IDENTITY RESHAPING AND MANIPULATION IN CYBERSPACE
IDENTITY RESHAPING AND MANIPULATION IN CYBERSPACE

Summary/Abstract: Objectives. This article draws attention to some important considerations in the study of an online identity. Becoming a part of the virtual reality, sets the stage for the opportunity of others who are more or less familiar to us in the real world. Material and methods. The use of ethnographic method through interviews and participant observation remains actual even when dealing with the aspects of cyberspace study. An in-depth discussion of the epistemological and methodological challenges of studying the online activity, especially the social media becomes necessary. Results. Participants to virtual reality forge their own persona -s. It is a complex construct of objective technological requirements and subjective semantic preferences. These features are to be taken into consideration before and after carrying out a research of the online activity. Conclusions. Online environments provide new challenges for reconsidering the intersubjectivity in its most phenomenological sense. It is difficult to say whether virtual reality is facilitating the creation of new persona -s or just the surfacing of the inner most uninhibited ones. Nevertheless, it provides social scientists with the opportunity to grasp and intellectually digest new the fruits of most novel forms of sociabilities facilitated by the digital interaction.

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