Intersubjectivity World of Virtual Reality: Facebook Users Behaviour in the Context of Privacy, Self and Identity

© Media Watch 9 (2) 182-193, 2018
ISSN 0976-0911 e-ISSN 2249-8818
DOI: 10.15655/mw/2018/v9i1/49386
 

Intersubjectivity World of Virtual Reality: Facebook Users Behaviour in the Context of Privacy, Self and Identity

SANTOSH K. PATRA
Institute of Management Technology, India
 
Abstract
This paper brings together the perspective of social production of space as a ‘category’ which creates the ‘inter-subjective’ world of virtual reality where interaction is subjected to individual’s virtual ‘privacy’ and in turn shapes their extended ‘self and identity’. This reality keeps on negotiating with the actor as an external entity which can be identified as ‘identity’ and also as an internal entity which is often categorised as ‘self’. The perspectives on extension of space blurred the notion of reality and imagination by identifying itself with Baudrillard’s (1983) notion of ‘hyper-reality’. And this is being considered to study the ‘intersubjectivity’ of virtual reality. Empirically, the paper focuses on young Facebook user’s behaviour to understand major questions like young users concern on the issue of ‘privacy’ in virtual space and their presentation of ‘self and identity’. For the construction of the young user’s notion on “privacy, self and identity”, we have considered the qualitative explanation provided by 80 young users across different parts of the country.
 
Keywords: Social media, Facebook, self, identity, privacy, intersubjectivity
 
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Dr. Santosh K. Patra is a new media scholar, presently working as an associate professor at IMT, Ghaziabad and also heads the Media and Entertainment Management domain. He has both teaching and research interest in the areas of new media and society, media agenda setting, theories of political-economy, social media and changing trends of communication.