Transitioning toward an internet culture: An interorganizational analysis of identity construction from online services tointranets

Abstract

A great deal of attention has been given to the Internet's capacity to enable new and multiple presentations of the self-even to become a site for new identity construction. While we do not deny the potential of Internet technologies to transform contemporwy social practices and the way we see the world and ourselves, a closer look at the transition from "older" media and technologies to the Internet gives us a better understanding of how electronic discourses are being shaped. In this paper, we examine a few sites of identity, paying particular attention to the practices and technologies that shape presentations and interpellations of individuals, as well as the construction, deconstruction, and reassemblage of collective identities. Using data from two empirical studies, we examine what has shaped the presentations and interpretations of online identities over the past decade. Interestingly, we see that creative uses of older media, like online profiling, have set the stage for common uses of the Internet; and that constrained uses of Internet technologies, like intranets and extranets, allow corporations and governments to extend control over self-presentations and to more effectively interpellate identities. © 2003 by Springer Science+Business Media New York.