My social networking profile: copy, resemblance, or simulacrum? A poststructuralist interpretation of social information systems

Abstract

This paper offers an introduction to poststructuralist interpretivist research in information systems, through a poststructuralist theoretical reading of the phenomenon and experience of social networking websites, such as Facebook. This is undertaken through an exploration of how loyally a social networking profile can represent the essence of an individual, and whether Platonic notions of essence, and loyalty of copy, are disturbed by the nature of a social networking profile, in ways described by poststructuralist thinker Deleuze's notions of the reversal of Platonism. In bringing a poststructuralist critique to such hugely successful and popular social information systems, the paper attempts to further open up the black box of the computer ‘user’, extend interpretive approaches to information systems research to embrace poststructuralism, and explore how notions of the Self might be reflected through engagement with information system (IS), and how an IS appreciation of the phenomenon of global social networking may benefit from embracing such a poststructuralist approach.

Keywords:

• poststructuralism
• interpretivism
• computer user
• cultural and social
• human computer interaction
• human factors

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Kreps

About the author

Dr. David Kreps is an ‘early adopter’, pioneering thinker and commentator, with a fascination for technology and its impact upon society. A web developer since 1995, following his career as a Local Authority Arts Centre Director, he did his Ph.D. thesis on Cyborgism, and since completing it in 2003 has become an expert on Web Accessibility, and explorer into the philosophy of Virtuality. He is Vice-Chair of the IFIP Working Group 9.5 on Virtuality and Society, and has published widely in information systems’ journals and conferences on eAccessibility and Virtuality ([email protected]).