Key visual materials

1) http://hk.myblog.yahoo.com/mami-mama (BLOG)


Details: This is a blog about a family of four in Hong Kong, mainly about the growth of 2 children less than 3 years old.
Who made it: The blog owner is a mother who records her children’s growth with texts and number of photographs on the blog.
The date: it’s updated everyday
Where it comes from: (not applicable)
Reason including it: Although the blog is in Chinese, it is a very good example that the blog owners online identity (a good mother) is consistent with her real life identity in the sense that she records her children’s everyday trivial life including school life and extra-curricular activities and shows her love and care towards her boy and girl on the blog.

2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYxKah2YptU
(Japanese drama with English title)


Details: It is an extract of a Japanese television series with greatest hit called Denshaotoko. It is a love story of a socially isolated man, Otaku. He met his goddess on train and encouraged by numerous net friends, he finally confessed his love for the goddess and had a happy ending.
Who made it: the video is shared by makotoevo66
The date: 9/2006
Where it comes from: it is from Fuji Television Network
Reason including it: it will be used to as an example to explain the construction of online friendship.


3) https://edit.yahoo.com/registration?.intl=us&new=1&.done=http%3A//mail.yahoo.com&.src=ym&.v=0&.u=084av5h3i0tvh&partner=&.partner=&pkg=&stepid=&.p=&promo=&.last=

Details: it is application form for email service offered by yahoo
Who made it: (not applicable)
The date: (not applicable)
Where it comes from: from the above website
Reason including it: it will be used to illustrate the concept of online identity and the consistency with real life identity

4) http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/forum.asp?forum=1020

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1020&message=25294003

Details: it is an online forum that allows internet users to exchange camera knowledge and shotting skills. The second link images are about the question raised by a poster and the answers provided by other posters.
Who made it: posted by RVD
The date: October 21, 2007
Where it comes from: website is owned by dpreview.com Limited

Reason including it: it will be used to illustrate the concept of online

Key quotes

1) 'Social isolation can help to explain why some people enter destructive relationships even when they suspect the person they are in contactwith is insincere'

Source: Paul Bocij, " The dark side of the internet: protecting yourself and your family from online criminals ", Westport, Conn. : Praeger, 2006 P. 181



2) ' Internet infidelity and destructive behaviour resulting in the break down of family and intimate re;ationships'

Source: Paul Bocij, " The dark side of the internet: protecting yourself and your family from online criminals ", Westport, Conn. : Praeger, 2006 P.184



3) ' Facial expressions, posture and movement, and eye contact are all channels through which we can share meaning without using langage.'

Source: Andrew F. Wood, Matthew J. Smith, " Online communication : linking technology, identity, and culture ", Mahwah, NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001 P.71



4) ' Some home page authors are extraordinarily frank and revealing about themselves compared to what might ordinarily expect in face-to-face interaction with strangers.'

Source: Daniel Chandler, "Personal Home Pages andthe Construction of Identities on the Web"
[http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/webident.html]



5) ' Once you start making assumptions , you can jump from one conclusion to another until you have a fairly complex mental picture of what kind of person I am......Once someone has a preconceived idea of who I am based on his or her (and his or her society’s) particular set of stereotypes, that someone will then interact with me based on those assumptions. "

Source: Gianna LaPin, "Pick a Gender and Get Back to Us":How Cyberspace Affects Who We Are"
[http://www.fragment.nl/mirror/various/LaPin_G.1998.Pick_a_gender_and_get_back_to_us.htm]

Annotated bibliography

Books

1) Andrew F. Wood, Matthew J. Smith, " Online communication : linking technology, identity, and culture ", Mahwah, NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001

~It is a book of theory about online identity. It gives detail explanation of the theory and the terms.


2) Ben Summerskill , “The way we are now: gay and lesbian lives in the 21 st century” London ; New York : Continuum, 2006

~It provides realistic life of gay and lesbian in general and it also explains how they perform on the internet which is helpful on my research question.


3) Paul Bocij, " The dark side of the internet: protecting yourself and your family from online criminals ", Westport, Conn. : Praeger, 2006

~It is a good book in the sense that it introduces different terms about online identity and the dark side of it. It provides examples and statistics that are very useful for doing research. It is easy to read as well, so it suits anyone who wants to know more about online identity and social relationship.


4) Monica T. Whitty and Adrian N. Carr, “Cyberspace romance : the psychology of online relationships”, Basingstoke [England] : Palgrave Macmillan, 2006

~It is very useful for helping me to find out how online romance works, and it is easy to read.

Electronic Books

1) Tran, William C, " Constructing Identity and Community Online : Strategies of Ebay Netizens",San Jose State University, 2002
~http://proquest.umi.com/pqdlink?Ver=1&Exp=10-23-2012&FMT=7&DID=727231961&RQT=309&attempt=1

~It explains online identity in the simplest way and it allows you to handle the topic in the shortest time.

Websites

1) http://fragment.nl/resources/online_articles.html

~It includes a lot of international articles, providing different insights on the issue of online identity and community. Issues of online romance, personal and emotional relationship and artist role on the internet are all included in the website. I gain a lot from it. =] The articles listed below are those I think especially useful.


Online articles

1) Aoki, Kumiko (1994) Virtual Communities in Japan. Online
[ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/academic/communications/papers/Virtual-Communities-in-Japan- Communities-in-Japan]

2) Baker, Andrea (1998) "Cyberspace Couples Finding Romance Online Then Meeting for the First Time in Real Life." In: CMC Magazine, Vol. 5, nr. 7. Online
[http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1998/jul/baker.html ]

3) Bruckman, Amy S. (1996) Cyberspace is not Disneyland: The Role of the Artist in a Networked World. Online
[http://www.cc.gatech.edu/fac/Amy.Bruckman/papers/getty/disneyland.html ]

4) Chandler, Daniel (1998) Personal Home Pages and the Construction of Identities on the Web. Online
[http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/webident.html]

4) Chenault, Brittney G. (1998) "Developing Personal and Emotional Relationships Via Computer-Mediated Communication." In: CMC Magazine, Vol. 5, nr. 5. Online
[http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1998/may/chenault.html]

5) Donath, Judith S. (n.d.) Body language without the body: situating social cues in the virtual world. Online
[http://duplox.wz-berlin.de/docs/panel/judith.html]

6) Donath, Judith S. (n.d.) Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community. Online
[http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html]

7) Jaffe, J. Michael and Young-Eum Lee and Lining Huang and Hayg Oshagan (1995) Gender, Pseudonyms, and CMC: Masking Identities and Baring Souls. Online
[http://www.fragment.nl/mirror/Jaffe1995/]

8) Kling, Rob (1996) "Social Relationships in Electronic Forums. Hangouts, Salons, Workplaces and Communities." In: CMC Magazine, Vol. 3, nr. 7. Online
[http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1996/jul/kling.html]

9) LaPin, Gianna (1998) Pick a Gender and Get Back to Us. How Cyberspace Affects Who We Are. Online
[http://www.fragment.nl/mirror/various/LaPin_G.1998.Pick_a_gender_and_get_back_to_us.htm]

10) Lawley, Elizabeth Lane (1992) Discourse and Distortion in Computer-Mediated Communication. Online
[http://www.itcs.com/elawley/discourse.html]

11) MacKinnon, Richard C. (1995) The Social Construction of Rape in Virtual Reality. Online
[http://www.fragment.nl/mirror/various/MacKinnon_R.1995.The_social_construction_of_rape_in_virtual_reality.txt]

12) Meyer, Chuck (1997) Human Identity in the Age of Computers. Online
[http://fragment.nl/mirror/Meyer/]

13) Mulcahy, Jennifer K. (n.d.) Role Playing Characters and the Self. Online
[http://beyond3sigma.loki.ws/anthro.html]

14) Mulcahy, Jennifer K. (n.d.) Romance - Online. A Study of the Internet's Effect on Romance in America. Online
[http://beyond3sigma.loki.ws/romance.html]

15) Rosenberg, Michael S. (1992) Virtual Reality: Reflections of Life, Dreams, and Technology. An Ethnography of a Computer Society. Online
[http://www.fragment.nl/mirror/various/Rosenberg_M.1992.Virtual_reality_Reflections_of_life.txt]

16) Rubick, Jade Forrest (1997) Group Communication and Formation on the Internet. Online
[http://www.cs.uoregon.edu/research/ISL/research/papers/jarubick/thesis.html]

Research questions

As mentioned above, many questions about online identity are raised in my mind and the following questions are the research questions that I am going to find out the answer.


1) What is online identity? How does it formed?

~concept of ‘self- censorship’, self presentation’, ‘anonymity’ and ‘pseudonynity’ will be examined.


2) Is one’s online identity consistent with his/her real life identity? If they are consistent with each other, what factor(s) contribute to the perception that online identity is more or less ‘true’ to real life? If they don’t, then, what factor(s) contribute to such perception?

~ I will try to get a conclusion through briefly studying artist’s homepages, homepages offering email service, online chat room and blog /xanga.


3) How is the relationship between online identity and social community? Does one’s online identity help him/ her to establish and maintain a social relationship? Or result in social isolation?

~ I will firstly give a description of the relationship between the two and the cases that online identity helps one to establish and maintain social relationship and that online identity causes social isolation respectively.

Lesbian and gay community and socially isolated group will be further illustrated with example. In the part of socially isolated group, a great hit Japanese movie, Denshaotoko, will be used to as an example for illustration.


4) Is online dating possible? Would it have a good ending?
~ I will try to access to the answer with data or statistics.

Why ' online identity' interests me?

In daily life, everyone have different roles to play at the same time. An 18-year-old teenager has to play roles of student, child of his parent, lover of his girlfriend, while an adult has the roles of employer, parent, partner, citizen and so forth. 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 online identity is recognized .So, what is this online identity? How does it formed? Is the internet user aware of his new online identity?



Another reason that online identity is chosen for my mid term blog’s topic is relevant to my real life experience. “I had met a ‘friend’ in school; we used to contact each other through MSN, though we often had face to face conversation. When we were online, we had many topics and we chatted everything we wanted. However, it’s just an online relationship; my ‘friend’ likely treated me as a stranger when we met on the street. It is so confusing to me whether the one I met online and the one I met in the daily life is different.” A new question is raised in my mind based on the experience. “How does internet differ one’s online identity and real life identity?”



Many questions marks about online identity are in my head and they bring me interest to find out the answer. Hopefully, after finishing the blog and the research paper, I have a clear idea on it and all question marks removed from my head.