Name: Chow Po Yee
Student number: 50382362
Email: 50382362@student.cityu.edu.hk
URL: http://www.oocities.org/hk/bobo_alive/
Summary
The article concentrated on the analysis of how presentation of self takes place in Electronic Life, its advantages and disadvantages, and the suggested categories of homepages by Hugh Miller.
How does presentation of self take place in electronic communication?
In the analysis of presenting yourselves in personal homepages, Miller revealed that authors of the homepages would use ¡§expressive resources¡¨ available in the Hypertext Markup Language to present themselves in electronic communication (EC). The expressive resources include the following elements: size and shape of screen, display typeface, images, sound, video, text. All these ¡§backstage¡¨ preparations can help in presenting themselves as an acceptable person.
The advantages and disadvantages of presentation of self in electronic communication
Miller suggested that displaying oneself in EC could avoid ¡§embarrassment¡¨ which is an indicator of where people fail to present an acceptable self. For example, ¡§Even when people find a Web page ridiculous, its author will not be aware of it¡¨. As for the disadvantages, Miller pointed out that the depth and richness of interaction in EC has not enough development. It is technically limited and restricted.
Five suggested categories of homepages
Miller introduced the following categories: ¡§Hi, this is me (as an individual)¡¨ which is about self-presentation, ¡§This is me (as a member of an organization)¡¨ which is almost faculty homepage, ¡§Hi, this is us¡¨ which is family homepages, ¡§This what I think is cool¡¨ which includes little about a person, ¡§Advertisement for myself¡¨ which advertises a person or some service on the net.
Reflection
From my experience, I used to create a personal homepage for myself which belongs to the category of ¡§Hi, this is me (as an individual)¡¨. My target audience was all my new friends in University and any users who wanted to share my files in the site. The purpose of this site was to let the users know more about me, got an impression of myself. In the homepage, I presented my profile, photos of myself and my friends, favorite poems, recommended books, description of my daily life, and introduced some favorite links. The display typefaces, images, and the informational content of the text were the ¡§expressive resources¡¨ I used to present myself in EC. Before publishing the homepage, I defined the scope of the site content, checked the technology support required, made sure all the links were easily navigated and all the information resources were updated so that I could have a good organization of the web site. All the ¡§Backstage¡¨ preparations could help me present myself as an acceptable person who had good organization skill. In this way, the users could find my site well-organized and well-designed. On the other hand, I agree with Miller that Presentation of self in EC can avoid embarrassment. For example, if a user finds my webpage useless and boring, I will not know his or her criticism so that embarrassment can be avoided.