11th Oct2012

Virtual and Imagined Communities

by emilywarheit

The anecdote in the Sangupta article about the call center agent calling the man in California really brought home the idea of how identities can be manipulated, especially with the aid of technology. But, at the end of the phone call, it appears the call center employee maintains her original identity and circumstances. Can this type of identity shifting through technology that spans boundaries and obfuscates identities actually have a lasting affect on racial, class, geographic, or other categories?

In the article about social networking sites and “white flight,” I thought boyd provided a really interesting analysis, but that the comparison with the geographical move to the suburbs was limited because of the economic implications. Unlike purchasing a home and being able to commute to work via car (often necessities in the suburbs), switching from MySpace to Facebook does not require any economic capital. So, what are the forces at work that differ in the digital realm from geographic flight?

Anderson’s concept of simultaneity has always seemed to me like an interesting starting point for looking at national identity in the digital age, because our ability to see or hear about what others are doing and provide feedback gets more and more advanced every day. How does the ability to not only read the news in the paper but to hear about events immediately and respond to them change the way our national community is “imagined?”

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