Chapter 3 : CyberEgo
With an established context for communication, users of IRC are then faced with selecting a person or group of people to talk to and form relationships with. In a FTF situation a person may be chosen because of their physical attractiveness. Once a conversation is initiated, things will be learned about the other person and by identifying things like attitude similarity, complementarity, competence, self esteem and positive personal characteristics (Levinger & Snoek, 1972) in that person, it can be ascertained if the relationship is likely to continue. Altman and Taylor (1973) point out that it is through reciprocal self disclosure that a person is able to discover these things about another: as more layers of the 'onion skin' personality are peeled away, they claim, what the person is really like at the core, or their 'real' self, will be revealed.
These two theories assume that a person has a 'self' in which their essence can be found and which is accessible to other people through the disclosure of different aspects of their personality. However, this offers a very self- contained, unitary and individualistic view of the self, something which Burkitt (1991) argues is deeply embedded in the western tradition of thought. Instead, he proposes that what is needed is a social understanding of the self in which humans can be seen in terms of their social relations with others. This does not lessen the notion that humans are individuals, but grapples with the possibility of understanding the self as socially based.
One theory that offers a social understanding of the self is the dramaturgical model offered by Goffman (1969). He argues that people use information gained from others to shape how they should act in a given situation. The information is obtained from other people's attitudes, competence, individual characteristics, conduct, appearance, etc. When encountering someone for the first time, how that person acts and what they reveal about themselves will be dependent on what the appropriate behaviour for that situation is perceived to be. For each situation, then, a particular role is performed. A psychiatrist, for example, would not be expected to start telling a patient about their problems. Goffman (1969) argues that this is necessary for the smooth flow of social life. As a result, people are constantly creating meaningful impressions through dress, gesture, muscle tonus, and arrangement of furniture and other props as if they were actors performing a role on stage.
Therefore, finding out what a person is 'really' like is a far more complex process than simply disclosing information. The situation, the impression that the person gives and the impression that another receives must be taken into account. While this is difficult to decipher in a FTF situation, on IRC, users have to do this in an altered medium.
As has already been outlined, the medium of IRC has altered the way verbal and NVC are used as well as the contexts of communication. In the same way, the medium could be said to alter the social settings in which the self is identified, and hence the way the self is presented and perceived. Meyrowitz (1985) noted that the electronic media altered people's behaviour in social settings, for example, the merging of male and female roles. While Goffman (1969) argued that there were specific roles that people play in different social settings, Meyrowitz (1985) sought an answer as to why people were ceasing to follow these roles. His answer pointed to the electronic media and its confusing of once clear cut social settings. The same has been said about the introduction of CMC: "computer engineers had understood from the beginning the radical changes in social conventions that the nets implied they had long ago taken for granted that many of the old assumptions about the nature of identity had quietly vanished under the new electronic dispensation." (Stone, 1991, p 83)
IRC has the same nature: it provides a context for which there are no obvious roles on which to base behaviour. In the following discussion it will be seen how users of IRC deal with the altered presentation and perception of the self. The first section will show how the conventions of relationship formation are reproduced despite the medium by looking at: a) how a person is selected, b) how conversation is initiated, and c) how information about another is discovered. In the second section it will be seen how using IRC alters the presentation and perception of the self. It will be also seen how emphasising the social nature of self draws attention to issues of power and gender. This section will be in three parts: a) how users employ the medium in the presentation and perception of self, b) social power relations, and c) gender differences.
Section One : Forming a Relationship
When approaching someone on a FTF level to form a relationship, several processes come into play: the choice of person to potentially begin a relationship with, beginning the conversation and then finding out information about that person. These processes are reproduced on IRC but take on an altered form due to the nature of the medium.
a) Selection
Physical attractiveness plays a significant role in the formation of relationships on a FTF level (Levinger & Snoek, 1972). When first approaching a person to talk to, it is usually on the basis that something about them was attractive. A person's appearance provides information about their gender, ethnicity, age, and so on, all of which act to attract another.
On IRC there is no physical person, yet there is some information available about a user which can be obtained without speaking to them. In the same way that NVC has been textualised, attraction to another person is also available in textual cues. The information available to a person wishing to make contact with someone on IRC involves the other person's nick (or nickname), username, address, IRCname, the channel(s) they are on and the server they are connected to. This can be obtained using the 'whois' command, for example, typing "/whois Lisabeth" will produce:
***Lisabeth is ebyrne@kay.st.nepean.uws.edu.au (StYvain's Ticklemonster
.... :-) )
***on @#Aussies
***on IRC via server kay.st.nepean.uws.edu.au (A machine that Struts)
The nick, 'Lisabeth', would indicate that the user is probably female (although they could be a male using a female nick). The user name, 'ebyrne', gives the initial of the first name and the whole last name of the person. 'Kay.st.nepean.uws.edu.au' is the person's email address and indicates that they have an account on a machine called kay (kay.st) at the University of Western Sydney, Nepean (nepean.uws) which is an educational institution (edu) in Australia (au). This would assume that the person went to that university, but that is not always the case as it may be just one of many accounts the person has. The statement in parentheses is the IRCname which usually contains the person's full name, but can be altered to say anything about themselves that they like. Other information available is that the person is on #Aussies and is connected to server kay. This information does not really give any accurate information about or picture of what the person is like. As Reid (1991) says, "[e]ssentially there is nothing that one IRC user can ascertain about another ( beyond the fact that they have access to the Internet - that is not manipulable by that user."
With the absence of the physical dimension, users have come to find other things about a person on IRC attractive in the initial stages of interaction. Participants of the survey were asked what it was about a person that made them want to initiate conversation. The most common response was that the nick attracted them. This aspect was also reflected in one of the interviews:
H: Well, I mean you see somebody's name, you like their name and you say "cute nick" and they respond back "oh thanks, how did you get your nick?"
The nick is chosen by the user under which they will interact on IRC. These nicks can range from the ordinary to the bizarre. There are normal nicks which are just the first name of the user like Andrew, Jason, Lisa, etc; ones which take on characters such as MMouse, Pooky, IndyJones, etc; and more inventive and unusual ones like PlayDough, StYvain, Prism, Uneak, etc. These nicks provide one picture of what a person is like.
In light of Goffman's (1969) argument, the choice of a nick may in fact be part of a role they wish to play on IRC. In the following log it can be seen how a nick conveys certain attributes of person to another:
*TopGun* love ur nick
*Lisabeth* why thank you :)
*TopGun* it's unusual and sweeet
This log also provides a good example of a person with a nick conveying images of a movie and a particular actor. By using the nick 'TopGun', the user may be trying to portray a certain image about themselves.
Despite the perceived importance of looks in the formation of FTF relationships, physical attractiveness in the usual sense is absent on IRC. Given the centrality that this appears to have in relationship formation (Levinger & Snoek, 1972) this factor seemingly turns relationship formation on its head in CMC. Instead of relying on the outside features of a person to attract someone, they must work from the other side and look at the person's personality and way of presenting themselves to help decide whether to initiate a conversation or not. As Rheingold (1994, p 26) says, "we are accustomed to meeting people, then getting to know them;" whereas on IRC, "you can get to know people and then choose to meet them."
) Initiating Conversation
When meeting someone on a FTF level, the most common beginning to a conversation is often 'hello, how are you?' The use of this phrase as a greeting became popular after widespread use of the telephone which required a formalised technique for acknowledgment of conversation. On IRC, saying "hello" was found from the survey to be one of the most common forms of initiating a conversation. Other common methods included making a witty comment, or being introduced by someone else. These forms of greeting are the same whether sending someone a private message or speaking publicly on a channel. The following log shows how conversation is typically initiated when joining a channel:
*** Pug ... has joined channel #aussies
[Pug] ello all
[Lisabeth] hi pug
[jpark] pug where are you talking from
[Pug] jpark :im in cape town
[jpark] pug where the hell is that I am in Sydney
[jpark] pug are you a Dutch or English?
[Pug] jpark :u got a lot to learn
[Zeb] jpark : the bottom of South Africa
[jpark] pug Such as What?
[Lot] jpark: now you have a Lot to learn.. hehehehe
[Pug] jpark: its english or afrikaans
[Striker] Pug, ben jij afrikaans?
[Pug] jpark :the dutch people were here about 300 years ago and the climate
screwed them up so they become afrikaaners
[jpark] pug You are right. Are you a Afrikaanor or an English
[Pug] well im actually dutch ,but i grew up here being an english person
In this log, a few users made the decision to talk to the person who had joined the channel. However, not all attempts at conversation are met with such good fortune. Some users of IRC try to get to know someone by sending a private message to a nick that they have picked at random from a list of names. The problem with doing that is that the person may not even be there. It is also possible to ignore someone on IRC. In FTF communication if someone approaches another and says hello, the encounter is unavoidable, no matter how short it may end up being. However, if conversation is not welcomed, the "/ignore nick all" command can be used which will physically prevent messages from that person reaching the target nick. Following is a log of someone who has tried to initiate conversation and fails:
*rma* I'm kinda horny...can we talk?
*rma* hello?
*** rma is ... (Fuzz Buzz)
*** on channels: #aussies
*** Ignoring ALL messages from RMA
Making contact with someone on IRC typically involves the exchange of presented biographical information. Finding out more of such information can become the basis of the next stage of the relationship formation process.
c) Finding out Information
Once two parties to a conversation willingly communicate, information needs to be exchanged to further the relationship. This is achieved by asking questions of another such as: Where are you from? Do you go to university? What is your real name? What are your interests? This form of information exchange is closely linked with the idea of reciprocal self disclosure. Both Levinger and Snoek (1972) and Altman and Taylor (1973) point to this aspect as important in the relationship formation process. Without the disclosure of information a person can only find out limited information about another.
While disclosure of information takes place in a similar way on IRC, users must rely on what another user tells them. The information obtained will then depend on the impression that the user is trying to convey (Goffman, 1969, p 13). However, if users do not disclose any information about themselves then conversation becomes difficult to sustain and appropriate behaviour for the situation is unattainable. However, if one person in an interaction discloses too much information too soon then the other person may not want to talk again. When participants in the survey were asked what it was that deterred them from talking to another IRC user again, the disclosure of too much information was a major factor.
While the disclosure of information is important, it appears that not everyone is happy to disclose everything about themselves in an initial encounter. Levinger and Snoek (1972) link self disclosure to appropriateness: when to disclose and to whom. Survey participants were asked what type of information they were willing to disclose to another in an initial conversation on IRC. It was found that initially most people did not like to disclose personal problems, while information about occupation, gender, location, ethnicity and age were more readily revealed. This points to a sense of appropriateness of self disclosure for users of IRC. Just as in a FTF situation, users decide what sorts of aspects they will disclose and to whom depending on the situation and the impression they wish to create (Goffman, 1969, p 13).
Once the flow of conversation has been established, further factors influence the decision over whether to continue the association made, such as, commonality, complementarity, competence and other positive personal characteristics.
Finding someone with similar ideas or with whom there is something in common will often serve to facilitate the continuation of a relationship (Levinger & Snoek, 1972). When IRC users find common ground, conversation is fuelled and relationships begin to form. The following log shows how finding commonality works to attract someone and in turn encourage further disclosure:
[Lisabeth] hello all :)
[hart] hi Lisabeth
*Lisabeth* one of my tutors at uni's name is Hart... you aren't jewish by any
chance?
*hart* nope, non-practicing Catholic
*Lisabeth* ah ok.. so where you from?
*hart* Nashville Tennessee USA, I visit #aussies quite a bit...probably at odd
times for u tho
*Lisabeth* uh huh... I see.. never been there myself. I am very regular on
#aussies... know most of the ppl there in rea life
*hart* it is the home of country music... I know Striker, CaT, and
Nexuz...that's usually who I talk to.
*Lisabeth* I met striker at a party the other night... interesting guy
*hart* really? we started talking when he found out that my dogs name was
Stryker.
*Lisabeth* heh :) yeah, its funny how most ppl start talking because they find
something they have in common... can't really start a relationships anyother
way on this thing
Commonality was also found to be a major factor in continuing to talk to someone among participants of the survey.
Finding complementarity with another person also brings people into relationships (Levinger & Snoek, 1972). It is quite common for an introvert and an extrovert to form a relationship, or for a dominant person and a submissive person to form one. This is also the case on IRC. The person who displays a characteristic that a user admires or desires for themselves may influence them to talk to and develop a relationship with that person. In one of the interviews, an interviewee expressed how he fell naturally into a dominant/submissive relationship with another on IRC:
T: Well, I wandered on the channel and there were quite a few other
people there and, lets see, I really don't know, we sort seemed to
immediately fall into a very compatible dominant submissive
relationship.
Elisabeth: She had all the right ways of putting things?
T: Yeah.
In this example, the two people met on #BDSM where dominant and submissive relationships are commonplace. This is one channel where roles are played out. In other channels, playing a role may be seen as dishonest, but as Goffman (1969) points out, every presentation of the self is like playing a role.
Competence is another characteristic that will often play an important part in the formation of a relationship. People are often attracted to others who are intelligent, successful and competent rather than those who are less so (Levinger & Snoek, 1972). Competence plays a big role in the formation of some relationships on IRC, especially between the new user of IRC and an IRC operator. New people to IRC are often lost as to what to do or how to execute a particular command and will ask a operator for help. One of the interviewees who is an IRC operator spoke about his experience:
M:Sometimes people will message me and tell me that someone is pissing them off. The first thing you say to them is well, ignore them. If the say they can't ignore them, I'll have a go at that person, I'll really fly into that person. I find that it works well and you impress the girls cause its all very chivalrous and stuff. Like M to the rescue, but umm, I think the asking for help is a good one.
Aside from competence, there are thought to be other positive personal characteristics which people view as good and therefore likeable in a person (Levinger & Snoek, 1972). In the survey, participants indicated certain characteristics that are valued highly on IRC including: people who are "nice", people who treat others with respect, those who are intelligent, and those people who helped with a problem. While many users did not like to reveal their personal problems to people they had just met on IRC, some people take advantage of the fact that the person is a total stranger:
You don't know the person so you tend to tell them about your problems. You are almost sure that they don't blab about your problems and you don't know them that well, so you tend to have an image of them of being good and trusting.
Being able to trust someone is something highly valued on IRC and is an important part in the successful formation of relationships. However, because of the medium of IRC, users have trouble working out if someone is trustworthy. It will now be shown how users deal with and exploit the medium in which trust is diminished.
Section Two ( Presenting and Perceiving the Self
When presenting selves on a FTF level, it is assumed that the basic things of appearance cannot be altered. However, on IRC people are invisible so how a "user 'looks' to another user is entirely dependent upon information supplied by that person. It [therefore] becomes possible to play with identity." (Reid, 1991) In this situation some users take advantage of not being able to be seen and say things about themselves which are exaggerated or untrue. For some users, this creates anxiety over what the other person is 'really like'.
The ability to manipulate the self on CMC also involves a dimension of power. In developing a social understanding of the self there is a need to understand the ways in which power is always involved in any human relationship, especially where class, ethnicity and gender are concerned.
d) The Altered Self
The conscious changing of personality on IRC may be linked to a person's self esteem. Being liked by another person is an important source of self esteem (Levinger & Snoek, 1972), so when forming relationships, a person who is feeling confident about themselves may not be so worried about what others will think of them, but if their self esteem is low, they may not be confident and change aspects of themselves to appear more attractive to others.
Participants of the survey were asked if they thought there was a difference between people on IRC to people in a FTF setting. While some participants said that there was no difference, a majority of participants stated that people are different because the absence of the physical dimension allows a person to deliberately change aspects of their personality. One participant stated that: "IRC friends are acquaintances. I don't 'know' them as I would a friend in real life. I can only know what they tell me."
This changing personality and appearance is quite common on IRC. Most people admit to lying about themselves at some stage in their conversations on IRC. Participants of the survey indicated that people did this because they either did not like who they were, it was easier to be someone else on IRC or that it was fun to trick people. One participant stated that "its relaxing, entertaining and liberating to be someone else for a while. I have more control over what people know about me, therefore I have more control over who they think I am and what they think of me". One interviewee described how he sometimes took advantage of being 'invisible':
B: Yeah, I lie about my appearance. I say I am five foot three, mohawk, kilt, fish net singlet top and doc martins. The only reason I tell them this is that I don't feel like telling them what I look like. I mean anyone looking like that it is always taken as a joke and sometimes you get interesting responses. But that is the only time I take advantage of being invisible.
This ability to alter the self leads to questions of whether people can in fact form relationships with people who are deliberately changing their personalities. People feel cheated or deceived if they discover that the other person is nothing like what they thought they were. As one interviewee said: " you rely a lot more on their honesty and integrity". One example of extreme deception was brought up by another interviewee:
B: Like I've sat behind a guy who changed his nick to a female and had net sex with this guy while all these people were watching him. So like I have this total caution with IRC relationships cause things like that can happen.
This is what one participant of the survey stated was the "enjoyment of self- congratulatory, risk-free, one-upmanship".
To work out whether someone is in fact as they say they are, many people resort to other media of communication once a relationship is established. Many participants of the survey stated that they did not have a genuine relationship with another until they had met FTF. As one participant said: "They often remain superficial, they normally need contact outside IRC before I'll commit to the long term effort."
Rheingold (1994) notes that "You can be fooled about people in cyberspace, behind the cloak of words. But that can be said about telephones or FTF communication as well; computer-mediated communications provide new ways to fool people, and the most obvious identity swindles will die out only when enough people learn to use the medium critically." (p 27) This suggests that people are deceived no matter what the medium of communication. Just as people have to learn to work out when someone is lying to them FTF, so too do users of IRC. One interviewee suggested that it may not matter if the other person is lying or not:
B: A friend of mine once got the question of what if these people where
just highly intelligent robots.
Elisabeth: That's scary.
B: To me it's not. I mean so what? I mean you come on here to talk to
people, you are having a conversation and you found out that this person
was Asian rather than Anglo-Saxon: would it matter? I don't think so.
What happens if it was Irish instead of American? It doesn't matter,
you are still having that conversation. So, along those lines if it was
a robot and it was still intelligent enough to have conversation with
you, why should it matter?
While some people will change themselves, this may not be the deception that it first appears to be. Reid (1991) quotes one user of IRC who states that " if it occurs to you to enact it then it is part of your potentiality". It may be that the ability to enact this altered self is in fact just as valid a presentation of self as any other. Following Goffman (1969) the 'altered identity' presented on IRC would be just another role acted out by that person due to the situation. As one survey participant said: "It seems to be fun, like acting on stage". This does not make the person any less real, but by creating a certain impression on IRC, the person is performing a self and providing expectations about their behaviour both to others and themselves.
Not everyone intentionally sets out to alter their personalities on IRC. In fact, some participants of the survey believed that there was no difference between them on IRC and them in a FTF setting. Even so, the medium itself appears to alter the way a person comes across on IRC. When interacting with someone over a period of time, a mental picture of that person is built up then when the people meet FTF it is often the case that the person is completely different to what they were perceived to be. So even though one person may not be intentionally setting out to deceive someone, the person perceiving them commonly ends up with misconceptions about that person because of the medium (Fuller, 1994). One interviewee expressed concern over this point:
M: People are different on IRC than in real life.
Elisabeth: What sort of things make it so different?
M: I think it is the person. 'Cause when you start talking to someone
you immediate start building up an image of them. That image doesn't
have to be a visual image at all it can just be a personality picture
and even the time that you are talking to people. I mean if you are
talking to the same people at the same time every night and its say ten
o'clock then you are speaking to them when they are tired and if you
went over to their place at that time you might find that they are the
same on IRC as in real life. I wouldn't be surprised.
Elisabeth: So what about people who are different on IRC? Is that
because you don't know them in person? Is it is just another aspect of
their personality?
M: I think it is a subset of their personality. You don't get people
making spontaneous outbursts, you have to type it first.
Personal perceptions are seen as important in both social penetration theory (Altman & Taylor, 1973) and social presence theory (Short, et al, 1976). Perceiving another person's self is also something that Goffman (1969) expresses. He says that there is the impression given by the person and the impression received by others. In this sense IRC is then no different to FTF communication as there is always the problem of presentation and perception.
Many of the implications of presenting the self have been seen to be negative. However, being able to alter the self has in fact empowered users of IRC to develop aspects of their personality not normally seen on a FTF level. As Rheingold (1994) says: "In some ways, the medium will, by its nature, be forever biased toward certain kinds of obfuscation. It will also be a place that people often end up revealing themselves far more intimately than they would be inclined to do without the intermediation of screens and pseudonyms." (p 27) Many people have found that IRC has liberated them to express themselves as they never were able to in a FTF situation. Following is an example of how IRC has helped one person to open up and discover things about themselves:
Chris: before I IRCed, I felt I couldn't afford to be open, that I couldn't be open. With IRC its just text, it's less confronting, but you also have a lot more there if you're not just doing it for the sake of having nothing to do on a Saturday afternoon. You are really interacting with people, you have nothing else but openness. You can always pin a relationship on sex or whatever in real life, but on the net its all about communication.
This is one of the more positive points of IRC. If it is possible to liberate people, it may be that other factors in relationships are also altered and allow communication free from inherent biases. Nevertheless, these potentially liberatory dimensions of CMC have to be juxtaposed with the recognition that social relations also may involve questions of power. Any new communications technology is introduced into existing arrangements of difference and inequality (Gray, 1993), and must therefore involve negotiation around these structures. As a new medium, however, with the potential to reshape human relationships, it may also generate new forms of power and inequality.
b) Social Power Relations
Relationships do not necessarily form between two equal individuals. This is something that both relationship formation theories (Altman & Taylor, 1973; Levinger & Snoek, 1972) fail to take into account. Whether a relationship forms between two people of a different ethnicity, class or gender, there are always expected social roles to be taken into account centred around power differences.
Elias (1978) argues that all social relations are bonded and changed by varying balances of power between different groups and individuals. He argues that power is not something that is imposed on others, but rather it is a relation between individuals or groups. It is very rarely the case that an individual or group will not have some form of power or influence, as even the most powerful group is interdependent on the group that they dominate. For Elias (1978), then, "power is not an amulet possessed by one person and not by another; it is a structural characteristic of human relationships ( of ALL human relationships" (p 74).
These power differences are also apparent on IRC, but they are altered due to the medium. Meyrowitz (1985) argues that the traditional roles played in relationships of difference, especially those of masculinity and femininity, are merging because of new technology. By exposing each gender to each other's roles through information systems, the more difficult it becomes to maintain the traditional distinctions between male and female. This argument may also be applied to differences of class and ethnicity.
The distinctions of social class and ethnicity are largely unavailable on IRC because of the absence of the physical dimension. As has been outlined above, there is no completely accurate way of obtaining this information about users. The more utopian view of this is that conversations and relationships form between formerly unlikely people, therefore indicating that there has been a change in traditional power relations. Without the initial knowledge about someone's class or ethnicity, traditional stereotypes and power relations are not brought into play in the formation of relationships. Many participants of the survey indicted this in their comments:
Because people are more relaxed and any social barriers are surpassed by the computer, 'cause nobody knows what you are and you cannot be labelled and condemned out of hand.
Yet, as Sutton (1994) argues, information about class and ethnicity on IRC is available in the type of discourse used. This is obvious in the way many people present themselves on IRC. This is the result of socialisation that is not always conscious, yet it means that people classify others into groups.
Social class is not an obvious distinction on IRC, partly because the majority of users come from a similar socioeconomic and educational background. Reid (1993) found that most users of the Internet were in fact male, white and affluent. This was reflected in the survey results for this study with the majority of participants being 19-25 year old males studying some form of computing or, having graduated, working in the computer industry.
Ethnicity, in some senses, is more readily distinguished on IRC. In every user's 'whois' there is at least an indicator as to what country they are in. It appears also be one of the more common questions asked of a new person met on IRC. In some circumstances ethnicity does not matter on IRC; users feel that they can talk to anyone without bringing 'difference' into the relationship. In other cases, ethnicity is defined clearly by the name of the channels. While the dominant language used on IRC is English, there are some channels where a particular language is spoken and this will obviously prevent some users being able to enter the conversation.
In traditional distinctions of power, there is usually some form of hierarchy among the social classes of society. A new form of hierarchical distinction is created by users of IRC based on access to the privileges associated with being an operator. This distinction is one that users learn about as they use IRC:
*Mistic* so you can establish a sorta power thing here...
*Mistic* yeah but on here...
*Mistic* some users carry more weight than others...
*Mistic* sorta heirachy
*Mistic* but unwritten
*Lisabeth* but then there is also a heirarchy in real life too
*Mistic* and not to mention ircops...
*Mistic* yeah but this is irc
*Mistic* its all virtual...
*Lisabeth* so.. I still say it is merely a subset of real life
*Mistic* it is
At the top of the hierarchy are the IRC operators who maintain and look after their IRC server. These people have the ability to 'kill' a user and even stop their access to IRC. Reid (1991) says that this power serves to "unite them as an authoritative class". These operators are often the subject of hate and violent threats from users who dislike them:
M: I have been lately hassled by this guy from UTS. He was hassling
Spesh asking if she was female and all those evil things that people
normally do on IRC. I messaged him and told him to stop and so he
started threatening me and so when he started being really rude, I
logged it all and sent it straight off to the administrator at UTS who
had his account locked. A week later he got the account back and now he
is hassling me again. He thinks he is really smart 'cause he keeps
using different nick names.
E: Do you think if it was in real life would you do the same thing?
M: I would probably do all that was in my power to help. But you must
remember that on IRC I am in a position of power
Under IRC operators are the channel operators who have access to more commands than the ordinary user. Then there are the new users of IRC or the "newbies" who have only just begun to use IRC. These people are often subject to victimisation because they do not know enough about IRC.
System operators, even more so than IRC users generally, are typically male, suggesting that the question of gender relations on IRC is also a question of power.
c) Gender
Both Altman and Taylor (1973) and Levinger and Snoek (1972) deal with the formation of romantic relationships in their studies. They appear to account for the movement to love and marriage as the result of increased intimacy and self disclosure after finding another who is compatible. However, these theorists have failed to address the roles that gender and power play in the formation of these relationships.
Traditionally the power relationship between males and females has been delineated by distinct roles for each gender. For Gilbert and Taylor (1991) these roles come from a historically constructed pattern of power relations between men and women. Feminist theorising has used the concept of patriarchy to explain these power relations, pointing to a male domination over females. Masculinity has been characterised by power, authority, aggression, and technical competence. Femininity is thought to complement this with compliance, subordination, sociability, sexual passivity and acceptance of domesticity and motherhood. (Gilbert and Taylor, 1991, p 10)
The linking of technical competence and masculinity is seen in the creation and mastering of cyberspace by males. Turkle (1984) argues that it is males who traditionally shy away from relationships with humans and engage in extended sessions with the computer in an effort to develop mastery over the equipment. This type of behaviour is best demonstrated by hackers who push themselves beyond the limit of mind and body in a bid to conquer technology. Easthope (1986) argues that these characteristics are a result of the fact that the male ego is essentially defined around power and control, over the body, emotions, others, women and nature.
On IRC it is not possible for males to totally maintain their control over technology and women. With the absence of the physical dimension, gender is not as easily deciphered as in a FTF situation. It is possible then to be which ever gender a person desires. As Reid (1991) notes, gender reassignment is a very involved process in 'real life', but on IRC "gender changing is as simple as changing one's nickname". Gender is thought to be one of the more sacred institutions in society, and with the unsurety that IRC presents for people, there is a certain anxiety about forming relationships. For many people it is most important that they know whether the person is male or female:
*hart* ...this guy thought I was a guy until he asked about my sweetie...I said
he was alseep in the next room...You could almost here his mind whirling.
*Lisabeth* heh :) some ppl are just too hung up on whether we are guys or
girls on this thing
*hart* yeah, and with my nick it is hard to tell....
*Lisabeth* i will admit to not being sure about your gender... basically
because my tutor is male and that is his name... but I am not really worried
about whether I talk to guys or girls
*hart* I'm female. but I kinda like the anonimity...
*Lisabeth* yeah... mine is very female and i often get hassled by guys
because of it
*hart* probably not as much as someone named SexGoddess!
*Lisabeth* no, I would hope not...
People often feel cheated if they find someone using an opposite gendered nick to their true gender. Reid (1993) notes that people have three different reactions to someone using an opposite gendered nick: they either feel cheated, they feel it is unethical or they feel uncomfortable and at a disadvantage not knowing:
B: Like I've sat behind a guy who changed his nick to a female and had net sex with this guy while all these ppl were watching him. So like I have this total caution with IRC relationships cause things like that can happen.
However, despite this potential, with a majority of males on the Internet, they still try to reproduce the roles in the way they traditionally treat females. Reid (1993) finds that females are "often subjected to virtual forms of those two hoary sides of a male-dominated society ( harassment and chivalry." The following log gives an example of a typical harassment:
*havoc* hello
*Lisabeth* hi, how are you?
*havoc* good...are you in australia?
*Lisabeth* yep, sure am
*havoc* thats so cool...are you one of those gorgeous Australian women?
*Lisabeth* I could be... aks around the channel.. they'll tell you
*havoc* really...do you have a reputation on the channel?
*havoc* should i ask now?
*Lisabeth* if you like
*Lisabeth* go right ahead... be my guest
[havoc] whats Lisabeth like? Is she hot?
[jenky] she sizzles
It is ironic that many forms of harassment lead to chivalry on the part of other males. The following log shows how one male is chivalrous to a female by threatening a guy who has been hassling her:
*MMouse* stop hasseling uws people.
*MMouse* (first warning)
*GM* you don't scare me
*MMouse* obviously you are a complete moron then.
*MMouse* ooohh aaaahh
*GM* i am not a moron.....i am extremely clever
*MMouse* uh ha. right. you are so clever, you hassel a girl who is over
1500kms away telling her you want her body. i see.
*MMouse* very clever
*GM* correct...is there something wrong with wanting her body
*MMouse* a little bit of a social outcast are we?
*GM* got it in one!
*MMouse* well- it's called sexual harrassment. if you dont stop it, then
things will happen to you.
*GM* what things?
*MMouse* well, i am an irc op for one. secondly, i can have you banned
from irc. if harrassment continues, i'll report it to your admin, and your accnt
will be closed.
*MMouse* go read swin's rules on user harrassment
*GM* sounds pretty bad...in other words you can really stuff me up?
*MMouse* yeah.
*GM* i guess an apology is in order then huh?
*MMouse* got it in one.
*MMouse* no, an appology wont suffice. just go away
*GM* o.k....if you say so!
However, not all males on IRC act in such a way and instead hold hope that the old power relations are being broken down:
*Lisabeth* I just tend to be weary of guys who talk to me on IRC couse alot
of them are just after one hting
*Lisabeth* I have no objection to you talking to me...
*YamaBushi* Well I guess u live in Sydney or something so that rules out
sex. I can't see your facce or body so I can't lust after u I just like talking to
women.. they are often better conversationalists than the typical Aussies male
It appears that while there is the potential for new power relations to develop, there are those who seek to replicate old patterns of inequality between the genders. It may be that instead of liberating society from the old inequalities, new forms of inequality have been formed. Feminists such as Jansen (1989) and Spender (1994) say that old patterns of power and privilege are being reproduced in information technologies. If women do not use the Internet, the old male domination will re-emerge and there could be a class of information rich who are male and a class of information poor who are female.
Questions of power and gender cannot be removed from the use of technologies as they are inserted into existing power relations (Gray, 1993). However, this does not mean that there cannot be change, but that there is always the potential with new technologies for both 'liberation' and 'oppression'.