I n Chapter 5, Baym, asked “when people’s bodies aren’t visible, will people lie about who they are? Can they be trusted? Can they be known” My answers to all these questions are as follows: Some people prefer to use their real name, others prefer to by anonymous. Some people they have different identities in different names on different online sites. They would use a certain identity in blogs, another one in Facebook or Twitter or MUDS and MOO. It all depends on the role they are playing and the context of the interaction. Just as the identity scholars Goffman described “the self plays multiple roles in everyday life and cannot be understood adequately as a single unified entity.”
Baym also asserted that the researches did not support the idea that “anonymity makes people lie.”Therefore, yes, we can trust those people; especially, if they are well known in public and it is dangerous for them to use their real names. Finally, yes, we know people through their written language because it is significantly powerful language where people can express their thoughts and ideas and have strong relationships with their fans and readers.
In Turkle (1995) compared people in the past with those in the postmodern times and found out that today it is not unusual for people to “experience identity as a set of roles that can be mixed and matched, whose diverse demands need to be negotiated,” which was described by different psychological theorists as the flexible self, protean, or saturated self (multiple masks). Turkle also noted out the characters of MUD (a new kind of social virtual reality) can converse with each other, exchange gesture, express emotions, win and lose money…etc can also provide worlds for anonymous social interactions where people can play a role that can be either too close or far away from their real selves as they wanted to be.
My blogger, Teresa Walsh Ciarrusso, is real, not faking anything or hiding her identity. In her profile, she had all the information about herself, college, marriage, parents, and about her three kids in details. Their ages, names, what they are doing…etc. She is journalist, used to work in a newspaper but now she is writing in her own blog in a personal style for all busy moms. She always talk about very important topics that they are real (happened recently in real life) and ask her readers for their opinions. Her blogs are very informative not only for busy mothers, but for all parents in genera. Most of her readers knew her writing from the newspaper that she used to write in, therefore, she does not need to change her name or have multiple identities, or like an object as Turkle described.
Your blogger used to be a journalist, I would be interested in knowing how she shares all this personal information on her blog. I may be over reading but when you said she had everything about herself on her blog (marriage, college, parents) I immediately thought “thats weird”. You could have meant she is referencing them in her blog not necessarily their names. If she is sharing those things, is she looking for verification or is she over sharing? Again I may just be reading too much into your word choice.
How do you know that you blogger is not just taking on the role of a journalist? We have no way of knowing if what she is saying is true. If a person really want to be or take on a certain role they would do research on it in order to be able to take on that role. Your blogger would know that a journalist has to be detailed as well as talk about current topic so she does exactly that.
Your blogger might list her personal information to give the blog a since of personality. From reading the personal info we could get a sense of feeling that this women is mother with a career, which could relate to a lot of women.
I agree with the other comments about your particular blogger you are researching. There are thousands of imposters on the internet and how do we know that every blogger is not just impersonating to receive attention from commentors? Personal info can be legit in most situations but what about those who do not post personal info? Are they also fraudsters as well?
No, Taura, you are not over reading, and yes, she share all these personal information with everybody and she has a family picture for herself. Why you are assuming if she is journalist that means she should not share personal information. I don’t see why not? She is writing now about issues that are very helpful to all moms. If she talked about herself and family she will have a stronger relationship with her audiance, and I think that this is a smart way to grap the attention and have more readers because when she do they will feel that she is real.