying or offending others, but without being told officially that such control is necessary. The reason for self-censorship is related to Goffman’s idea of audience segregation. He argued that “if a person is caught presenting an unexpected aspect of herself to an unintended audience, that audience may become disillusioned not only about that aspect, but about the other ‘self’ more usually presented to them.”[3]
A research conducted by Roeder in 1997 further supports self- censorship behavior. It reports that almost (87%) interviewees said they had censored themselves in their online diaries while only few (13%) of them claimed they never had.[4] Although the survey and statistics mentioned involves homepage authors and diarists, it is still reasonable to predict that most internet users censor their online activities in order to maintain the image that they want the others to perceive them. Even though they had disclosed information they are unwilling to open to the audiences, self-censorship behavior still allows them to change the others’ perception on them, which finally change the original online identity.
Investigation on consistency between online identity and real life identity
Here, some may ask: “if it is possible for one to self-censor and modify her online identity, which one is truly reflect her real life identity?” or “is online identity consistent with real life identity?” In the following, Marx’s a continuum of identity manipulation will firstly be illustrated and it will follow by an investigation of factors affecting the consistency between the two identities and lively examples found in “Denshaotoko”, a Japanese movie.
To understand more about online identity, Marx developed a continuum of identity manipulation in 1995. Along this continuum of identification, anonymity, pseudonymity and real life identity are known.[5] Anonymity means namelessness. When one values his privacy more than frankness, he uses anonymity to communicate with others. In the online community, anonymity protects one from privacy, reprisals and accountability and so they easily escape from the responsibility of what they said and what they did. Pseudonymity means an artificial or fictitious identity. As the same as anonymity, pseudonymity provides one with some degree of protection but on the other hand, it helps one to sharp his own image. In 1995, Bechar-Israeli discovered that there are seven categories of nicknames used by Internet Relay Chat participants.[6] It is interesting to discover that most frequently used pseudonyms are referential to some qualities of one’s identity. For example, about half (45%) of these participants adopted self-related names like ‘shydude’, ‘medoctor’ and ‘handsome’. These names reveal participants’ qualities on personality, profession and appearance respectively. 8% of the participant even used their real names like ‘Cortne’ and ‘SusanLee’. Real life identity is an identity that happens in real world or human situation. If one used his real life identity in online community, it is said that his online identity is consistent with his real life identity. He behaves in the online community as the same as he does in the real life or at least as close as he does in real life.
It would be irrational to reach a conclusion on the consistency between anonymity and real life identity or between pseudonymity and real life identity here since anonymity or pseudonymity is not a crucial element to decide whether one’s online behavior is in accordance with his real life behavior. We are now going to investigate the issue of consistency in terms of online anonymity, motivation, time and the theory of channel complementarity by Dutta-Bergman.
Undeniably, computer-mediated interaction (CMC) emphasizes verbal cues and allows greater control over self- presentation and it in turn increases the possibility of misrepresentation of self. Based on the “passing stranger” effect (Rubin, 1975) and the visual anonymity present in CMC (Joinson, 2001), under certain condition internet user disclose themselves more openly and honestly.[7] CDC has adopted in the field of education for nearly ten years or more, it is proved that online anonymity contributes to increased equity and higher participation rate.[8] Students reflect that they are less constrained by convection so that they feel no pressure and become more confident to express opinion and exchange with other students. In spite of the fact that this is the case in educational area, it is still applicable to any CMC. Bargh et al‘s research further supports this argument.[9] He found that relative online anonymity and the lack of a shared social network encourage one to reveal the negative side of the self. They are potentially more ‘brave’ to express their true selves that they want to express but unable to do in realistic world.
Initial motivation one carry out online activity also accounts for the openness and honesty of self-disclosure. Considering online dating environment, participants always tend to have an authentic self-disclosure. As the main goal of the online dating is romance relationship and face-to-face interaction is anticipated, participants are expected to truly express their feelings, thoughts and opinions so that they can understand their potential future partner and to be understood as well. Therefore, they are more open and honest to disclose themselves even the negative aspects of the self.[10] Besides, as a social being, we are requested to be bound to association and connection with others. When a relationship is developed and there is a possibility of future interaction, authentic self-disclosure likely takes place.
Time is another key element influencing the extent of self-disclosure. It is shown that the proportion of socioemotional content increases with interaction time in CMC.[11] Since revealing socioemotional content of oneself online is considered as coherent real life identity, when one spend more time on interacting with somebody online, his online identity would more close to his real life identity. Psychologically, when people encounter a situation that lack of visual and aural cues, it takes time for her to adapt the textual cues to manage uncertainty and develop rapport.[12] Unlike face-to-face communication, people can recognize the other through visual and non-verbal cues; CMC takes a longer time to use verbal cues to understand the other and develop trust. The extent of self-disclosure and consistency with real life identity thus depends on how long you interact with the person.
Dutta-Bergman’s the theory of complementarity further provides insights to the issue.[13] Actually, the theory is designed to explain the positive relationship between internet-based community use and community participation. It states that community-oriented individuals consider internet as another valuable source or media for them to gather information or entertain themselves so that internet and offline community is a complement rather than a substitute. A consistent underlying interest in a particular aspect (such as sports) drives him to read, watch, or listen to specific media content related to that aspect, for the purpose of satisfying needs, reinforcing preexisting interests and equipping themselves for community participation. In other words, when you get involved in a specific online activity, it means your interest associated with your real life identity is exposed and your true self is already present in the virtual world. Therefore, online and offline identity is consistent in some sense.
On the other hand, great equality environment encourages inconsistent online and offline identity. Everyone is supposed to be equal in the virtual world due to the lack of nonverbal cues. However, when one had bad experience online and felt that he is not being treated as equal, negative emotion and antisocial behavior is likely found. According to Howard Rheingold, ‘The same lack of social feedback that lowers inhibitions enough to promote self-disclosure among groups of people can also lower inhibitions enough for individuals to disrupt those groups and sometimes tear the delicate fabric of trust that has been carefully woven over months of conversation among disembodied strangers.’[14] Flaming is one of the common antisocial behaviors, resulting one behaves online inconsistent with real life situation.
“Denshaotoko”: Microcosm of contemporary issue over online identity and social community
In the following, a great hit Japanese movie: Denshaotoko is chosen as a case study, examining the above mentioned issue over online identity and a new topic about social community. A brief background and summary of the movie will firstly be introduced, followed by detailed discussion on the two contemporary issues.
“Denshaotoko” (translated in Train man) is a computer-aided love between a beauty and a youth. He is a computer engineer with tastelessly clothed and plain eyeglasses. Although he is timid and withdrawn, he saved a beautiful young lady from a molester in the train. At first sight, he had fallen in love with the lady. Their love story begins by a set of Hermes teacup which is a present the lady sent to the train man for thanking him. Without knowing how to ask for a date to the lady, he asks his friends on the internet relay chat (IRC) system for advice……
Actually “Denshaotoko” is not a fictional story but adapted from a true story of a 23 years old otaku (Japanese geek). Since he has no experience on dating a girl, he made a post on a Japanese mega IRC system 2 channel. (http://www.2ch.net/) Encourage by his net friends, he finally won the love from his dream lady. The identity of real train man so far had not exposed to the public, but the producer of television series did contact him for updated information.
Inconsistency between online and real life identity
Inconsistency between online and offline identity is firstly elaborated with two characters in the movie. The first one is the main character: train man. In the movie, train man
is isolated from the community and he has pretty poor social skills in reality whereas in the online environment, he participates in the online community and gets on well with others. Joinson and Bargh et al‘s insight over online anonymity give reason to such difference on the identity appearing on train man. Because of online anonymity and the lack of visual cues in CMC, people feel more comfortable and confident to reveal and express themselves so that high participation rate is encouraged. In “Denshaotoko”, train man is a 23 years old Japanese geek who is crazy about animation, cartoon and comic. In reality, train man is timid and withdrawn. He is antisocial, so he has no friend and no dating experience even he is already 23. Because of his strange outlook, he is alienated from the community as well.
However, engaged in IRC, as said by Joinson and Bargh et al, train man
differs from his real life identity. He performs confident and he is not silent but freely expresses his feeling and bother with the participants in IRC. He is no longer isolated from the community but become part of the online community and being support by many participants. When he tells his story and problems to the participants in IRC, he gets many warm responses like ‘Good show’ and ‘you have done a great job.’ When train man is bothered with how to date the lady, one participant encouraged him and said “She’s all alone, but you have all of 
us by your side”. He has friends here. Internet alters his online identity and offline identity greatly.
Another character considered as behaving different in online 
and offline world is another Otaku. (As all characters use anonymity in the movie, they have no name so let’s call him otaku.) Inside the online community, Otaku behaved as a normal teenager. He is confident and active. He gave advice to train man as if he is experienced in dating. However, audiences can find that Otaku stays in his room nearly throughout the movie. When his mum asked them to have dinner, he just replied her to leave it outside the room and he seemed like never walking out from his room. At the end of the movie, he finally walked out from his 
room. In the bus, a young lady sat beside him and he seemed to be shy. Therefore, it is discovered that his real life identity is similar as train man. He is timid, withdrawn and antisocial and has not many friends even girlfriends. His online image of dating expert and being able to communicate with others is different from real life situation.
Relationship between online identity and social community
In “Denshaotoko”, among train man net friends, there is 
one young office boy and one young housewife. They gave advice to train man separately. But, it is surprising to discover that they are actually a young couple. As you see in the images beside, their relationship is revealed by showing the scene of 5 net friends simultaneously. In which the audiences can find that they are at the same house. While the young housewife opened the door, her husband, i.e. that young office boy turned around and looked at the young housewife. It is a little bit sad to see that they are in the same house but they do not know they are actually chatting with the same person: train man. Their relationship is fragile that they treat 
each other indifferent, without any communication. McCombs’s displacement theory explains their case. It states that constrained by limited resources, consumption of one particular set of communicative activities displaces other forms of communicative activities.[15] Therefore, spending more time on computer-mediated communication drives one spending lesser time on face-to -face communication, causing indifferent or disharmony relationship.
But, Malcolm R. Parks’s research on online and offline social relationship explains the change in their relationship. Malcolm R. Parks states that when on-line
relationships are developed, “network convergence would imply not only that participants were introduced to one another's on-line contacts, but also to people in their real-life social networks.”[16] This young couple knew train man separately but train man linked them together again. They learnt a lesson from train man and then they tried their best to repair their relationship. Successfully, they looked like a couple afterwards. The young housewife cooked for her husband and the young office boy bought a red wine for his wife and they have a harmony relationship.
Actually this is not the only case, train man’s changes are also obvious. According to various scholars, cyberspace creates an "identity workshop" in which people learn and test social skills. On-line identities allow them to overcome the shyness they feel in face-to-face interaction.[17] Engaged in online activity (i.e. IRC system in train man’s case), train man reconstructs his social identity and he develops interpersonal and communication skill. He is less shy when facing strangers. Otaku also built up his new social identity and at the end of the movie, he no longer stayed in his room but went outside which is the first step to community participation and social relationship establishment.
As Malcolm R. Parks’s argument previously discussed, online
activity also brings train man out from his original limited social network, he made many new friends on the internet and moreover he made a girlfriend “Hermes” in reality. The social shaping of technology perspective further explains the changes. It points out that “the online network served as a resource for community activities, bringing residents together in couples and in larger groups, and facilitated the provision of aid and exchange of information. The high level of online participation created local
awareness and supported existing social ties in the community.”[18] It seems that train man begins to participate or engage in the offline community. His social network is gradually enlarged.
Here, it is possible to conclude that although anonymity means nameless, using anonymity allows people to freely express and liberate themselves, causing consistent online and real life identity. Not only online social relationship such as cyber friendship and cyber romance may come, offline social relationship may also be maintained and established as the story of train man. But as conveyed in “Denshaotoko”, the crucial element for any kind of relationship, both online and offline, is love and courage.
Bibliography
Books:
Andrew F. Wood, Matthew J. Smith, “Online communication: linking technology, identity, and culture”, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001
Charles Cheung, “A Home on the Web: Presentation of Self on Personal Homepages”, In David Gauntlett, Web Studies, London: Acnold, 2000
Paul Bocij, “The dark side of the Internet: protecting yourself and your family from online criminals”, Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2006
Websites:
Andrea Chester and Gillian Gwynne, “Online Teaching: Encouraging Collaboration through Anonymity”. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol4/issue2/chester.html
Dutta-Bergman, M. J. (2005). ‘The antecedents of community-oriented Internet use: Community participation and community satisfaction.’ Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1), article 5. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue1/dutta_bergman.html
Ellison, N., Heino, R., & Gibbs, J.(2006). “Managing impressions online: Self-presentation processes in the online dating environment.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(2), article 2. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue2/ellison.html
Malcolm R. Parks, ‘Making Friends in Cyberspace’,http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol1/issue4/parks.html
VCD:
電車男(Train man), 東宝株式会社, Kam & Ronson Enterprise Co., Ltd.: Distributed by Panasia Films Ltd., [2005]
Footnote:
[1] Andrew F. Wood, Matthew J. Smith, “Online communication : linking technology, identity, and culture”, (Mahwah, NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001), p.47
[2] Andrew F. Wood, Matthew J. Smith, “Online communication : linking technology, identity, and culture”, (Mahwah, NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001), p.60
[3] Charles Cheung, “ A Home on the Web: Presentation of Self on Personal Homepages”, In David Gauntlett, Web Studies, (London: Acnold, 2000), p.50
[4] Charles Cheung, “ A Home on the Web: Presentation of Self on Personal Homepages”, In David Gauntlett, Web Studies, (London: Acnold, 2000), p.49
[5] Andrew F. Wood, Matthew J. Smith, “Online communication : linking technology, identity, and culture”, (Mahwah, NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001), p.57-59
[6] Andrew F. Wood, Matthew J. Smith, “Online communication : linking technology, identity, and culture”, (Mahwah, NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001), p.59-60
[7] Ellison, N., Heino, R., & Gibbs, J.(2006). “Managing impressions online: Self-presentation processes in the online dating environment.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(2), article 2. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue2/ellison.html
[8] Andrea Chester and Gillian Gwynne, “Online Teaching: Encouraging Collaboration through Anonymity”. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol4/issue2/chester.html
[9] Ellison, N., Heino, R., & Gibbs, J.(2006). “Managing impressions online: Self-presentation processes in the online dating environment.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(2), article 2. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue2/ellison.html
[10] Ellison, N., Heino, R., & Gibbs, J. (2006). “Managing impressions online: Self-presentation processes in the online dating environment.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(2), article 2. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue2/ellison.html
[11] Malcolm R. Parks, ‘Making Friends in Cyberspace’,http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol1/issue4/parks.html
[12] Malcolm R. Parks, ‘Making Friends in Cyberspace’,http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol1/issue4/parks.html
[13] Dutta-Bergman, M. J. (2005). ‘The antecedents of community-oriented Internet use: Community participation and community satisfaction.’ Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1), article 5. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue1/dutta_bergman.html
[14] Andrea Chester and Gillian Gwynne, “Online Teaching: Encouraging Collaboration through Anonymity”. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol4/issue2/chester.html
[15] Dutta-Bergman, M. J. (2005). ‘The antecedents of community-oriented Internet use: Community participation and community satisfaction.’ Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1), article 5. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue1/dutta_bergman.html
[16] Malcolm R. Parks, ‘Making Friends in Cyberspace’,http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol1/issue4/parks.html‘
[17] Malcolm R. Parks, ‘Making Friends in Cyberspace’,http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol1/issue4/parks.html
[18] Dutta-Bergman, M. J. (2005). ‘The antecedents of community-oriented Internet use: Community participation and community satisfaction.’ Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1), article 5. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue1/dutta_bergman.html
