Identity construction in the comments section of TomandLorenzo.com

2016

Virtual spaces as sites of social interactions and therefore identity work have become common over the past few decades. Alongside, research focus on such spaces has increased. This MA thesis constitutes a small contribution to the study of interactional identity building through computer mediated communication. The study was conducted on data gathered from a subsection of popular-culture blog tomandlorenzo. The aim was to identify how interactants in this space interactively work their identities. The qualitative discourse analysis focused on three mechanics of identity building, those of indexicality, performativity and stance taking. The investigation also took the influence of the mediu…