Constructing academic alter-egos: identity issues in a blog-based community

Choosing to interact with others in an online forum provides anopportunity for exploring one’s own identity. With each new group joined, a personmust make decisions about self-presentation and react to an audience. Such decisionscontinue as social interactions occur and relationships develop. This paper discusseshow bloggers who have affiliated with each other to form a loosely knit communitydevelop largely pseudonymous identities along with norms surrounding thedevelopment and performance of identity. The study is ethnographic andlongitudinal, examining a community of academics who blog and commentalongside each other in a diaristic manner. Focal areas include blog elementsthrough which identity may be expressed, namely (1) Name and blog title; (2) Profiles; (3) Post content; (4) Voice; (5) Affiliations; and (6) Visual design; the effectof pseudonyms on blog authors and readers; and how issues of privacy and trust aremanifest in the community