Identities across Media and Modes : discursive perspectives

The essays collected in this volume deal with the representation of identities in mediated environments characterized by the combination of various modes and media. The main focus of the collection is on the strategies used to represent identities in mediatised communication, as all the papers included deal with the representation of collective or individual entities – from whole countries and corporations to individual professionals and private citizens – through various types of media, be they based on computer or web technologies, or on more traditional [originally] non-electronic forms of communication (press, cinema, TV). The basic shared assumption, which incidentally underlies much research conducted in a discourse analytical perspective today, is that language and discourse can never be really neutral and ideology-free (cf. e.g. Garzone/Sarangi 2007). Not only does discourse bear traces of the speaker’s individual and social identities that surface spontaneously in linguistic interaction, but communication is also the locus where identities are deliberately constructed and negotiated. In their variety of topics and approaches, the studies collected in this volume testify to the extreme complexity and sensitivity of the theme of identity representation in, through, and across media and modes. The results of the investigations presented in them confirm that identity itself is mutable and multi-layered, and is subject to multiple modes of construction and de-construction, as well as to selective adjustments to the interlocutor, whether real or fictitious, also as a function of the actual purpose of the communicative effort in each single context and situation. At the same time, the unprecedented evolution and multiplication of modes and media has made increasingly sophisticated tools available for identity representation. But the expressive potential of language and other semiotic resources, albeit rich, will never match the complexity of reality and experience. Therefore, any attempt to represent identity in discourse, however inspired to accuracy and honesty it may be, will always involve a selection of the aspects and traits to be represented / constructed amongst the potentially infinite number that can be distinguished in direct observation or experience. Equally crucial is the choice of the modes and media to be used for communicating. These are all elements that have an impact (not necessarily deliberate) on identity representations, which by definition can never be objective or ‘faithful’, but must be the result of selection and construction.