Advance Search

Performing the virtual double: Notes on self-amputation and self-amplification

Notes on self-amputation and self-amplification

Amanda du Preez
University of Pretoria
Keywords:
Copyright and Licensing:
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Share:

How to Cite

Performing the virtual double: Notes on self-amputation and self-amplification. (2022). Communicare: Journal for Communication Studies in Africa, 35(1), 108-125. https://doi.org/10.36615/jcsa.v35i1.1605
  • Articles
  • Submited: October 14, 2022
  • Published: October 17, 2022

Abstract

In what follows the idea of the online double is historically contextualised and analysed. Beginning
with the contemporary idea of the ‘selfie’ as online self-induced double, I proceed to discuss the
Doppelgänger’s (double) mythical and literary roots, in order to expand the discussion of the selfie
to include the online double. Two instances of the online double are unpacked, namely the double
as shadow and the double as a stand-in or alter-ego, which correspond significantly with Marshall
McLuhan’s analysis of the Narcissus myth and technological use. McLuhan reveals the doubled
nature of our technological engagement that leads to either self-amputation or self-amplification.
In my analysis, the double as shadow is correlated with self-amputation and the double as alterego
with self-amplification. It is argued that the double as shadow is evoked online through the
mining of data regarding the self that is captured consciously and unconsciously to create what
is known as the Data Doppelgänger. The figure of the Doppelgänger is further vividly conjured
through virtual stand-ins or alter-egos that act on behalf of the self to create a tele-presence
through examples such as Project Lifelike and rep.licants.org.

pdf
pdf

Article Metrics Graph

Article Views | PDF Downloads
Chart Graph | Range Graph

References

  1. ALL4WOMEN. (2016). South Africa's top 5 selfie queens. April 11, 2016. Retrieved July, 7, 2016, fromhttp://www.all4women.co.za/701283/entertainment/celebrity-photo-galleries/gallerysouth-africas-top-5-selfie-queens
  2. Arnzen, M. (2014). Data Doppelgängers and the Uncanny Valley of personalization. The Atlantic, June 16, 2014. Retrieved October 12, 2015, from http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/data-doppelgangers-and-the-uncanny-valley-of-personalization/372780/
  3. Avgitidou, A. (2003). Performances of the Self. Digital Creativity, 14(3):131-138.
  4. https://doi.org/10.1076/digc.14.3.131.27874
  5. Autenrieth, U.P. & Neumann-Braun, K. (2011). Freundschaft und Gemeinschaft im Social Web. Bildbezogenes Handeln und Peergroup-Kommunikation auf Facebook und Co. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
  6. https://doi.org/10.5771/9783845227795
  7. Banet-Weiser, S. (2012). Authentic™. The politics of ambivalence in a brand culture. New York: New York University Press.
  8. Boyman, M. (Producer), Cronenberg, D. (Producer), & Cronenberg, D. (Director). (1988). Dead Ringers [Motion picture]. USA: 20th Century Fox.
  9. Brandt, R. (2014). Google divulges numbers at I/O: 20 billion texts, 93 million selfies and more. Silicon Valley Business Journal, 25 June, 2014. Retrieved March 12, 2015, from http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2014/06/25/google-divulges-numbers-at-i-o-20-billiontexts-93.html
  10. Casement, A. (2003) Encountering the Shadow in rites of passage: A study in activations. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 48:29-46.
  11. https://doi.org/10.1111/1465-5922.t01-2-00002
  12. Chen, C-P. (2013). Exploring personal branding on YouTube. Journal of Internet Commerce, 12(4):332-347.
  13. https://doi.org/10.1080/15332861.2013.859041
  14. Cherubini, M. (2011). rep.licants.org. Master Thesis project, Geneva University of Art and Design. Retrieved June 18, 2015, from http://awd.site.nfoservers.com/replicants
  15. Elwell, J.S. (2013). The transmediated Self: Life between the digital and the analog. Convergence. The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 20(2):233-249.
  16. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856513501423
  17. Faurholt, G. (2009). Self as Other: The Doppelgänger. Double Dialogues, 10 (Summer). Retrieved October 21, 2015, from http://www.doubledialogues.com/article/self-as-other-thedoppelganger
  18. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of Self in everyday life. Garden City, New York: Random House.
  19. Gombrich, E.H. (1972). The Mask and the Face: The perception of physiognomic likeness in life and in art. In E.H. Gombrich, J. Hochberg & M. Black (Eds.), Art, Perception and Reality (pp. 1-46). Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
  20. Haggerty, K.D. & Ericson, R.V. (2000). The surveillant assemblage. British Journal of Sociology, 51(4):605-622.
  21. https://doi.org/10.1080/00071310020015280
  22. Hearn, A. (2008). 'Meat, Mask, Burden': Probing the contours of the branded 'Self'. Journal of Consumer Culture, 8(2):197-217.
  23. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540508090086
  24. Human Face of Big Data. (2012). Against All Odds Productions. Retrieved October 21, 2015, from http://thehumanfaceofbigdata.com
  25. Jeng, A. (2005). The Soul as second Self before Plato. Euramerica, 35(1):225-272.
  26. Jung, C.G. (1916). Psychology and Unconsciousness. Transl. Beatrice M. Hinkle. London: Kegan Paul Trench.
  27. Jung, C.G. (1952). Synchronicity: An acausal connecting principle. (1973, 2nd ed.). Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
  28. Kanai, A. (2015). WhatShouldWeCallMe? Self-Branding, individuality and belonging in youthful femininities on Tumblr. M/C Journal, 18(1). Retrieved October 21, 2015, from http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/936
  29. https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.936
  30. Robinson, J.A. (Producer), Kapnek, E. (Producer) & Kapnek, E. (Director). (2014). Selfie [Television Series].USA: Piece of Pie Productions.
  31. Knibbs, K. (2015, April 14). Jennicam: Why the first lifecaster disappeared from the Internet? Gizmodo. Retrieved October 21, 2015, from http://gizmodo.com/jennicam-why-the-firstlifecaster-disappeared-from-the-1697712996
  32. Levine, A. (Producer), Welland, C. (Producer), Maslany, T. (Producer), Nealon, A. (Producer) & Fawcett, J. (Director). (2013). Orphan Black. [Television Series]. Canada: Temple Street Productions.
  33. Marshall, D. (2010). The promotion and presentation of the Self: Celebrity as marker of presentational media. Celebrity Studies, 1(1):35-48.
  34. https://doi.org/10.1080/19392390903519057
  35. McLuhan, M. (1994). Understanding media: The extension of man. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  36. Murray, D.C. (2015) Notes to Self: The visual culture of selfies in the age of social media. Consumption Markets & Culture, 18(6):490-516.
  37. https://doi.org/10.1080/10253866.2015.1052967
  38. Page, R. (2012). The linguistics of self-branding and micro-celebrity in Twitter: The role of hashtags. Discourse & Communication, 6(2):181-201.
  39. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481312437441
  40. Procter, L. (2014) A Mirror without a tain: Personae, Avatars, and Selves in a multi-user virtual environment. M/C Journal, 17(3). Retrieved April 16, 2015, from http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/822
  41. https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.822
  42. Project Life Like. Intelligent Systems Laboratory (University of Central Florida) and Electronic Visualisation Laboratory (University of Illinois at Chicago). Retrieved October 21, 2015, from http://www.virtualworldlets.net/Resources/Hosted/Resource.php?Name=ProjectLifeLike
  43. Rank, O. (1971). The Double. A Psychoanalytic Study. Transl. Harry Tucker. The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill.
  44. Reppel, Alexander E., Szmigin, I. & Funk, B. (2011). The comprehensive digital memory and the dark side of the Data Doppelgänger. In Marketing and Public Policy Conference Proceedings (pp. 121-122). American Marketing Association: Washington, DC.
  45. Reppel, Alexander E. & Szmigin, I. (2011). Data Doppelgänger: Addressing the darker side of digital identity. In A. Bradshaw, C. Hackley & P. Maclaran (Eds.), European Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 9. Duluth, MN: Association for Consumer Research.
  46. Ruckenstein, M. (2014) Visualized and interacted life: Personal analytics and engagements with Data Doubles. Societies, 4(1):68-84.
  47. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc4010068
  48. Schulman, N. (Producer), Joseph, M. (Producer) & Schulman, N. (Director), Joseph, M. (Director). (2012 - ). Catfish. The TV Show. [Television Series]. USA: Catfish Picture Company.
  49. Senft, T.M. & Baym, Nancy K. (2015). What does the selfie say? Investigating a global phenomenon. International Journal of Communication, 9:1588-1606.
  50. Smith, S.F. (2013). If it looks like Tupac, walks like Tupac, and raps like Tupac, it's probably Tupac: Virtual cloning and postmortem right-of-publicity implications. Michigan State Law Revue, 2013(5):1719-1761.
  51. Starkey, S. (Producer), Zemeckis, R. (Producer), Goetzman, G. (Producer), Teiler, W. (Producer) & Zemeckis, R. (Director). (2004). The Polar Express. [Motion picture]. USA: Warner Bros. Pictures.
  52. Tinwell, A., Grimshaw, M. & Williams, A. (2011). The Uncanny Wall. International Journal Arts and Technology, 4(3:327-341.
  53. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJART.2011.041485
  54. Turkle, S. (2011). Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. New York, NY: Basic Books.
  55. Van Dijck, J. (2014). Datafication, dataism and dataveillance: Big data between scientific paradigm and ideology. Surveillance & Society, 12(2):197-208.
  56. https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v12i2.4776
  57. Van Doorn, N. (2009). The ties that bind: The networked performance of gender, sexuality and friendship on MySpace. New Media & Society, 12(4):583-602.
  58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444809342766
  59. Van Zoonen, L. (2012) I-Pistemology: Changing truth claims in popular and political culture. European Journal of Communication, 27(1):56-67.
  60. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323112438808
  61. Vardoulakis, D. (2006). The return of negation: The Doppelganger in Freud's the 'Uncanny'. SubStance, 35(2):100-116.
  62. https://doi.org/10.1353/sub.2006.0038
  63. Virilio, P. 1999. Polar Inertia. London: Sage.
  64. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446218099
  65. Walker-Rettberg, J. (2005). Mirrors and Shadows: The digital aestheticisation of oneself. In Digital Arts and Culture conference proceedings, (pp.184-190). Copenhagen.
  66. Walker-Rettberg, J. (2009) 'Freshly generated for you, and Barack Obama': How social media represent your life. European Journal of Communication, 24(4):451-466.
  67. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323109345715
  68. Walker-Rettberg, J. (2014) Seeing ourselves through technology. How we use selfies, blogs and wearable devices to see and shape ourselves. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
  69. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137476661
  70. Wendt, B. (2014). The allure of the selfie. Instagram and the new self-portrait. Amsterdam: Notebooks08.
  71. Zajc, M. (2013) Social media, prosumption, and dispositives: New mechanisms of the construction of subjectivity. Journal of Consumer Culture, 15(1):28-47.
  72. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540513493201
  73. Živkovi 2000. The Double as the 'Unseen' of culture: Toward a definition of Doppelganger. Linguistics and Literature, 2 (7):122-128.
How to Cite
Performing the virtual double: Notes on self-amputation and self-amplification. (2022). Communicare: Journal for Communication Studies in Africa, 35(1), 108-125. https://doi.org/10.36615/jcsa.v35i1.1605

Send mail to Author

Send Cancel

Similar Articles

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.

Custom technologies based on your needs

  • ORCID
  • Crossref
  • PubMed
    • Clarivate