Washington DC (USA)
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From We-Media to I-Media: Identity Transformations in the Virtual World
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The blogs as the platform for a virtual personality construction are considered in the article on the assumption of the positions of Lev S. Vygotsky’s cultural-historical approach. Internet journalism practices are considered as the example for the processes of virtual “I” formation. The authors affirm that the appearance of consecutive and stable “I-representation” in Internet is the necessary condition for a change in dynamics of social nets development from motives which are out of Internet in physical space towards situation when a virtual personality is enough full-fledged to be a motive for new social interactions creation not leaving Internet. As a result a virtual personality turns into a net-creating factor and Internet loses its unoriginality in relation to physical space. Using Lev Vygotsky’s “internal speech” concept, the article suggests to consider this interaction as a dairy discourse – “A dialog of internal voices”, which turns a virtual personality from the product of self representation into the product of social interaction. The authors affirm that the ability to construct a virtual personality is the integral part for personality formation in the new information society and propose to regard journalism practices as one of the methods of effective self representation in Internet.
DOI: 10.11621/pir.2009.0006
Keywords: virtual personality, cultural-historical psychology, blogs, Internet journalism, social nets, social media.
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