Abstract
More and more people take part in virtual environments in which they present a “virtual self”—an online profile that indicates key information about them to other participants and viewers. This research investigates how people present themselves in the virtual yet work-related environments of occupational online forums. To do so, the research analyzes the profiles of more than 300 registered users of an online forum dedicated to issues of interest to bankers. These profiles are interpreted in relation to Goffman’s (1959) seminal ideas of mystification (allowed by the separation between backstage and public action) and presentation of self and of Turkle’s (1995) ideas of multiple, interrelated, online and offline selves. This research builds a grounded categorization of profiles. The four categories of profiles that emerged from the data correspond to clearly distinct ways participants in the online forums present themselves. Over time, two categories have become dominant while another has dwindled. This research holds implications for the understanding of the presentation of self in virtual but work-related environments. It shows how participants in online forums build their virtual self by playing with the mystification inherent of the virtual environment. It also shows an interplay between the virtual and the offline when some participants “de-mystify” their profile. Finally, the increasing prevalence of two categories of profiles suggests that, over time, social norms of presentation of self emerge and condition socially accepted virtual selves in occupational online forums.
Chapter PDF
References
L. Sproull and A.C. Kiesler, Connections. New ways of Working in the Networked Organization (MIT Press, 1991).
M. Castells, La société en réseaux-t. 1: L’ère de l’information (Fayard, Paris, 1998).
S.R. Hiltz and M. Turoff, The Network Nation: Human Communication via Computer (Addison-Wesley, 1978).
P. Hinds and S. Kiesler, Communication Across Boundaries: Work, Structure and Use of Communication Technologies in a Large Organization, Organization Science 6(4), 373–393 (1995).
J.B. Walther, Computer-mediated Communication: Impersonal, Interpersonal and Hyperpersonal Interaction, Communication Research 23(1), 3–43 (1996).
S. Turkle, Life on the Screen. Identity in the Age of the Internet (Simon and Schuster, 1995).
N. Ellison, R. Heino, and J. Gibbs, Managing Impressions Online: Self-presentation Processes in the Online Dating Environment, Journal of Computer Mediated Communications 11(2), 2006.
H. Miller, The Presentation of Self in Electronic Life: Goffman on the Internet. Paper presented at the Embodied Knowledge and Virtual Space Conference, Goldsmiths’ College, University of London, UK, 1995.
J. Cummings, L. Sproull, and S. Kiesler, Beyond Hearing: Where Real World and Online Support Meet, Group Dynamics: Theory, Research and Practice 6(1), 78–88 (2002).
R. Kling and C. Courtright, Group Behavior and Learning in Electronic Forums: A Socio-technical Approach, The Information Society 19(3), 221–235 (2003).
A. McLure Wasko and S. Faraj, Why Should I Share? Examining Social Capital and Knowledge Contribution in Electronic Networks of Practice. MIS Quarterly 29(1), 35–57 (2005).
D. Constant, L. Sproull and S. Kiesler, The Kindness of Strangers: The Usefulness of Electronic Weak Ties for Technical Advice. Organization Science 7(2), 119–135 (1996).
A. Kankanhalli, B.C.Y. Tan and K.K. Wei, Contributing Knowledge to Electronic Repositories: An Empirical Investigation, MIS Quarterly 29(1), (2005).
J. Preece, B. Nonnecke and D. Andrews, The Top Five Reasons for Lurking: Improving Community Experiences for Everyone, Computers in Human Behavior 20: 201–223 (2004).
B. Butler, L. Sproull, S. Kiesler, and R. Kraut, Community Effort in Online Groups: Who Does the Work and Why? in: Leadership at a Distance, edited by S. Weisband and L. Atwater (Erlbaum, 2004)
E. Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Doubleday, Garden City, NY, 1959).
E. Goffman, The Interaction Order, American Sociological Review 48(1), 1–17
J.S. Donath, Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community, in: Communities in Cyberspace, edited by M. Smith and P. Pollock (Routledge, London, 1999).
R.A. Friedman and S.C. Currall, Does E-mail Escalate Conflict? MIT Sloan Management Review (44:1), 14–15 (2002).
J. Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior (Oxford University Press, New York, 1985).
D. Waskul and M. Douglass, Cyberself: The Emergence of Self in Online-chat, The Information Society 13: 375–397 (1997).
Z Papacharissi, The Blogger Revolution? Audiences as Media Producers, in: Blogging, Citizenship, and the Future of Media, edited by M. Tremayne (Routledge, New York, 2006).
K. Walker, “It’s difficult to hide it”: The Presentation of Self on Internet Home Pages, Qualitative Sociology 23(1), 99–120 (2000).
S.J. Winter, C. Saunders, and P. Hart, Electronic Window Dressing: Impression Management with Websites, European Journal of Information Systems 12: 309–322 (2003).
J.R. Dominick, J. R., Who Do You Think You Are? Personal Home Pages and Self-presentation on the World-Wide Web, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 76(4), 646–658 (1999).
E.E. Jones, Interpersonal Perception (W. H. Freeman, New York, 1999).
H.J. Schau and M.C. Gilly, We Are What We Post? Self-presentation in Personal Web Space, Journal of Consumer Research 30(3), 385–404 (2003).
M. R. Leary, Self-Presentation: Impression Management and Interpersonal Behavior (Brown & Benchmark Publishers, Madison, Wis., 1995).
M.S. Feldman, Strategies for Interpreting Qualitative Data (Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1995).
M.B. Miles and A.M. Huberman, Qualitative Data Analysis-A Source Book of New Methods (DeBoeck Université, 1984).
M.C. Boudreau and D. Robey, Enacted Integrated Information Technology: A Human Agency Perspective, Organization Science 16(1), 3–18 (2005).
A.L. Strauss and J. Corbin, Basics of Aualitative Research-Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory (Sage, London, 1988).
J. Beaty, P.J. Hunter, and C.E. Bain, (Eds.), The Norton Introduction to Literature (7th ed.) (W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1998).
R.C. Flickinger, The So-called Rule of Three Actors in the Classical Greek Drama, Classical Philology 6(2), 227–230 (1911).
S. Kluge, Empirically Grounded Construction of Types and Typologies in Qualitative Social Research, Forum: Qualitative Social Research (1:1) 2000.
F. Chaput Waksler, Erving Goffman’s Sociology: An Introductory Essay, Human Studies 12(1–2), 1–18 (1989).
H.K. Klein and M.D. Myers, A Set of Principles for Conducting and Evaluating Interpretive Field Studies in Information Systems, MS Quarterly 23(1), 67–93 (1999).
A.S. Lee, Electronic Mail as a Medium for Rich Communication: An Empirical Investigation Using Hermeneutic Interpretation, MS Quarterly 18(2), 143–157 (1994).
J. Westfall, What is Cyberwoman: The Second Sex in Cyberspace, Ethics and Information Technology 2(3), 159–166 (2000).
J.E. Dutton, J.M. Dukerich, and C.V. Harquail, Organizational Images and Member Identification, Administrative Science Quarterly 39: 239–263 (1994).
J. Van Maanen and S.R. Barley, Occupational Communities: Culture and Control in Organizations, Research in Organizational Behavior 6: 287–365 (1984).
A.S. Lee and R.L. Baskerville, Generalizing Generalizability in Information Systems Research, Information Systems Research 14(3), 221–243 (2003).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 International Federation for Information Processing
About this paper
Cite this paper
Vaast, E. (2007). The Presentation of Self in a Virtual but Work-related Environment. In: Crowston, K., Sieber, S., Wynn, E. (eds) Virtuality and Virtualization. IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, vol 236. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-73025-7_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-73025-7_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-73024-0
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-73025-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)