| MAS.962 | Week 8 | 04.07.98 |
The
Virtual Society: Identity, Interaction and Interface Design
Virtual Self-portraits
Reading assignment:
- Csikszentmihaly, Mihail. The Meaning of Things (ch. 3 & 4)
- Davis, Fred. Fashion, Culture and Identity (ch. 1 & 8)
- Miller, Hugh. Goffman on the Internet.
- Erickson, Thomas. The World Wide Web as Social Hypertext
- Personal Home Page Institute: First World Wide Web Personal Home Page Survey
The first two readings (Csikszentmihaly and Davis) are available in the usual bin. They are required readings; the 3 online papers are supplemental readings you may find useful. This week we will be looking at the phenomenon of self-portraits on the Web. Instead of the usual critique, I'd like you to write a short essay about the way identity is constructed in homepages using either Csikszentmihaly or Davis (or both) as a theoretical basis. Spend some time looking at various homepages (not just university ones) and use them as examples in your essay.