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

Choosing to interact with others in an online forum provides an opportunity for exploring one’s own identity. With each new group joined, a person must make decisions about self-presentation and react to an audience. Such decisions continue as social interactions occur and relationships develop. This paper discusses how bloggers who have affiliated with each other to form a loosely knit community develop largely pseudonymous identities along with norms surrounding the development and performance of identity. The study is ethnographic and longitudinal, examining a community of academics who blog and comment alongside each other in a diaristic manner. Focal areas include blog elements through 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 effect of pseudonyms on blog authors and readers; and how issues of privacy and trust are manifest in the community.