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Summary Belk, R.W. (2013). Extended Self in a Digital World.
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Summary of 5 pages for the course Essentials in Marketing Communications at UT (ARTICLE SUMMARY)
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Belk, R.W. Extended Self in a Digital WorldExtended self (расширенная самооценка). Five changes emerging from our current digital age:
1. Dematerialization,
2. Reembodiment,
3. Sharing,
4. Co-construction of Self,
5. Distributed Memory.
THE ORIGINAL EXTENDED SELF FORMULATION
Major categories of extended self [are our] body, internal processes, ideas, and experiences, and those
persons, places, and things to which one feels attached.
The self is seen as embodied (i.e., not merely thoughts) and that material things (i.e., objects in the noun
categories) most clearly make up the extended self.
Possessions comprising the extended self serve not only as cues for others to form impressions about us
but also as markers for individual and collective memory. The memory marker objects of extended self
function both intentionally and unintentionally to prompt recollections of our prior experiences, linkages
to other people, and our previous selves.
Objects form a part of:
extended self (e.g., our pain when they are lost or stolen);
specified processes by which objects are cathected as a part of self;
derived implications for object care;
considered how the existential states of having, being, and doing are related; detailed the
ontological processes by which we selectively relate to our environments;
outlined various areas of consumption.
THE EXTENDED SELF IN A DIGITAL WORLD—WHAT’S NEW?
The relationship between online and offline personas becomes a key to defining the self in a digital age.
Dematerialization
The concept: Today our information, communications, photos, videos, music, calculations, messages,
“written” words, and data are now largely invisible and immaterial until we choose to call them forth.
They are composed of electronic streams of ones and zeroes that may be stored locally or in some hard
to imagine cloud.
Behavioral changes:
, - what was more private is becoming a group practice.
- we can also share our enthusiasm with a much broader imagined community
Needed Extended Self Updates due to Dematerialization:
1. Attachment and Singularization. The emergence of dematerialized and nonmaterial possessions
raises the question of whether consumers can become as attached to immaterial possessions as
they can to material possessions (which include digital devices) and whether we can gain status
and an enhanced sense of self from virtual possessions.
Digital virtual consumption] also differs from material consumption as the object of consumption lacks
material substance and cannot be used in material reality.
“Even material commodities appear to have a greater non-material component. This includes . . . design,
packaging and advertising imagery”.
Virtual goods are no less real or able to satisfy desires than material goods, but rather their use is
restricted to certain situations just as garden and kitchen tools are used in different situations.
Four functions that virtual consumption can fulfill:
1. it can stimulate consumer desire for both material and virtual goods;
2. it can actualize possible daydreams, such as those of wealth and status by enacting them in
video games;
3. it can actualize impossible fantasies, such as being a magician or space pirate with magical
objects;
4. it can facilitate experimentation, such as being a criminal in a video game or being a producer
selling goods on eBay.
There is evidence that consumers become attached to such virtual consumer goods, fear and mourn
their loss, and singularize them.
Consumers ritually transform digital commodities into meaningful possessions. Receiving virtual objects
as gifts is an example of a singularizing exchange ritual. We also invest psychic energy in virtual
possessions with which we spend extended amounts of time. Carefully backing up, archiving, and storing
the possessions are other meaningful curatorial ritual practices.
2. Almost, but Not Quite, the Same (What Virtual Possessions Lack).
Digital family mementos such as maps, cards, photos, and artworks have also been found to be regarded
as less valuable than physical mementos.
“Digital virtual possessions appear to lack some of the characteristics that invite attachment to material
possessions. For example, they are intangible, held only within software parameters, are apparently
easily reproduced, and may not gather the patina of well-loved material possessions.”
Reembodiment (реконструкция)
In a more visual Internet environment of social media, virtual worlds, online games, blogs, web pages,
photo- and video-sharing sites, Internet dating sites, and so forth, we are disembodied and reembodied
as avatars, photos, and videos. With the help of PhotoShop and purchased “skins” and accessories, we
have considerable leeway in our visual self presentations online, despite a fairly high degree of similarity
to our physical appearance.
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