Last week I gave a talk on ‘The Widgetized Self. Distributed identity and the role of software-engine relations in blogging.’ Blogs may be seen as databases that allow for various types of identity construction. The use of themes, plugins and widgets play an important role in the blogging identity.
Edial Dekker, New Media student at the University of Amsterdam, wrote about my lecture for the Dutch communication blog Spotlighteffect. His blogpost (in Dutch) has the provoking title: “The role of widgets. Nerds are more personal” which refers to the fact that expressing your identity through technology such as blog software still requires knowledge of the code. If you want to change the defaults you need to be able to install plugins or manually adjust php or CSS. In blogging we can distinguish several types of identity formation that coexist together and contribute to each other:
- the default identity (with default themes and templates)
- the drag and drop identity (choosing your plugins and widgets)
- the distributed identity (using the blog as a centralized force to collect your distributed self)
- the database identity (those who actually use their blog as a database of the self)
The blog is a database that supplies different ways for identity construction. On top of that other databases are used to further mold and shape the identity of the blogger. The modding user is constantly tweaking and adjusting the blog, either at the front side or the back side, in order to construct a self online.
Here are the slides of the lecture I gave at Mediamatic in Amsterdam yesterday titled ‘The Widgetized Self. Distributed identity and the role of software-engine relations in blogging.’
Easy embedding of the slideshow thanks to Joost de Valk’s great SlideShare WordPress plugin.
This Thursday I will be giving a lecture on ‘The Widgetized Self‘ a term coined by Nancy Baym. Blogs are increasingly connected to search engines such as Google and Technorati through the blog software. This leads to practices that focus on identity building through the engines. What does the increasing popularity of widgets mean for the identity of the blog and the blogger? What role do blog software and blog templates play in identity construction?
The lecture is part of the Mediamatic Beauty Parlour lecture series which deals with self presentation on the net.
Esther Weltevrede will present our MacBook Reading Club. Digital camera technology advanced ego-photography and ways for self presentation. The web cam advanced camera technology as medium of selfpresentation further. The camera is always directed at the self. The image where the face is shot from a slightly upper angle is known as the “Youtube angle” or “MySpace angle”. With the built-in cam and Photobooth software, the first thing one does when installing a new mac is taking a snapshot of the self. MacBook Reading Club takes advantage of Photobooth and the build-in camera. MacBook Reading Club is a new phenomenon in ego-photography, and introduces the “MacBook Reading Club angle”.
Admission is free and the presentations will be in English. Hope to see you there!
General information:
Place: Mediamatic, Amsterdam
Date: Thursday the 27th of March
Time: 18:00 hours
Admission: FREE
Language: English
More info on the Mediamatic page.
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