DIGC101

Reflective Essay

Rachel O’Shea
3458866

Research Question: 'Without an online account, do you

exist?'
Word Count: 2,034

The Internet has proven to be successful in allowing ordinary people to become publishers,
editors and creators of their own content, ultimately establishing identities within public domains.
In order to fully experience the potential that the Internet has for the creation and maintenance
of identity, an active account is usually required which becomes the connection between self
and public profile. Accounts on social network sites acknowledge the existence of members in a
wider, public environment. Sites such as Facebook see the congregation of members from real-
life social networks, utilising the site’s features for the gratification of existing social relations.
The layout and functions of the site make it hard for non-users to be acknowledged or heard in
this new environment. Three key concepts which will be examined in relation to the question of
online existence are that of representation, communication and interconnectedness. Critical
analysis of these concepts will be combined with reflection of personal experiences with social
networking sites to gain a relevant understanding. Although constructed within a blogging site,
my Web Project will also be examined in relation to the representation of image in online
accounts to a public domain. Thousands of people around the world, including myself, integrate
social networking sites into their daily practices. If such sites now constitute ordinary life, does
this mean that those who lack online representation are forgotten?

As two key features of Web 2.0, social network sites and blogging sites focus on connecting
users with audiences and establishing identities in an online sphere. My final web project was
carried out on chosen site, Blogger.com, under the identity of an anonymous video game
enthusiast. I decided to use blogs as I was unfamiliar with the technology and wished to develop
new skills and knowledge. Although SNS include the ability to publish content to web, they
revolve around establishing personal online web presences and creating visible social links with
others in the network. This differs from my experience with blogs as a tool for one-way
communication in which the writer dictates to the web and other users can comment back
publically, without room for seemingly intimate social connections. Boyd and Ellison (2007)
suggest that the element which makes SNS unique is their transference of offline connections to
online settings. They focus less on allowing users to meet strangers, and instead focus on
enabling them to articulate relationships and make social networks public. Gamers can use their
blogging accounts in the ever-expanding gaming domain, to locate other bloggers with similar
interests and opinions to their own. In my experiences with SNS and blogs, I have found that
with a blogging account, communication occurs to a wide audience who make the decision to
contact users based on the impression of their publicised content. The opposite occurs with
Facebook as a SNS, in most cases contact is initiated through ‘Friend Requests’ before
communication can occur as a result. Despite which account one has, it is important to
understand that neither blogs nor SNS are an accurate representation of real-life. Non-users
can not be reached through the same technologies applied to users of Facebook or Blogger so
not everybody is being represented nor are they being reached.
SNS are designed so that individuals can consciously construct an online representation of self
which is knowingly displayed to their networks. boyd (2006) describes these representations as
digital bodies, public displays of identity where people can type themselves into being.
Depending on which privacy settings are activated on their profile, users can display details
such as full name, profile photo, birthday, marital status, phone number and political views.
Taylor (2004, pg 260) stresses that in the case of virtual environments, these artefacts used for
embodiment exist as code, created by a programmer and designer with a particular range of
functionality and affordances. It is this software which Facebook is built on which
accommodates the experience of embodiment through the construction of digital bodies. Users
work within the restrictions and abilities of Facebook to identify themselves with details which
will be beneficial to their representation. On my personal profile, I utilise the ‘Facebook Fan’
function by joining fan pages dedicated to actor Johnny Depp, conscious that it will be
publicised to my networks. Every group that I join, or page I become a fan of is immediately
connected to my page, which then becomes connected to my online identity. I carefully work
with the tools which Facebook provide in order to build my account in a way which I feel will
appeal to my diverse network of friends, family and co-workers. However, because users have
this ability to control their profile content, and there is no explicit request for accuracy by
Facebook, it is hard to decide how accurate the representation is.
I delete undesirable content on my profile; when my profile is ‘tagged’ in an unflattering photo, I
‘untag’ it, because I do not wish to be identified with that image, although it is physically me.
This act of selecting images shows how the profile is staged. boyd (2006) believes it is because
of this staged imagery that makes it difficult to tell whether photos are a representation of
behaviors or a re-presentation of them In the construction of the presentation of self, it is
assumed that desirable elements will be displayed, and perhaps the undesirable will be hidden,
or at least try to be avoided. Working within the framework of a site such as Facebook, the
features will be utilised in a way which reveals an image that users agree to have revealed.
Non-users do not have this ability to physically construct and deconstruct their personal
representation. However, if active profiles are not accurate representations of their users, then
real self can not truthfully be represented on SNS, suggesting that perhaps neither users or
non-users can truthfully exist in the online world.
SNS have, no doubt, made changes in the way that users communicate with other network
members from all over the world. SNS differ from blogging sites and vary in their technology and
communication features through elements such as I.M chat windows, wall posts, photo
comments, status updates, comment replies and private messaging. Where as communication
takes place on blogging sites through posting and commenting, there is not as much room for
fluid or private communication through chat windows or private messaging. boyd and Ellison
(2007) believe that on most of the large SNS, participants are primarily communicating with
people who are already a part of their extended social network. I use Facebook mostly to stay in
touch with friends from the past and to keep updated with what is going on with people I know
today. This differs greatly from my use of Blogger, in which I frequently posted entries larger
than I would ever write on Facebook. It also revolved around the one topic, it was easy to write
about certain games and include links to other sites in one entry. My site did not call for much
communication between myself and others, instead it was intended to provide other users with
information which they could use to make judgments on my posts, and comment if they wished.
I believe that for the purposes of my web project, the communication methods which exist within
most blogging sites were of more use than those of a SNS. In my project, I spoke to the
masses, and maintenance of individual relationships was not necessary. However, if I had used
a SNS such as Facebook or Twitter for the purpose of the project, I may have benefited from
short status updates on the topic of games, or perhaps used them in conjunction and provided
links to my own blogs. In my experience, SNS are useful for short, irregular periods of personal
communication and blogs are beneficial in cases where spectatorship is larger and less
feedback is desired.

Without an account, members of this existing network do not receive the type of communication
that others who exist through an online profile, do. They can not personally or publically contact
anyone or be contacted through the site. One of my few friends, who do not have a Facebook
account, was recently uninformed about a social gathering because the method in which we
were notified was through Facebook invitations. boyd and Ellison (2006) state that SNSs are
designed to mostly support pre-existing social relations but this can not be achieved fully unless
every member of offline social networks choose to communicate through these methods. The
non-user from my example was not acknowledged as a member of our existing social network
as he was unreachable through Facebook’s method of communication. As more users rely on
SNS for communication with and maintenance of social connections, this can actually see those
who do not adopt the technology, fall out of reach and existence in the minds of users.

Members of social networking sites are inextricably connected which can actually compare to
real life. Users can be linked to other users via wider networks through connections between
‘friends-of-friends’. Boyd and Ellison (2007) believe that the public display of connections is a
crucial component of SNS. On SNS such as Facebook and Twitter, the Friends list contains
links to each Friend’s profile, enabling viewers to traverse the network graph by clicking through
each profile’s list (boyd and Ellison, 2007). I have been added by people from DIGC101 on
Twitter as they have found my account through my tutor’s account. This shows how the varied
levels of offline relationships are interwoven in the complex networks that exist on such sites.
SNS translate both close and distant relationships into intricate connections to form an online
environment where other users are accessible with a click of a mouse.

Studies by Adamic, Büyükkökten and Adar (2003) found that users with many friends serve as a
social bridge to other users and their friends are less likely to all form one social clique, as the
relationships are scattered. The more ‘Friends’ that you are associated with on Facebook
means that more pathways are being created for users to connect through with others. Without
a presence in these complex connections, non-users are noticeably untraceable in the wider
social network. The lack of online representation of non-users does not necessarily mean
obstacles in the pathways between other users, as the intricate network will mean other
pathways to go through in order to connect. However, without visible links between non-users
and users through this medium, there is no physical evidence of their existence in the online
environment. Non-users can still be displayed in photographs and mentioned in conversations
between users, but they can not represent themselves. Users who do network between other
peoples Friends lists and through online groups such as high school graduate groups (e.g
Aquinas College, 07) will not come across proof of their existence within the social network.
Members of social networks that exist online connect together in a chain of inextricably
connected relationships, without an account, non-users can be viewed as the ‘missing link’ in
this chain of online existence.

The emergence of social network sites have brought about many questions in regards to the
presentation of self, communication and interconnectedness. Without an account in an online
domain that sites such as Facebook create, it is difficult to establish a presence within existing,
or new social networks. Those who rely on such sites to maintain existing social connections
may see non-users cease to exist in this environment and therefore in the minds of users.
Without an account, these non-users stand for nothing more than a missing link in the chain of
inextricably connected relationships. Experiences with blogging sites displayed how lack of an
account may not alter existing social connections unless all migrate to that site. The links
between users become less tangible and it is a less intimate account, however without one,
there is no proof of existence on such sites. The questions of existence have emerged because
of the mainstream nature of SNS which can see those who lack representation, be forgotten in
the online sphere. However, it is the representation of personal accounts which suggest that
neither users nor non-users are being truthfully represented; therefore both may lack existence
in the online world.

Reference List

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Boyd, D.M 2006. "Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace." in
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http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html

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