‘Mirror’ In Digital Media and Society
Mirror: Defined
When we see the word ‘mirror,’ the first definition that often comes to mind is the physical object that shows us how we look by reflecting light. This was the original definition of a mirror, which comes from the Latine word mirare, meaning “to look at.” However, this word comes with multiple interpretations and metaphorical meanings behind it. It is often associated with the idea of duplication, where someone’s reflection in a mirror can be seen as a copy of themselves. Many theories and terms using ‘mirror’ in their name draw on the idea of replication to illustrate their concept. Mirrors have also been used in stories throughout history to teach lessons and comment on deeper ideas.
Storytelling
In storytelling, mirrors have been used as symbols of vanity and truth, going as far back as Greek mythology. The story of Narcissus uses the symbol of a mirror to show the destructive consequences of vanity, where Narcissus dies from seeing his reflection in the water and falling in love with it. Additionally, a crucial symbol in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is the portrait of the protagonist, Dorian Gray, that ages while he does not. This “mirror” reflects his soul and all of his sins, serving to show Dorian Gray his true self. In this story, the portrait is more than a simple object, as it represents Dorian Gray’s confrontation with his crimes and the persistence of the truth. The symbolic uses of mirrors in stories reveal their deeper metaphorical meanings and complicate our understanding of them as just physical objects.
Psychology
A psychoanalytic theory by Jacques Lacan called ‘the mirror stage’ also draws on the concept of a mirror. According to Lacan, this stage occurs between six to eighteen months, where a baby is able to recognize their external selves. By using the word ‘mirror’ to describe this stage, there is an emphasis on appearance, as the baby sees their own appearance and knows that they are looking at themselves. This definition also echoes the replication aspect of a mirror, since people can only see how they look by seeing a copy of themselves, usually in a mirror. Without one, there is no way to see how you physically look on the outside and therefore no way to recognize your external self.
Sociology
In sociology, there is another theory called the ‘looking-glass self,’ which says that we form our identities based on what we think others think of us (Fish). This suggests that the people around us are mirrors that reflect back an idea of who we are, affecting how we perceive ourselves. Further, this also shows the distortion aspect of mirrors and their meaning, in how they may not be true reflections of who we are and can be misleading. Someone may wrongly perceive who we are based on the parts of us that they see, but we may also be wrong in what we think someone thinks of us.
Mirroring is also used as a technique to connect deeper with people. When having a conversation with someone, mirroring is when someone copies another person’s body language (Goman). For example, when you are having a conversation, they may be sitting with their legs crossed and leaning their head against their arm. If you also cross your legs and lean your head against your arm, you are mirroring the other person. Mirroring can occur subconsciously or intentionally, but it is a technique that can be utilized to help someone that you are talking to feel more comfortable or trusting towards you. This use of the word draws on the function of a physical mirror, since a person is reflecting back the body language of someone else.
Screen Mirroring
The word ‘mirror’ has also been used to describe the technological process of screen mirroring, which is when content from a mobile device is projected on a television screen. People often use screen mirroring to watch shows or movies, view photos or videos, or play games on a bigger screen. With this concept, the word ‘mirror’ is once again used to recall the idea of replication, since the television screen is reflecting what is on the screen of the mobile device.
Data Mirroring
In terms of data mirroring, Adam Fish wrote my keyword article explaining what data mirroring is and describes how it can also be metaphorical. Data mirroring is the practice of copying data or information, where it, “[…] keeps a copy of some or all of a particular content at another remote site, typically in order to protect and improve its accessibility” (Fish 218). These copies of data are usually not exact replications of the original, since the meaning may change in different contexts. The act of mirroring can be political, as it relates to the visibility and control of information. Fish also describes how mirroring has a front end and back end, where the front end is usually what can be physically seen by the public and the back end is hidden from the public. Often, the back end deals with how information is captured and used. Fish argues that mirroring combines both realist and constructivist perspectives, where it does not produce only exact replications or only symbolic representations. Instead, “[…] mirrors are data multiplications that make political contests visible” (Fish 221).
Mirroring can be used by cloud computing companies and data activists, which Fish describes as the hegemonic and counterhegemonic, to preserve and protect their data integrity. Cloud computing companies, such as Microsoft, encourage people to mirror their information in the cloud in order to secure retrievable data. However, this allows the companies to capture people’s data and capitalize on it. Data activists use mirroring as a way to resist censorship or control over their information by other people. Mirroring helps them stay visible and through visibility, they are able to legitimize themselves and their ideas. Examples of data activism through mirroring are WikiLeaks, the Anonymous YouTube channel, and the leaking of the Pentagon Papers. By duplicating their content and having them in multiple places, data activists can maintain their power and resist having their information controlled.
Mirroring’s Relationship to Concepts in Digital Media and Society
Surveillance Capitalism
Cloud computing companies’ use of mirroring contributes to issues of surveillance capitalism. Their business proposition for users is that mirroring is convenient and affordable. They push the positive aspects of mirroring, making people feel like they should mirror their data because it is the responsible thing to do and can help them in the future. Their way of describing it obscures the fact that the company has access to the data that people put in the cloud, allowing them to profit off of it.
The surveillance capitalism aspect of mirroring also reveals the power dynamics that come with these actions. Naughton wrote another article for The Guardian, where he interviewed author Shoshana Zuboff about her new book, The Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power. Zuboff says that, “we enter the 21st century marked by this stark inequality in the division of learning: they know more about us than we know about ourselves or than we know about them. These new forms of social inequality are inherently antidemocratic” (Naughton). Surveillance capitalists have so much more power in terms of their knowledge on users, which gives them more control over us and the way we think. Users, however, are left in the dark about where their information is going or how it is used. This allows companies to continue exploiting people for their data, since it is difficult to try to resist possible consequences of surveillance capitalism when people cannot fully understand what surveillance capitalists are doing with their information.
John Naughton talks about the consequences of surveillance capitalism in his article, ‘The new surveillance capital,’ where, “it all creates the potential for unprecedented manipulation, and — rather suddenly — worries are piling up about how that network technology is disrupting our society, warping our children’s development, our politics and our lives” (Naughton). Collecting people’s data allows companies to try to know and predict things about ourselves before we may even know them. They may use our information to try to steer us in certain directions of thought or action, which could have major societal consequences if people are being manipulated.
Digital Media and The Public Sphere
On the other hand, mirroring can also be utilized by activists to stand up to powerful entities and take back some power, similar to how people use digital media and the public sphere for activism. In ‘Social Media and the Public Sphere’, Christian Fuchs describes how, “contemporary activists create public spaces of protest and make use of social media and face-to-face communication, online digital and offline non-digital media, in order to voice their political demands” (Fuchs 89). Online platforms provide a space where activists can gain power against powerful entities. One example that shows the power of the public in using digital media to voice their opinion and hope to make change is when people in India used online platforms to express opposition to a Supreme Court ruling that impacts gay people. Part of their Penal Code provides life in prison for having sex “against the order of nature” (Roy). People were upset about this and used the internet to protest this decision, which ultimately had an impact on the people in power. Prasanto Roy’s article, he says, “once again, the sheer force and fury of the online protests gave political parties a taste of public opinion. Key parties — even right-wingers who toe the “traditional Indian culture” line against gay sex — have agreed that the issue called for a debate in parliament” (Roy). Like mirroring, digital media can provide activists with visibility, allow their opinions to be heard. They may use certain spaces to resist control over their information and keep their ideas legitimized.
Identity/The Self
Mirroring does not always produce exact copies of data. Even if they are exact, their original meaning may change when people perceive them differently based on the context that they are in. Duplications and their meanings can differ from the original source.
Similarly when we think about our online identities, we may be perceived differently based on what we choose to show about ourselves and how people perceive what they see about us. Alice Marwick discusses this in her piece, ‘Online Identity,’ saying, “identity is flexible and changeable, and people are highly skilled in varying their self-presentation appropriately” (Marwick 356). We may change our identities online based on our audience or the platforms we use. These different versions that we create of ourselves online reflect various parts of our identity. Dave Vronay’s article for Wired, ‘The Online Identity Crisis,’ further elaborates on how our presentations of ourselves depend on context, saying, “It is not about being anonymous or even pretending to be someone else. It is about controlling which subsets of true facets of a person are relevant in different social contexts. This is fundamentally not deceptive but actually enables one to be authentic” (Vronay). We may emphasize or exclude certain parts of our identities online, but they still essentially reflect who we are. Just as mirroring creates duplications of data, we duplicate ourselves on various platforms online. However, these multiple copies of ourselves may change what others think our identity is based on how they perceive what we share about ourselves.
‘Mirror’ In The News
When looking through current news articles, the word ‘mirror’ was most often used as a descriptive word to say that something is reflecting something else. Other articles used the word by talking about the concepts that I had already defined, such as articles about mirroring in the sociological sense.
However, I came across an article that used the word ‘mirror’ in a new term that I had not defined previously. In Paula Chiocchi’s Forbes article published on February 27, 2020, she discusses account-based marketing (ABM) and highlights four strategies that help boost it. ABM focuses on marketing to certain targets, rather than a broad audience, in order to advertise to people in a more personalized way. Marketers can do this by searching for signals that online users do when they intend on buying something, known as intent data. Afterwards, they must try to match the IP address of the user’s intent data in order to market to the right people who are more likely to spend their money.
The third strategy that Chiocchi talks about is a concept called ‘audience mirroring,’ which she describes by saying, “As you uncover prospects and build campaigns targeted to their needs, similarities between those accounts will emerge. You can then flip that information to search for similar companies and decision-makers” (Chiocchi).
Audience mirroring relates to my previous understanding of the word ‘mirror,’ since it has to do with the reflection of similar information. People who have similarities in their behavior or interests could be potential people to target next. All of these people are like mirrors, reflecting certain information back to marketers that suggest that they may be like a previous target. This definition does deepen the meaning of the word, introducing the idea of how audiences can mirror each other.
Conclusion
Through all of the various uses of the word ‘mirror,’ I noticed a common theme that was emphasized when observing the ideas that each use of the word was trying to convey: reflection. In that sense, they are similar to the original definition of the word, where they draw on the idea of reflection. However, they have changed in certain ways as well, where their usage has also become more metaphorical, such as the looking-glass self theory or the way it is used in storytelling as symbols of something deeper.
However, there are also aspects that are obscured through the use of this word. In the context of cloud computing companies that collect user data, the word ‘mirror’ often obscures their intentions behind capturing data. They strip its meaning to its most basic definition of creating copies, excluding its metaphorical implications of power to seem like a harmless act of replication. Other aspects that come with mirroring, such as power balances and politics, are also obscured because they are usually in the back end of mirroring.
I would define a mirror as something that reflects, which is a broad definition, but it encompasses all of the ways that it can be used, whether literally or metaphorically. I agree with the current definitions and how the word is deeply metaphorical in many different contexts that complicate it from being just something that is physical, just as Fish discussed in my keyword article.
Notes Section
Carol, Goman Kinsey. “The Art and Science of Mirroring.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 25 June 2011, www.forbes.com/sites/carolkinseygoman/2011/05/31/the-art-and-science-of-mirroring/#4f074e761318.
Chiocchi, Paula. “Use These Four Data Strategies To Boost Account-Based Marketing ROI.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 27 Feb. 2020, www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2020/02/27/use-these-four-data-strategies-to-boost-account-based-marketing-roi/#14fb4d3968dc.
Fuchs, Christian. “Social Media and the Public Sphere.” 19 Feb. 2014, University of Westminster, University of Westminster.
Hartley, John, et al. A Companion to New Media Dynamics. Wiley Blackwell., 2013.
Naughton, John. “‘The Goal Is to Automate Us’: Welcome to the Age of Surveillance Capitalism.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 20 Jan. 2019, www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/20/shoshana-zuboff-age-of-surveillance-capitalism-google-facebook.
Naughton, John. “The New Surveillance Capitalism.” Prospect Magazine The New Surveillance Capitalism Comments, 26 Jan. 2018, www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/how-the-internet-controls-you.
Peters, Benjamin, and Rosemary Avance. Digital Keywords: a Vocabulary of Information Society and Culture. Princeton University Press, 2016.
Roy, Prasanto K. “India’s Era of Digital Activism.” Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 6 Jan. 2014, www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/01/india-era-digital-activism-20141673434424641.html.
Vronay, Dave. “The Online Identity Crisis.” Wired, Conde Nast, 7 Aug. 2015, www.wired.com/insights/2014/11/the-online-identity-crisis/.
“What Is Screen Mirroring and How Do I Use It with My Samsung TV?: Samsung Support UK.” Samsung Uk, 17 Oct. 2019, www.samsung.com/uk/support/tv-audio-video/what-is-screen-mirroring-and-how-do-i-use-it-with-my-samsung-tv-and-samsung-mobile-device/.
