AoIR Abstract

Author(s): Frank Schaap

Title: "Multimodal interactions and singular selves: Dutch weblogs and home pages in the context of everyday life "

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In this paper I explore Dutch personal home pages and weblogs as they function and figure in the everyday life of their authors. Spatial metaphors have traditionally featured heavily in conceptualizations of the Internet and although the word cyberspace is used more sparingly these days, it still reminds of the strong notion of the Internet as an alternate space, separate from our everyday surroundings. This "other" space, it was thought and hoped, could be a place for other identities, virtual selves, and characters of a different kind. This type of conceptualization of the Internet may, however, have been influenced by an atypical group of avant garde users. A weblogger I interviewed, said:

"The Internet is as flat as a pancake, it's not a space at all. That's just people trying to get to grips with something new; people who can't get their head 'round something and just casting it in old metaphors then. I never understood those pages or interfaces layed out like a house or a city. Who wants to first go from the attic to the basement in order to be able to read Slashdot?"

The home page and weblog authors generally consider their online activities as an extension, or better, as a part of their everyday life. Home pages, but weblogs particularly, are not divorced from their authors' everyday lives and other online activities, but are firmly embedded in them. Home pages and weblogs anchor and spark online and offline conversations with online and offline friends and acquaintances. Interactions with the same people move from weblog, to chat, to e-mail, to face-to-face, to phone, and back to the weblog, depending on which medium is the most convenient at that time and in that particular context. Instead of displacing older media or creating a priviliged and different online space, "the Internet" has become part of a flexible and multimodal palette of communication devices.

Consequently, home page authors and webloggers have little truck with various playful and/or subversive identity strategies. Of course, home pages and weblogs are understood to allow for or highlight certain types of (re)presentation, but links, associations, and identifications are overwhelmingly with "real life" interests, hobbies, work, family, and friends. Identity is understood as singular and not as fragmented, multiple, or virtual as earlier Internet studies found. The main purpose of an author's online presence in the form of a weblog or home page is "real" interaction with "real" people and creating or claiming a wildly different virtual identity would foil that. Still, there are many different strategies that weblog and home page authors choose to (re)present themselves online and if the visitor has not met the author face-to-face, there are at least as many ways for the visitor to read and construct a socially and culturally relevant meaning for a weblog or home page. The analysis of the metaphors and stereotypes present in the (re)presentations and readings of those (re)presentations helps understand the everyday constructions and conceptions of identity.

The data for this paper comes from an ethnographical study of Dutch personal home pages and weblogs, that is part of a larger PhD project that extends the question of (re)presentation of identity and gender to chatrooms/channels and multi-player online role-playing games. In the paper I discuss more fully my analyses of the various strategies for the presentation of self on home pages and weblogs and I present material from interviews and the home pages and weblogs to support the interpretations and conclusions with which this proposal starts.

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AoIR 5.0

	*Author(s):* Frank Schaap
	*Title:* "Multimodal interactions and singular selves: Dutch weblogs and home pages in the context of everyday life "

***	In this paper I explore Dutch personal home pages and weblogs as they function and figure in the everyday life of their authors. Spatial metaphors have traditionally featured heavily in conceptualizations of the Internet and although the word cyberspace is used more sparingly these days, it still reminds of the strong notion of the Internet as an alternate space, separate from our everyday surroundings. This "other" space, it was thought and hoped, could be a place for other identities, virtual selves, and characters of a different kind. This type of conceptualization of the Internet may, however, have been influenced by an atypical group of avant garde users. A weblogger I interviewed, said: "The Internet is as flat as a pancake, it's not a space at all. That's just people trying to get to grips with something new; people who can't get their head 'round something and just casting it in old metaphors then. I never understood those pages or interfaces layed out like a house or a city. Who wants to first go from the attic to the basement in order to be able to read Slashdot?" The home page and weblog authors generally consider their online activities as an extension, or better, as a part of their everyday life. Home pages, but weblogs particularly, are not divorced from their authors' everyday lives and other online activities, but are firmly embedded in them. Home pages and weblogs anchor and spark online and offline conversations with online and offline friends and acquaintances. Interactions with the same people move from weblog, to chat, to e-mail, to face-to-face, to phone, and back to the weblog, depending on which medium is the most convenient at that time and in that particular context. Instead of displacing older media or creating a priviliged and different online space, "the Internet" has become part of a flexible and multimodal palette of communication devices. Consequently, home page authors and webloggers have little truck with various playful and/or subversive identity strategies. Of course, home pages and weblogs are understood to allow for or highlight certain types of (re)presentation, but links, associations, and identifications are overwhelmingly with "real life" interests, hobbies, work, family, and friends. Identity is understood as singular and not as fragmented, multiple, or virtual as earlier Internet studies found. The main purpose of an author's online presence in the form of a weblog or home page is "real" interaction with "real" people and creating or claiming a wildly different virtual identity would foil that. Still, there are many different strategies that weblog and home page authors choose to (re)present themselves online and if the visitor has not met the author face-to-face, there are at least as many ways for the visitor to read and construct a socially and culturally relevant meaning for a weblog or home page. The analysis of the metaphors and stereotypes present in the (re)presentations and readings of those (re)presentations helps understand the everyday constructions and conceptions of identity. The data for this paper comes from an ethnographical study of Dutch personal home pages and weblogs, that is part of a larger PhD project that extends the question of (re)presentation of identity and gender to chatrooms/channels and multi-player online role-playing games. In the paper I discuss more fully my analyses of the various strategies for the presentation of self on home pages and weblogs and I present material from interviews and the home pages and weblogs to support the interpretations and conclusions with which this proposal starts.