Avatars: Portraying, Exploring, and Changing Online and Offline Identities

Jesse Fox (The Ohio State University, USA) and Sun Joo Ahn (University of Georgia, USA)

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DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-2211-1.ch014

Source title: Handbook of Research on Technoself: Identity in a Technological Society

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MLA

Fox, Jesse and Sun Joo Ahn. "Avatars: Portraying, Exploring, and Changing Online and Offline Identities." Handbook of Research on Technoself: Identity in a Technological Society. IGI Global, 2013. 255-271. Web. 22 May. 2013. doi:10.4018/978-1-4666-2211-1.ch014

APA

Fox, J., & Ahn, S. J. (2013). Avatars: Portraying, Exploring, and Changing Online and Offline Identities. In R. Luppicini (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Technoself: Identity in a Technological Society (pp. 255-271). Hershey, PA: Information Science Publishing. doi:10.4018/978-1-4666-2211-1.ch014

Chicago

Fox, Jesse and Sun Joo Ahn. "Avatars: Portraying, Exploring, and Changing Online and Offline Identities." In Handbook of Research on Technoself: Identity in a Technological Society, ed. Rocci Luppicini, 255-271 (2013), accessed May 22, 2013. doi:10.4018/978-1-4666-2211-1.ch014

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Abstract

Avatars are defined as virtual representations that are controlled by a human user. Commonly, we observe avatars in video and online games, social networking sites, and virtual worlds. This chapter explores the use of avatars in the expression, exploration, and evolution of users’ identities, both online and offline. Theoretical explanations for the creation, manipulation, use, and effects of avatars are offered, including identification, transformed social interaction, and the Proteus effect. The adoption of avatars for identity expression, exploration, and change is discussed, including Turkle’s notion of fragmented selves and Nakamura’s concept of identity tourism. Research that has investigated the effects of avatars on self-perceptions and identity in various domains (such as health, marketing, finance, and environmental behaviors) is addressed. Implications and future directions for research in this area are discussed.

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Complete Chapter List

Search this Book: Reset

The Emerging Field of Technoself Studies (TSS) (pages 1-25)

Rocci Luppicini (University of Ottawa, Canada)

Human identity and the meaning attached to being human have been shaped throughout human history by the entrenchment of new technologies and the cultivation of new h... Sample PDF | More details...

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Identity Theories and Technology (pages 26-44)

Robert Andrew Dunn (East Tennessee State University, USA)

Modern identity has been shaped by technology, which has in turn shaped theories in understanding identity. How one communicates who they are to others is given limi... Sample PDF | More details...

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The Ontology of the Subject in Digitalization (pages 45-63)

Anna Croon Fors (Umeå University, Sweden)

This chapter is about the ontology of subjects in digitalization. Questions of ontology emerge as a response to contemporary concerns about the ways digitalization i... Sample PDF | More details...

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The Language of Technoself: Storytelling, Symbolic Interactionism, and Online Identity (pages 64-83)

Federica Fornaciari (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA)

The goal of this chapter is to suggest theoretical means to address a fundamental question, what strategies do people use when presenting their selves online? This i... Sample PDF | More details...

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Of Paradigms, Theories, and Models: A Conceptual Hierarchical Structure for Communication Science and Technoself (pages 84-104)

Luciano L’Abate (Georgia State University, USA)

This chapter attempts to define and clarify differences among paradigms, theories, and models in communication science according to a hierarchical conceptual structu... Sample PDF | More details...

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Mindclone Technoselves: Multi-Substrate Legal Identities, Cyber-Psychology, and Biocyberethics (pages 105-122)

Martine Rothblatt (Terasem Movement Foundation, USA)

Ethical issues arise with respect to a digitized analog of a person. Such an analog exists when a person transfers an adequate quantity of digitized memories into a... Sample PDF | More details...

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A Run for your [Techno]Self (pages 123-136)

Alessandro Tomasi (Rhode Island College, USA)

This chapter introduces, using a race as an allegory, three competing conceptions of man, or three ideals, in its relationship to technology, namely a non-technologi... Sample PDF | More details...

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The Mediation of Identity: Key Issues in Historic Perspective (pages 137-156)

Stephen Marmura (St. Francis Xavier University, Canada)

Human identity, whether individual or collective, has always been conditioned by the mode(s) of communication dominant within any given society. Even in ancient time... Sample PDF | More details...

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The Digital Soul (pages 157-174)

Daniel Black (Monash University, Australia)

Contemporary understandings of the mind are seemingly free from the need for a soul of the kind imagined by Descartes. While for Descartes the soul represented a par... Sample PDF | More details...

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10.

Reasoning about Human Enhancement: Towards a Folk Psychological Model of Human Nature and Human Identity (pages 175-188)

Samuel Wilson (Monash University, Australia), Nick Haslam (University of Melbourne, Australia)

Advances in bioscience and biotechnology move faster than our conceptual and ethical understanding of them. These advances may ultimately change human nature and our... Sample PDF | More details...

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11.

Cyber Identity: Our Alter-Ego? (pages 189-203)

Christina Ionescu (Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Romania)

The realities of our world are imperatively legitimated by the complex relationship between media, technology, and society. Whether we deal with old or new Informati... Sample PDF | More details...

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12.

The Empathy Paradox: Increasing Disconnection in the Age of Increasing Connection (pages 204-228)

Sara Konrath (University of Michigan, USA & University of Rochester Medical Center, USA)

The purpose of this chapter is to summarize changes in personality traits that have co-occurred with the rise of new social media, and to evaluate the plausibility o... Sample PDF | More details...

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13.

Intellectual Disability, Identity, and the Internet (pages 229-254)

Darren D. Chadwick (University of Wolverhampton, UK), Chris Fullwood (University of Wolverhampton, UK), Caroline J. Wesson (University of Wolverhampton, UK)

This chapter provides insight into the nature of online engagement by people with intellectual disabilities, the extent and quality of this engagement in terms of th... Sample PDF | More details...

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14.

Avatars: Portraying, Exploring, and Changing Online and Offline Identities (pages 255-271)

Jesse Fox (The Ohio State University, USA), Sun Joo Ahn (University of Georgia, USA)

Avatars are defined as virtual representations that are controlled by a human user. Commonly, we observe avatars in video and online games, social networking sites,... Sample PDF | More details...

$37.50

15.

The Ur-Real Sonorous Envelope: Bridge between the Corporeal and the Online Technoself (pages 272-292)

Marlin Bates (University of the Pacific, USA)

In the rhetorical construction of identity, we are often tasked with analyzing how rhetoric either points to or creates a space for identity. This chapter would seek... Sample PDF | More details...

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16.

Immigrants’ Internet Use and Identity from an Intergenerational Perspective: Immigrant Senior Citizens and Youngsters from the Former Soviet Union in Israel (pages 293-307)

Nelly Elias (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel)

This chapter analyzes how the need to preserve ethnic identity and affiliation with one’s homeland is expressed and fulfilled through Internet use by two distinctive... Sample PDF | More details...

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17.

Ancestor Veneration Avatars (pages 308-321)

William Sims Bainbridge (National Science Foundation, USA)

It is possible at the present time to create virtual representations of deceased loved ones, and inhabit them as a way of expressing reverence and of dealing with on... Sample PDF | More details...

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18.

Self-Presence, Explicated: Body, Emotion, and Identity Extension into the Virtual Self (pages 322-336)

Rabindra Ratan (Michigan State University, USA)

There is currently a need for a standardized concept that describes how relationships between the self and virtual self-representations operate across virtual contex... Sample PDF | More details...

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19.

Assistive ICT and Young Disabled Persons: Opportunities and Obstacles in Identity Negotiations (pages 337-358)

Sylvia Söderström (Sør-Trøndelag University College, Norway)

This chapter investigates the significance of assistive ICT as a tool in young disabled people’s identity negotiations. To analyse the impact of this tool, two diffe... Sample PDF | More details...

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20.

The Tangible Lure of the Technoself in the Age of Reality Television (pages 360-381)

Fernando Andacht (University of Ottawa, Canada)

This chapter studies the notion of technoself in a contemporary media phenomenon, reality television. How can we explain the attraction of the globalized formats of... Sample PDF | More details...

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21.

Technoself-Presentation on Social Networks: A Gender-Based Approach (pages 382-398)

Antonio García-Gómez (University of Alcalá de Henares, Spain)

This chapter examines social networking sites from a sociological and discursive perspective in order to highlight how users engage with them in the construction of... Sample PDF | More details...

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22.

Digitization and Consumerization of Identity, Culture, and Power among Gen Mobinets in South Africa (pages 399-418)

Chaka Chaka (Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa)

This chapter seeks to explore the role played by mobile social networks (MoSoNets) in mediating and constituting, and in helping digitize and consumerize identity, c... Sample PDF | More details...

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23.

Stepping into the (Social Media) Game: Building Athlete Identity via Twitter (pages 419-438)

Jimmy Sanderson (Clemson University, USA)

This chapter explores how rookie athletes in Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), National Football League (NFL), and National Hoc... Sample PDF | More details...

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24.

Self, Self-Presentation, and the Use of Social Applications in Digital Environments (pages 439-455)

José Carlos Ribeiro (Federal University of Bahia, Brazil), Tarcízio Silva (Federal University of Bahia, Brazil)

This chapter discusses the use of social applications in the process of the constitution of the self and the production of the self-presentation in digital environme... Sample PDF | More details...

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25.

A New Trend in Education: Technoself Enhanced Social Learning (pages 456-473)

Li Jin (University of Westminster, UK)

The study of self-concept is essential in the fields of psychology, education, and for society in general, whilst self-concept is widely valued as a desirable educat... Sample PDF | More details...

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26.

Social Networking and Identity (pages 474-501)

Rachel Barker (University of South Africa, South Africa)

The realisation that social networks in cyberspace create a different virtual setting where a Technoself can be created by the way an individual shape their self (bo... Sample PDF | More details...

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27.

The Need for Identity Construction in Computer-Mediated Professional Communication: A Community of Practice Perspective (pages 502-530)

Victor Ho (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong)

This chapter discusses the construction of personal identities by individuals of the same rank through the discourse they constructed while engaging in computer-medi... Sample PDF | More details...

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28.

“To Be Shot at Without Result”: Gaming and the Rhetoric of Immortality (pages 531-553)

Jason Hawreliak (University of Waterloo, Canada)

Winston Churchill famously asserted that “there is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.” Whether or not this is accurate, it is indicative of... Sample PDF | More details...

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29.

A Human Affect Recognition System for Socially Interactive Robots (pages 554-573)

Derek McColl (University of Toronto, Canada), Goldie Nejat (University of Toronto, Canada)

This chapter presents a real-time robust affect classification methodology for socially interactive robots engaging in one-on-one human-robot-interactions (HRI). The... Sample PDF | More details...

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30.

Effects of Human-Machine Integration on the Construction of Identity (pages 574-591)

Francesc Ballesté (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain), Carme Torras (Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial, CSIC-UPC, Spain)

Recent developments in social robotics, intelligent prosthetics, brain-computer interfaces, and implants pose new questions as to the effects of technology on identi... Sample PDF | More details...

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31.

Building a Technoself: Children’s Ideas about and Behavior toward Robotic Pets (pages 592-608)

Gail F. Melson (Purdue University, USA)

This chapter focuses on how the technoself develops in children through relationships with a “personal” robot technology, robotic pets, especially the robotic dog AI... Sample PDF | More details...

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32.

Just Doesn’t Look Right: Exploring the Impact of Humanoid Robot Integration into Explosive Ordnance Disposal Teams (pages 609-636)

Julie Carpenter (University of Washington, USA)

This chapter provides a critical analysis of the potential short- and long-term cultural, emotional, and ethical outcomes facing Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) sp... Sample PDF | More details...

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33.

Behavioral Analysis of Human-Human Remote Social Interaction Mediated by an Interactive Robot in a Cooperative Game Scenario (pages 637-665)

Fotios Papadopoulos (University of Hertfordshire, UK), Kerstin Dautenhahn (University of Hertfordshire, UK), Wan Ching Ho (University of Hertfordshire, UK)

This book chapter describes the implementation, testing, and evaluation of the first prototype of the “AIBOcom” system, which allows remote users to play an interact... Sample PDF | More details...

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34.

The Human-Robot Continuum of Self: Where the Other Ends and Another Begins (pages 666-679)

Kristi Scott (Southern Illinois University Carbondale, USA)

This chapter examines the cinematic representations of identity in Blade Runner, Bicentennial Man, and A.I. Artificial Intelligence. It looks at the way humans and r... Sample PDF | More details...

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35.

Robot Double: Hiroshi Ishiguro’s Reflexive Machines (pages 680-702)

Yuji Sone (Macquarie University, Australia)

This chapter discusses Japanese roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro’s performance experiments with robotic machines (humanoid and android) as a case study for this book’s th... Sample PDF | More details...

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36.

Understanding the Human-Machine Interface in a Time of Change (pages 703-719)

Erica Orange (Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc., USA)

The author presents an overview of how the ubiquitous nature of technology has led to a monumental shift in human evolution – a change involving language, thought, a... Sample PDF | More details...

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37.

Identity in a Technological Society: Governance Implications (pages 720-741)

Marc A. Saner (University of Ottawa, Canada), Jeremy Geelen (University of Ottawa, Canada)

This chapter provides a framework for the Technoself that distinguishes six different processes by which emerging technologies may affect human identity. From a publ... Sample PDF | More details...

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Key Terms in this Chapter

Proteus Effect: A form of transformed social interaction wherein the user’s self-representation is modified in a meaningful way and subsequently the user’s behavior conforms to the modified self-representation regardless of the true physical self.

Embodiment: When a user feels that he or she is experiencing an environment within a virtual body.

Identification: The process in which an individual relates to a model (e.g., an avatar) and feels that s/he is similar to the model, which may yield social influence and imitation of the model.

Transformed Social Interaction: Communication that is modified through the unique affordances of virtual technologies.

Doppelgänger: A digital representation, which may be an avatar or an agent, that is designed to photorealistically resemble a user.

Avatar: A digital representation controlled by a human user.

Virtual Environment: A digital space in which a user may interact with virtual objects.

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