Once upon a time the Self: cinema and online identity playground tales

ABSTRACT More than any other medium, Cinema can express the ‘spirit’ of modern industrial civilization (Abruzzese, 2006; 2008; Casetti, 2008), by telling about other media (Frezza, 1996; 2014) through the post-modern phase up to the present Post-Media age (Krauss, 2004) even foreshadowing the mediascape evolution (Young, 2006). Over the last decade Cinema has told about social media as complex contests where identity building or re-configuration take place. Identity’s building is an on-going and almost infinite process, well expressed by the concept of identization (Melucci, 1991). This process grounds on the reflexive project of the self (Giddens, 1992), and on individuals’ abilities to assume each other’s perspective in order to be self-reflective (Cooley, 1902; Mead, 1934; Schutz, 1962); it spreads from the internal conversation (Archer 2003) and the narrative process (Bruner, 1990; Ricoeur, 1991; Pecchinenda, 2008). Social media make these perspectives cutting-edge since they allow subjectivization practices and offer the opportunity for identity textualization (Salzano, 2008), enhancing the dialectic between the embodied self and the desired self (Salzano, 2014). For instance, Memorable moi (2013) is a short film which tells the obsession regarding the identity acknowledgment. Some scholars claim a sort of disconnection between online and offline: late modernity identity — by means of digital media — is uninhibited and non-conforming (Reid 1991), or fluid and fragmented (Turkle, 1984; 1995) — because of the disembodiment — or alone despite always connected (Turkle, 2011). This kind of disconnection is told by several cinematic storytelling (Catfish, 2010, Acht Blumen, 2012). According to other scholars, the digital Self is stable and sustained (Baym 1998), though disseminated along multiple relationships and conversations: it is rather enriched thanks to the connected reflexivity (Ito, 2008; Baym and boyd, 2012; Boccia Artieri, 2012) and anchored to the body presence — even though in a mediated form. Two movies, among others, tell about the body as an ‘identity stake’ through the digital interactions: Me, You and Everyone We Know (2005) and Her (2013). In particular, social media platforms work as identity playground during Adolescence (boyd, 2008; 2014; Buckingham, 2008): young people’s identity-in-action (Weber and Mitchell, 2008) builds up between on line and offline interactions (Hine, 2000; 2013). Many movies tell about these identity performance, ranging over the sexual identity building (InCONTACT, 2012) or the political one (The Real Social Network, 2012, #chicagoGirl: The Social Network Takes on A Dictator, 2013); others focus on the reputation management of the online identity (Chef, 2014), or on the offline augmentation of mediated relations (Face 2 Face, 2012). Cinema also describes the other side of the coin. Many movies about young people and media — which can be analyzed by means of an anthropo-mediologic approach (Frezza, 2014 ) — tell about the risks regarding the online identity building: the cyberbullying (Disconnect, 2014), the problems in the identification processes (Adoration, 2008, Chatroom, 2011), the good judgment (Hard Candy, 2005) and the mourning (UnFRIEND, 2014). Matrix (1999) is the founder of those movies which tell about the online dark side where, following Foucault (1988) the Self fluidity is intended as a consequence and expression of Power. As for this point of view, social media are interpreted as cultural device that trigger — by means of technical constraints (Couldry, 2010) and individuals’ control — a sociable power (Colombo, 2013) which imposes to conform the imagined audience and the social stereotypes. Documentaries like We Live in Public (2009), Generation Social (2012), Online Now (2012), InRealLife (2013), Terms And Conditions May Apply (2013) and the short movie Look Up (2014) describe the complaint of social media power and effect in the individuals’ daily life. Once upon a time the Self: cinema and online identity playground tales (PDF Download Available). Available from: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/280224702_Once_upon_a_time_the_Self_cinema_and_online_identity_playground_tales [accessed Nov 22, 2015]