The definitive and first major text on personas in contemporary culture
Modern social media and communication technologies have reshaped our identities and transformed contemporary culture, revealing an expanded and intensified reforming of our collective online behavior. Billions of people worldwide are increasingly engaged in the production, presentation, and modification of their public selves - curating personas through various social media and fundamentally altering how we interact in the twenty-first century. The study of persona is essential to understanding contemporary culture, yet literature in this emerging field is scarce. Filling a gap in current knowledge, Persona Studies: An Introduction is the first major work to examine the construction, delivery, and curation of public identities in contemporary online culture.
This timely book helps readers navigate the changing cultural landscape while laying the groundwork for further research and application of persona studies. Three case studies are included - examining personas of the artist, gamer, and professional - to illustrate how personas continue to transform identity and reshape contemporary culture. From the historical precursors of the current iteration of persona to emerging configurations of public self, this unique work offers readers a broad introduction to the evolving theories and concepts of how persona defines the contemporary condition and its relation to technology and collective identity. To summarize, the book:
- Analyzes how identities linked to data are cultivated, curated and mined for various purposes
- Discusses the mediated blending of media and different types of interpersonal communication
- Explores tools for the investigation and analysis of persona, including Prosopographic field studies and information visualization
- Translates new research, concept, theories, methods, and approaches into clear case studies and applications
- Examines the personalization of public, private, and intimate information in the building of new personas
Persona Studies: An Introduction is an innovative resource for students, academics, researchers, and professionals in fields covering digital and social media, technology and culture, mass media and communications, social and media psychology and sociology, and professional studies.
Table of Contents
About the Authors ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: A Short History of the New Public Self 1
References 13
Part I Conceptualising Persona 15
1 Persona and Its Uses 17
Persona Studies and the Public Self 18
From Personae to Persona 20
The Premodern to the Contemporary Self 24
Applying Persona 26
Persona in Psychology 27
Persona in Literature 28
Persona in Performing Arts 29
Persona as Performance 30
Persona Through Personalization 32
References 35
2 The Contemporary Significance of Persona 39
Introduction 39
Intercommunication: The Human-Machine Interface 39
Celebrity and Surveillance 42
Intercommunication 47
Intercommunication and Affect Theory 52
Conclusion 54
References 55
3 Intercommunication and the Dimensions and Registers of Persona 59
Introduction 59
Persona as Individualized 60
Persona as Interpersonal 61
Persona as Indexical 62
Persona as Internetworked 63
Registers of Performance 65
Professional 65
Personal 66
Intimate 66
Five Dimensions of Persona 67
Public Dimension of Persona 68
Mediatized Dimension of Persona 69
Performative Dimension of Persona 69
Collective Dimension of Persona 71
The Fifth Dimension of Persona: Value, Agency, Reputation, Prestige (VARP) 72
Value 74
Agency 75
Reputation 77
Prestige 78
Conclusion 79
References 80
4 The Collective Constitution of Public Persona 87
Micro‐publics 87
Microcelebrity 90
Surveillance Capitalism and Persuasive Technologies 91
Persona as Digital Objects 94
Digital Objects, Micro‐publics, and Hyperobjects 96
Digital Object and Autosurveillance 99
Conclusion 105
References 106
Part II Researching Persona 111
5 Analyzing Contemporary Persona: Methods to Reveal the Public Version of the Self 113
Researching Ourselves: Reflexivity, Autoethnography, and First‐person Action Research 114
Interpreting the Public Self: Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis 115
Personas in the Making: Second‐person Action Research 119
Reputation and Inter‐related Persona: Prosopographic Field Study 123
Networked Selves: Information Visualization and Exploration 126
Conclusion 128
References 129
6 The Artist’s Persona 133
The Artist as Subject 134
The Artist Myth 135
Romanticism and the Arts 136
Self‐presentation in the Myth of the Artist 136
Artist’s Typologies 137
Authors, Auteurs, and Makers 141
The Artist as Creative Laborer 144
Online Artistness 145
Conclusion 150
References 151
7 From Player to Persona 155
The Role of Avatars 157
From Avatar to Persona 159
The Rise and Fall of the Gamer 161
Gâmeur: From Modder to Indie Game Developer Persona 165
Public 167
Mediatized 169
Performative 170
Collective 171
Intentional Value (VARP) 172
Conclusion 174
References 175
8 The Professional Persona 179
Work, Public Identity, and the Concept of the Professional 179
Step 1: Identify Online Culture’s Destabilizing Effect on Professional Personas 183
Step 2: The Instability of Past Value and the Push to New Value 185
Step 3: Agency, Active Visibility, and the Professional Persona 189
Step 4: The Online Transformation of Professional Reputation and Prestige 197
Conclusion 201
References 201
Conclusion 205
Glossary: Key Words in Persona Studies 221
Index 245
