Online personalities, they are as expendable and changeable as the daily changing of clothes. People are able to create multiple personalities and identities on the internet. But what goes into this creation? And why do people do it? That is the precisely the topic of the two articles that I have found and read on the internet. I will be comparing them to find what they have in common and how they are different. The two articles are called "The Role of Fantasy in the Construction of the On-line Other: a selection of interviews and participant observations from cyberspace." by Robin B. Hamman, and "Gender Swapping on the Internet" by Amy Bruckman. Both essays are similar, but they also have some differences. Some examples of what there is to compare are subject, how they approached the subject, and the overall object of each essay.
They first thing that I noticed that they had in common was their date of publication.
This image was selected as a picture of the week o...
English: Amy Bruckman
The Future of Technology-Mediated Social Participa...These two pieces were published at different times in different years but still in the same decade. The next thing was the fact that they have different specific topics, but the same general topic. They both discuss the very different ways a person chooses to act on the internet. However Bruckman's "Gender Swapping on the Internet" deals with her experiences in a MUD (which is a kind of interactive game) and Hamman's "Gender Swapping on the Internet" deals with his experiences in a chat room. They both start off their paper with establishing their credibility. This is a good thing because they give just cause to why we should listen to them in the first place.
Online identity is the main topic for both articles. Both Hamman and Bruckman give appropriate examples about how people change their identity, but...