The Host in the Machine: Examining the Digital in the Social (Examining the Digital in the Social)
Thomas-Jones, Angela | Chandos Publishing
148,830원 | 20101001 | 9781843345886
Navigating the social within the digital can be a contentious undertaking, as social networks confuse the boundary between offline and online relationships. These systems work to bring people together in an online environment. Participation can dislocate users from other relationships, however, and deviant 'online' behaviour can create 'offline' issues. This text tackles online social networks, by navigating these systems from the birth to the death of the digital self. The author begins by examining the creation of a virtual identity in online networks popularized by websites such as Facebook and Myspace. The book subsequently explores how the social self is intrinsic to how social, cultural and professional relationships are discovered, forged and maintained. The text journeys through the popular criticisms of social networking such as employee time-wasting, bullying, stalking, the alleged links between social networks and suicide and the decline of a user's public image. The dissonance between the performance of the virtual and non-virtual selves, and the 'offline' issues that can ensue, are contextualized by the 'social' nature of these online networks. The discussion of this digital life ends by addressing the intricacies of becoming 'web dead', which explores how a user removes their identity, with finality, from social networks and the entire web. It identifies a theoretical shift in the impact of creating an identity on the internet; provides insight into how the virtual self insidiously encroaches on the non-virtual life of the user; and examines the idea of becoming 'web dead' by discussing the often taboo subject of virtual and non-virtual suicide in the context of social networks. The readership include: practitioners of internet, cultural and media studies, including researchers, teachers, tutors and students, as well as internet and communication enthusiasts.