XplanaZine

Fetishizing one’s presence on the screen, selecting attributes and appearance to meet the demands of a virtual space, bringing together wish and wish-fulfilment — these are the underlying emotional energizers in many e-learners. Unfortunately, facilitators and instructional designers seek to put limits on the pursuit of transformative potential, and develop instructional strategies that encourage conformity of thought, action, and intellectual input. Why go to such efforts to stifle creative thought? The answer is simple. It is scary. This is particularly the case when text meets image, and the presence of an individual in the e-learning space is highly personalized, and deliberately crafted to evoke an emotional response.

The fact that young e-learners are accustomed to developing hyper-identities in all their online activities often catches instructors by surprise. What is okay in an IM environment or a blog suddenly looks like a cheap bid for attention — sentimental, extreme, moralizing, violent, pornographic, or simply banal. All the “netiquette” in the world won’t change this because “netiquette” does not get at the heart of what is happening.

In Miroslaw Filiciak ’s essay, “Hyperidentities,” a mechanism by which the user (or e-learner) makes the screen a fetish is described. “We make the screen a fetish; we desire it, not only do we want to watch the screen, but also to ‘be seen’ on it” (Filiciak 99). The reasons for being seen on the screen are simple. It is a reification strategy — a way to create oneself, make oneself something. It is simultaneously a process of becoming and being, which centers around images and text projected and manipulated on a screen: “to be visible means to be real,” (Filiciak 100).

The idea of self-reification through art is nothing new; nor is the idea of identification with the moving image found on the television or cinematic screen. Further, we seek to masks or alternative identities when the social situation requires it — most often for survival, seduction, or spirituality. Jung explored the way individuals know and understand archetypes, and how they use them to construct masks or personae. When applied to William James ‘ ground-breaking explanation of how individuals present different versions of themselves based on social situations, the possibility of morphing, protean selves presents itself. It is a thousand times amplified in cyberspace, which has drawn people in from its inception precisely because the possibility of masking or remaking oneself exists.

Attempts are made to replicate the social control found in face-to-face interactions by imposing rules, establishing “netiquette” guides, and monitoring chatrooms. Some behaviors are modified, but the underlying issues are not being addressed. It is much more effective to look at channeling what is going on in order to inspire and allow productive persona production, rather than to cuff everyone to a virtual fencepost in the blazing cybersun and watch them writhe miserably and ineffectively.

Here are productive questions:

—How do you modify the social situation so that individuals build masks and play roles that bring them to a deeper understanding of the subject under consideration?

—How do you open up the social situation to encourage true opening up and sharing, rather than flashy attention-seeking?

—How do you know when a person’s role-play is creative self-expression or a cry for help — evidence of potentially dangerous patterns of thinking?

—What is the precise moment when communicating through avatars and masks begins to make a discussion come alive, and the experiential real merges with the constructed real, or fantasy?

—At what times does the openness of an e-learning space which encourages the assumption of personae and masks (customizable avatars, icons, emoticons, worlds, etc.) begin to result in abusive, predatory, or destructive behaviors?

Perhaps the e-learning space does not have the same overall feel as a MMORG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game), but it does engage the same energies and fundamental psychological / sociological energies. The potential is there, particularly for those facilitators and instructional designers who are brave of heart and strong of stomach (!)

Reference:

Filiciak, Miraslaw. “Hyperidentities” in The Video Game Theory Reader. NY: Routledge, 2003: 87-102.