DIGITAL IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION: CHALLENGES AND PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
Keywords:
digital identity; Identity Theory; identity construction model; relatedness; self-determination; self-esteem.Abstract
The second decade of the 21st century has experienced a burst in the creation and use of interactive digital media. Bringing together the traditional media forms (photographs and moving images, music, and text) and computer and communication technologies, digital media causes certain bluring of the boundaries between real and virtual reality, creators and consumers, introducing a dynamic interactive computing environment that requires new theoretical approaches as well as practical methods for development and appropriate implementation in daily life of “digital natives”. Under such circumstances of society development, the issue of person’s identity (or identities) brings about totally new concepts, perceptions, and reasoning, which become especially up-to-date in relation to the education process of young people at the transition stage in their life. In pursuit of better understanding of digital identity that has recently become the subject matter of numerous studies in various domains, this paper aims to define the phenomenon under study and outline its key features in relation to Identity Theory. Drawing upon interdisciplinary research on digital identity and media discourse, this analysis begins with an overview of definitions of digital identity. Furthermore, the article traces the ways such identity is verified and performed, looking at possibilities provided by online communication platforms. Finally, based on the current literature analysis, the paper discusses the model of digital identity construction (created by Peter Burke and Jan Stets and consisting of four constituent elements: input, identity standard, comparator and output), its further implications for pedagogical contexts, with the purpose of establishing appropriate platforms for “healthy” (positive) identity construction process. The opportunities provided by online interaction for promotion of relatedness and self-determination as the most relevant phenomena to be forced in young adults for the coherent construction of their identity have been discussed in the article.
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