AoIR Abstract

Author(s): Gregor Petric

Title: "Personal web site in the context of late(post) modernity "

*** Each internet user with a set of relatively undemanding competences can produce his own web site and publish it to satisfy his specific social needs. To better understand this widespread and diverse activity, which is largely reduced to the genre of personal homepages and weblogs in the scientific literature, we propose two theoretical backgrounds, one leaning on the idea of late modernity and second on that of post modernity. This way we can assess the activity of users on the internet in the context of everyday life's social circumstances. It is supposed that contemporary social conditions strongly influence everyday conduct and specifically the activities of individuals on the internet. According to two different conceptions of relation between an individual and society, two understanding of personal web site use are put forward. Giddens' late modern individual actively copes with risky social conditions in order to restore a coherent self-identity, while Bauman's postmodern individual passively retreats from them in temporal identity games. Correspondingly late modern individual uses his personal web site to (re)establish personal relationships with other users of internet on the basis of common interests, beliefs and values and the postmodern individual uses his personal web site for experimenting with his social identity. The lack of encountering social spaces, the individual choice of personal relations, the lifting of relations from traditional anchorages are important structural conditions of late modernity. On the individual level, correspondingly, specific factors - the crisis of identity, loneliness and physical incompetence – result in intentions to produce a personal web site to satisfy society induced social needs. A personal web site is not a platform to develop a full personal relationship, but only to initiate or enrich a certain relationship. The conduct of postmodern individual is structured by contemporary consumerist system, which is providing a path for increasing narcissism. Narcissist individuals are not able to deal healthy with their social environment, they perceive it primarily through the lenses of self-interest. The body is the center of social activity and personal web site offers an innovative place of experimenting with it. The extent of control that an individual has over his self-presentation through his personal web site stimulates experimentation that results in production of idealized self, which offers its author temporal satisfactions. While the late modern author of a personal web site uses it to establish long-term relationships, even intimate, the postmodern stroller builds it only to play around and usually abandons it quickly. The paper not only builds a theoretical framework for understanding the production and usage of personal web sites, but puts an equal interest in methodological and empirical part. In the methodological framework two explanatory models are presented – one for establishing personal web site for interpersonal relations and the second for experimenting with self-identity. Operationalisations follow explicit definitions of concepts. The data were collected in the form of web survey in June 2002. The proposed concepts of personal web site use prove to be empirically valid on a sample of more than 1000 authors of personal web sites. Using a linear structural equation modeling approach, it can be shown that the theoretical models have some explanatory power. The data supports the idea that internet activities are strongly entrenched in the context of everyday life, which is structured by various contemporary social conditions.

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AoIR 5.0

	*Author(s):* Gregor Petric
	*Title:* "Personal web site in the context of late(post) modernity "

***	Each internet user with a set of relatively undemanding competences can produce his own web site and publish it to satisfy his specific social needs. To better understand this widespread and diverse activity, which is largely reduced to the genre of personal homepages and weblogs in the scientific literature, we propose two theoretical backgrounds, one leaning on the idea of late modernity and second on that of post modernity. This way we can assess the activity of users on the internet in the context of everyday life's social circumstances. It is supposed that contemporary social conditions strongly influence everyday conduct and specifically the activities of individuals on the internet. According to two different conceptions of relation between an individual and society, two understanding of personal web site use are put forward. Giddens' late modern individual actively copes with risky social conditions in order to restore a coherent self-identity, while Bauman's postmodern individual passively retreats from them in temporal identity games. Correspondingly late modern individual uses his personal web site to (re)establish personal relationships with other users of internet on the basis of common interests, beliefs and values and the postmodern individual uses his personal web site for experimenting with his social identity. The lack of encountering social spaces, the individual choice of personal relations, the lifting of relations from traditional anchorages are important structural conditions of late modernity. On the individual level, correspondingly, specific factors - the crisis of identity, loneliness and physical incompetence – result in intentions to produce a personal web site to satisfy society induced social needs. A personal web site is not a platform to develop a full personal relationship, but only to initiate or enrich a certain relationship. The conduct of postmodern individual is structured by contemporary consumerist system, which is providing a path for increasing narcissism. Narcissist individuals are not able to deal healthy with their social environment, they perceive it primarily through the lenses of self-interest. The body is the center of social activity and personal web site offers an innovative place of experimenting with it. The extent of control that an individual has over his self-presentation through his personal web site stimulates experimentation that results in production of idealized self, which offers its author temporal satisfactions. While the late modern author of a personal web site uses it to establish long-term relationships, even intimate, the postmodern stroller builds it only to play around and usually abandons it quickly. The paper not only builds a theoretical framework for understanding the production and usage of personal web sites, but puts an equal interest in methodological and empirical part. In the methodological framework two explanatory models are presented – one for establishing personal web site for interpersonal relations and the second for experimenting with self-identity. Operationalisations follow explicit definitions of concepts. The data were collected in the form of web survey in June 2002. The proposed concepts of personal web site use prove to be empirically valid on a sample of more than 1000 authors of personal web sites. Using a linear structural equation modeling approach, it can be shown that the theoretical models have some explanatory power. The data supports the idea that internet activities are strongly entrenched in the context of everyday life, which is structured by various contemporary social conditions.