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Emily Van Der Nagel Thesis Social Media Pseudonymity: Affordances, Practices, Disruptions Emily van der Nagel Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2017 Department of Media and Communication School of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities Faculty of Health, Arts and Design Swinburne University of Technology Abstract Discussions around anonymity in social media tend to centre on themes of freedom versus harm, as anonymous people can communicate with few consequences, but anonymity can also be an element in harassment and abuse. Anonymity is rarely found within social media platforms that require personal information like email addresses and usernames. This thesis argues that anonymity on social media needs to be reframed as pseudonymity, which is identity work – or the strategic presentation of the self – and involves relationships between affordances, practices, and disruptions. The term ‘pseudonym’, meaning ‘false name’, dates back to the era of the printing press, as pseudonymity became a way for authors to make decisions about how their texts would be known. On iterations of social media, from bulletin boards to chat rooms to Facebook, pseudonyms are an important part of identity work, which is the process of creating and contextualising a self through actions and representations. Although the early 2010s saw a rise in what Bernie Hogan calls the ‘real-name web’, as a number of platforms demanded that people use their real names, pseudonymity remains a key practice within social media. After exploring these historical and contemporary forms of social media pseudonymity, this thesis presents three case studies, each drawing on a different approach to studying social media. I investigate the nymwars, the backlash to Google+’s strict real-name policy, using an affordance approach that interrogates the potential actions that various platforms offer. While platforms value names in particular ways, moving to a practice approach highlights how people negotiate platform features and rules in order to present the identity information they choose. Analysis of pseudonym practices on Reddit Gonewild reveals that people enact playful, sexualised pseudonymous identities on this subreddit. But pseudonym practices can also be disrupted, as the third case study on doxing demonstrates: there is harm in other people discovering and publicising someone’s personal information. Social media pseudonymity involves contending with networks of people and platforms when engaging in identity work that gives control over, and context to, connections and communication. ii Acknowledgements Every conversation I’ve had about my thesis over the past five years has helped build it, but there are some people in my life who deserve special thanks. My supervisors, Esther Milne, Anthony McCosker, and Rowan Wilken, have helped me grow as a scholar and a person. Esther has taught and mentored me throughout my decade at Swinburne, and she has not only brought her outstanding knowledge and sharp intellect, but also her emotional understanding, to her supervision. She always knows what I need to hear. Anthony has been dedicated to this project from the very beginning, helping to steer it in the right direction and pushing me to match his high expectations of me. He asks me hard questions and brings his own insight to the research process and it’s a better, stronger thesis because he’s been involved. Rowan’s thoughtful advice and meticulous reading of the thesis has sharpened my analysis and writing. They have guided me through the PhD as a team, and it’s because of them I’ve written a thesis of which I’m proud. My parents, Leanne and Andrew, and my sisters, Nicole and Joanna, have given me a lifetime of love, as well as mornings with coffee, afternoons with tea, and evenings with wine that have sustained me throughout the PhD. I’m especially grateful to Jenny Kennedy and James Meese, wonderful friends and collaborators who lift me up; Tama Leaver, whose unwavering belief in me kept me going when it all seemed too hard; and Robbie Fordyce, a source of patience and coffee who always makes time to listen. Alongside my supervisors, I’ve received excellent mentorship and guidance from Jean Burgess, Gerard Goggin, Jonathon Hutchinson, Ben Light, Geert Lovink, Ellie Rennie, Nic Suzor, and Julian Thomas. Thank you for taking the time to learn about my research and give me valuable advice and support. I’ve gotten to know academics near and far whose kindness and tenacity have reminded me why I took on the challenge: Ben Abraham, Tom Apperley, Diana Bossio, Angela Daly, Raya Darcy, Hugh Davis, Scott Ewing, Jordan Frith, Dan Golding, Luke Heemsburgen, Tim Highfield, Brendan Keogh, Ramon Lobato, Bjorn Nansen, Brady Robards, and Son Vivienne. You’ve supported me personally and professionally, and I’m so glad you’ve been part of the PhD. iii Thank you, too, to the members of the conferences, symposia, summer and winter schools, colloquia, committees, organisations, reading groups, writing groups, programs, seminars, masterclasses, workshops, Twitter and Facebook conversations, and social groups, who made the PhD experience worthwhile. Some of the preliminary work for this thesis has been published as: Jenny Kennedy, James Meese & Emily van der Nagel 2016, ‘Regulation and social practice’, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, vol. 30, no. 2. Emily van der Nagel & Jordan Frith 2015, ‘Anonymity, pseudonymity, and the agency of online identity: examining the social practices of r/Gonewild’, First Monday, vol. 20, no. 3, <http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/5615/4346>. Emily van der Nagel 2013, ‘Faceless bodies: negotiating technological and cultural codes on Reddit Gonewild’, Scan: Journal of Media Arts Culture, vol. 10, no. 2, <http://scan.net.au/scn/journal/vol10number2/Emily-van-der-Nagel.html>. Professional accredited editor Mary-Jo O’Rourke AE provided copyediting and proofreading services according to the university-endorsed national ‘Guidelines for editing research theses’. iv Declaration The examinable outcome: 1. contains no material which has been accepted for the award to the candidate of any other degree or diploma, except where due reference is made in the text of the examinable outcome; 2. to the best of the candidate’s knowledge contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text of the examinable outcome; and 3. where the work is based on joint research or publications, discloses the relative contributions of the respective workers or authors. Signed: Emily van der Nagel Date: 22 May 2017 v Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................ iii Declaration ............................................................................................................... v List of Figures ......................................................................................................... ix INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 Pseudonymity: Getting beyond anonymity versus real names ............................... 8 Thesis proposition and research questions ........................................................... 10 Context of the research .......................................................................................... 11 Names: Signifying connections; asserting control ................................................. 12 Social media: Connecting people; creating data .................................................... 15 In between real names and no names: Different types of pseudonymity ............. 18 Methods .................................................................................................................. 20 Data collection .................................................................................................... 21 Method: Content analysis .................................................................................. 23 Ethics .................................................................................................................. 24 Thesis outline ......................................................................................................... 26 PART 1 Historical and contemporary forms of pseudonymity ............................................... 30 CHAPTER 1 Pseudonymity history: Authorship, the author-function, and what authors mean for digital texts ................................................................................................ 31 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 31 The printing press: Where the author began ........................................................ 33 Authorship and pseudonymity .............................................................................. 35 The author-function ............................................................................................... 38 Pseudonymity and digital texts ............................................................................. 40 Authorship on social media ................................................................................... 43 Conclusion .............................................................................................................
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