The Impact Of Digital Forms Of Communication On Identity: Gender

Question 1

How do individuals present their gender online?

Answer 1

Online characters/ avatars provides people with the opportunity to decide which kinds of identity and appearance that they might like to choose, can choose the gender of their avatar

In online settings like social network sites, chat rooms or discussions, identity is often masked

Ellison (2013) states that identity is essentially constructed by the user, individuals can adopt multiple online personalities

People’s online identity continue to overlap with their offline lives, sometimes with positive or negative effects.
E.g. people may be forced to resign due to offensive comments they post online

Question 2

USA stats related to digital communication and gender

Answer 2

• in each month 40 million more women visited Twitter than men
• younger women are much more likely to use digital forms of communication to maintain social relationship: 42% of women use social media to stay in touch, 34% of them being aged 18-34
• women more or social media sites such as Instagram and Pinterest (33% women, 8% men), whereas there’s a significant greater amount of men on Linked in than women (so there’s a difference on how men and women use digital media sites i.e. women use it for leisure whereas men se it for work-related reasons)

Question 3

Research by Li and Kirkup (2007): Gender and digital social communication

Answer 3

• found significant gender differences in the UK between men and women and their use of digital communication
• men are more likely that women to use email or chat rooms
• men play more computer games e.g. X box, than women
• OFCOM (2014) found that adult males access the internet for an average of 23.3 hours per week compared to 17.8 hours for females
• women (67%) were more likely than men (67%) to go online and use social media