[Air-l] Re: New Theoretical Approaches to the Self in Cyber-Culture

[Andrew Wenn]

Some very interesting points about the construction of self. Can I just
complicate it even more by positing that the technology and/organisation
policy also plays a role in constructing self.

Consider those organisations that have equipment that only allows users
an 8 character email address (those that still use some form of DOS
based filenaming - and there are still many of those around). Now
suppose your name is gregory burnstein then your email address may be
something like g.burnst@, greg.bur at . gregory@ . Or even suppose you hail
from a culture where your gender is indicated by the suffix on your
surname, for example some parts Scandinavia where there is
Christiansdottir, Christiansson and the name is truncated to Christian
say. you are then rendered genderless(?)

Another way that technology influences the construction of self is when
you sign up with an internet based emailer (Hotmail, Yahoo etc) and you
find that the ID you planned to have has already been taken and the
registration program suggests a number of alternatives. For example
suppose I wanted to register as dizzy at free_email.com but that name had
already been taken it might suggest dizzy01, diz etc.

Fairly simple examples I know but then what or who does an address such
as dizzy at excite.com point to a person or a space where mail is stored?
Maybe it is even redirected elsewhere.

Andrew Wenn.
(Who has at last stopped lurking!)
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Andrew Wenn     Victoria University of Technology, Footscray Campus
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