What is my digital identity as a reading and writing citizen in a digital world?
By Pamela L. Morris, Ph.D.
If you search me online, you will find very little about me. Mostly, that is purposeful, as I am an academic who tries to cultivate a neutral image and a media literate former IT worker who is skeptical of others’ use of my information and data. Thus, you see my page at my university, my school headshots, my official curriculum vitae, and a bit about an academic book I wrote. It is true that I am primarily a constant consumer and creator of educational media — from course content to research articles, from academic service to community service, it’s all online. I do keep an eye out for trends, media and technology news, and my research interests, but my activity online is regularly deleted. My digital footprint is sparse.
Does such activity make me a digital reader or author? Or is a more deliberate intention needed to claim these roles? Some claim we are in a participatory culture (Jenkins, 1992, Textual Poachers), in that we are all creators and authors. But are we really? We still have digital and participatory divides (“participatory gap”, Jenkins, 2018, p. 24) and we operate under power structures of online spaces that limit the full range of participation (Jenkins, 2018, p. 22). And there are those who just plain prefer to stay out of the fray. Therefore, I would argue that digital readers and writers do not wholly intersect with the population. So where am I?
Life experience and education are the key influences in my digital identity. I have been, at many times in my life, an early technology adopter. In the 1970s, my father was an electronic hobbyist who built a computer from a kit. I was allowed to use it — supervised of course — through reel-to-reel to cassette tapes and later large and small floppy disks. In high school, dad brought home our first PC. At that time, I was also taking an early programming course on another ancient machine, one that took an hour to run a prime number sieve from 1 to 100. I continued into an engineering school, studying computer science and communication — both departments had computer labs. However, they could not have been more different. The Computer Science lab was all tile floor, green screens, and empty tables. The Communication lab not only had carpet and the first Apple Macs, but also consultants in red kimonos and stuffed animals. Few of us had PCs in our dorm rooms, so I bonded with those who hung out in the labs. After college I went to work for IBM as a programmer (I wanted to be a technical writer, but my “fall back” degree became my full-time job). I had a powerful computer on my desk, and I was online for the launch of the world wide web and grabbed a Gmail account when one had to have an invitation to do so. Years later I entered graduate school on the cusp of the social media wave, joining Facebook early and studying societal effects of wikis, Twitter, blogs, and the like.
From this you’d think I’d be a natural digital citizen, but this isn’t true. Sure, I’m pretty comfortable with technology and I know what makes it tick. But I am not a digital native. I never saw the point of staying up all night to write my program in fewer lines of assembly language than my peers. Unlike digital natives, I value offline time, and I have spent much time in non-collaborative lone creation both as an only child and avid reader, as a programmer in a cubicle, and now as an academic on a small campus. Furthermore, being online drains me. Something about the constant connection and talkback makes me fundamentally uncomfortable. Add on my most recent endeavor, studies in media literacy, and I am keenly aware of issues of privacy, ownership, representations, and algorithms. And, most of all, I feel keenly the fatal blows being dealt to the dreams of the initial hippie founders of the internet who sought free expression and collaboration, the “long held beliefs in the promise of the Internet” — asking “How does one engage online after discovering that a once trusted space can be a site for manipulation and disinformation?” (Bulger & Davison, 2018, p.21). Some of my rosy outlook and hope for the online world has certainly been tarnished over the years. I have fears, not only technical, but also of my own obsolescence, the persistence of my online information amid cancel culture, and just plain being judged harshly by the crowd.
Where does this leave me? Reluctant; one who is a digital reader and writer out of necessity rather than choice. I recognize the need for the digital in my classroom and my work. However, I often loathe the work. I also generally don’t think of myself as creative, especially online. Thus I claim few, if any, items of digital authorship. Secondly, I have become a critic; my social scientific outlook was shaken by the 2016 election, where logic and process failed, or, as Bulger & Davison said, “the trusted norms of public information had failed” (p. 21). I step forward only tentatively myself, and I see fewer and fewer beneficial things. From the misuse of technology such as ChatGPT to the unoriginal content pumped out by Hollywood and Netflix (remakes, reboots, and reality TV) I am less than inspired.
Still, given the opportunity to teach something of value, something impactful and lasting, I might just do it. It would be informative, full of the beauty of language, and it would be highly visual. It would entail hard work, help form others, and a good deal of time. Whatever the next TED platform is, I might just appear on its stage. When I figure out what I want to say…watch for me.
Bulger, M. & Davison, P. (2018). The promises, challenges, and futures of media literacy education. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 10(1), 1–21.
Jenkins, H. (2018). Fandom, negotiation, and participatory culture. In P. Booth (Ed), A companion to media fandom and fan studies (pp. 13–26). Routledge.
Jenkins, H. (1992). Textual poachers: Television fans and participatory culture. Routledge.
