This article was written in 2002, presented to the International Conference of TEFLIN in Mandarin Hotel Surabaya in 2002.

1. THE PRESENTATIONS OF SELF ON PERSONAL HOMEPAGES:
A new phenomenon in the post-traditional age
By Yusuf Kurniawan
Introduction
In 1991, Alvin Tofler’s The Third Wave proclaimed the dawn of the Information Age. 1
One decade later, it was proven that cyberspace 2 is an extraordinary extension of the
human experience. The advent of the World Wide Web just commenced in 1991 after
its Inventor, Tim Berners-Lee succeeded in releasing his masterpiece. 3 However, in less
than ten years, it has become the worldwide phenomenon. Today, for groups of people
they cannot even work without the Internet. It has become one of the integral parts of
their life.
The emergence of personal homepages on the WWW has been increasingly an
important issue in media and cultural studies because first, their number kept increasing
and added up quickly. According to the research conducted by Geocities.com and
Tripod.com on January 2000, there were more than four million active homepage
builders registered at their each server. What’s more, Xoom.com claimed a further two
million in the same year. 4 Millions more homepages reside in the numerous other free
services, the web space provided by Internet services. Second, personal websites have
been used by the authors to present their ‘selves’ and identities. The latter reason,
according to many theorists recently, led to the phenomenon that we call ‘constructing
new identities.’ 5
Many media theorists such as Joshua Meyrowitz argue that the adoption of new
media seems to involve a shifting or blurring of the boundaries between public and
private. 6 Without adopting the stance of hard technological determinism, 7 we may
perceive such a shift in the new genre of the personal homepage on the World Wide
Web. The fundamental technical difference between the medium of speech and that of
writing is that writing is automatically recorded, web pages introduce another key
feature: what is written on a web page (and stored on a web-server) is automatically
published on a global scale. Web pages that are ‘personal’ are simultaneously public,
and it is such ‘personal homepages’, which are the subject of this paper.

2. 2
Constructing new ‘self’ and identity
The new phenomenon that personal homepage is not merely used for exhibiting family
photos and identity, but it is employed as the place for building a new self and identity
is inescapable in media studies. Even, it has formed a new genre i.e. web studies. It is
stated by Miller that ‘the personal home page has developed as a new form of self-
presentation over the last few years. 8 Having a personal homepage is just like having a
personal printing press that is always ready to publish and advertise the owner. As it is
argued by Chandler that ‘being able to produce webpage is like owning your printing
press, and what some might call ‘self advertisement’ seems to be a key function.’ 9
Since the presentation of self on personal homepages is somewhat unlimited by
bandwidth –unlike other media, which have many limitations, especially bandwidth
limitation--, the author of a personal homepage can make his presentation twenty-four
hours a day for the whole week and even for the whole year without stopping.
Moreover, the author can give his detailed information and continually revise his web
pages until he is satisfied. He can always experiment with colors, graphics, clipart,
background pictures (wallpapers) etc. Erickson argued that it is the first time for
individuals to be able to project massive amount of detailed information about
themselves to a mass audience through the medium of the World Wide Web. 10
The presentation of ‘self’ on personal homepages mostly transfers and transforms
the self and identity from the real life to the virtual world. Home pages are a medium in
which conventional relationship between public and private are visibly in the process of
transformation. 11 John Seabrook comments that ‘a home in the real world is, among
other things, a way of keeping the world out. An on-line home, on the other hand, is a
little hole you drill on the wall of your real home to let the world in.’ 12
The content of what is meant here by personal homepages can be recognized as
drawing on a palette of paradigms that includes:
 Personal statistics, biographical details and/ or CV
 Interests, likes and dislikes (music, art, films, TV, books, travel, sports,
hobbies)
 Ideas, beliefs and causes (religious, political, philosophical)
 Current activities
 Original creative work by the author (photographs, artwork, poems, stories,
articles, music)
 List of (and links to) friends, family, workmates and web acquaintances

3. 3
 Details of the author’s real-world home, town, region and or country
 Contact details 13
There are two distinctive ways a homepage author presents her self and identity on
her web pages, i.e. directly and indirectly. Homepage authors frequently use direct way
instead of indirect one. We can quite easily learn their self and identity if they do this
way. Nearly all the information about the author is explicitly stated/ written on the
homepage, such as physical details, biographical statistics, and hobbies. Usually, the
photographs of the author and her family, and sometimes her pets --cats or dogs--
accompany such homepages.
On the other hand, when a homepage author presents her self and identity
indirectly, the audience will not be able to recognize the author easily, because usually
she uses stories and poems to tell about her self and identity. As Vibeke, from Las
Vegas, Nevada, USA admitted that, she presented her true and untrue self through her
stories. As she writes:
‘There are perhaps some parts that seem concealed, but they have been reflected in some of
my short stories, and even though I may be the only one who knows how to interpret these
stories in the right sense, this fact makes me feel like it really does represent a full honest
reflection of who I am.’ 14
No wonder if it frequently leads to misunderstanding. Chandler suggests the
images individuals present on their homepages also have ‘unintended consequences in
they way they may be interpreted by others independently of their builder’s intentions
or presence. Thus, Chandler says that homepages ‘may involve both intentional and
unintentional disclosures (as well as sometimes leading to misinterpretation)’. 15
However, it doesn’t mean if the author does not want to tell directly or explicitly,
then we cannot learn her self and identity. Indeed, we can still know the author’s self
and identity from the metaphor she uses in her stories or poems, and from the links that
she puts on her homepage. Sherry Turkle notes that in a homepage, ‘one’s identity
emerges from whom one knows, one’s associations and connection.’ 16 Even, another
commentator said more boldly ‘Show me what your links are, and I’ll tell you what kind
of person you are.’ 17 For example, if we find a personal homepage with full of links to a
certain game hero and the images of the hero, then we may judge that the owner must be
a game enthusiast. Chandler’s study might be the best to explain this. In building
personal homepages, the authors reflect active and discursive involvement regarding

4. 4
how and why they create their homepages in the way they do. Tristan, one of the people
in Chandler’s investigation, for instance, comments on his homepage: ‘It helps to define
who I am.’ 18
Certain feature film lovers may also be creating online community by building
homepages that feature the film actors and or actresses. Several number of media
scholars also acknowledge this phenomenon in web culture studies. Many fans of a
certain film or film actor or actress have made online communities which are linked to
one another. Many of them exchange and give information to each other about their
idolized actor or actress. There is a large number of such personal homepages, such as
those of Xena’s fans from all over the world. 19
Personal homepage authors usually focus on a certain theme in their presentation.
There are definitely many themes of presentation presented by personal homepage
authors, but those that are frequently incorporated by homepage authors are: (1) the
pleasure of promoting towns and regions, (2) the pleasure of promoting oneself (3) the
convenience of having global communication (4) the convenience of self-presentation. 20
The large variety of themes shows the rapid themes development of personal
homepages in these recent years. For instance the theme focuses on the pleasure of
promoting oneself is considered new. Personal homepage is used to promote its author
to web surfers. Rio’s personal homepage provides a good example for this theme. He
writes, ‘I hope people are interested to know me especially future employers and the
rest could use my good links.’ 21
Webcam women
With the emergence of new gadget, web camera, communication through the Internet
has become more vivid. We cannot only hear the voice but we can also see our
counterpart beyond the screen who may be thousands of miles away on the other side of
the world. However, there is likely a new phenomenon regarding the usage of the
device. Since web camera can also be used to make surveillance, personal websites’
authors have been trying to incorporate it into their homepages. 22 Interestingly, the
majority using this device are women. They set up some web cams in certain places –
such as in living room, balcony, and in even more private ones, like in bathroom and
bedroom—in their homes. Internet audiences can monitor the personal website’s owner
when she is at home. With certain refresh-rate that can be controlled by the owner, the

5. 5
web cams will be changing the displays from one angle to the others. Usually, the
display changes every five to fifteen minutes. Nevertheless, the owner can still put and
position the cameras on the places, which she desired. In other words, even though web
cam provides more vivid and live pictures and displays of the owner, she still has vast
opportunity to manipulate her appearance before the audiences. For instance, if the
homepage owner does not want the audience see her naked, then she will not put the
web cam in the bathroom or in the bedroom. There are many such kinds of websites
today, e.g. www.jennicam.org, www.anacam.com, www.CollegeCutie.com, 23 etc. On
one side, the owners want to show their existence by having such websites, and on the
other side, they could reap a lot of profit by selling their images to the Internet
audiences.
Linking Goffman’s and Gidden’s Notions to the Web
When Goffman wrote his book The Presentation of Self in Daily Life in 1969, the
WWW and personal homepages definitely had not existed. Even until his death in 1985,
the WWW was just about to be scripted. However, there is relevant correlation between
the phenomenon of presentation of self on personal homepages and Goffman’s notions
about the presentation of self.
Goffman suggests that presentation of self in everyday life is a delicate enterprise,
subject to moment-to-moment mishaps and unintentional misrepresentations. 24
Individual’s interaction is seen as a ‘performance’ that is shaped by environment and
audience. It is constructed to give other ‘impressions’ to other individuals who are in
agreement with the actor’s desired goals. An individual develops her identity or persona
as consequence of interacting with other people. While presenting her self on personal
homepage, an individual is actually making an interaction with other people (Internet
audience) as well. The difference is that in face-to-face interaction an individual will be
more able to manage her performance to fit the people she encounters. Most self-
presentation in everyday life is not like a formal job interview in which we can do a 3-
minute self-introduction. Most face-to-face interaction runs in a more spontaneous
manner, during which we will never be able to present ourselves in an orderly and
systematic fashion. 25 On the contrary, the interaction occurred on personal homepage
could not be as direct as face-to-face interaction. The audiences meet the personal
homepage owner in her absence.

6. 6
In addition, Goffman states that there are many ‘sign vehicles’ besides the ‘verbal
assertions.’ 26 Sign vehicles such as sex, age, racial characteristics, facial expressions,
bodily gestures, speech pattern and clothing can be recognized by other people as
expressions that some of them can change spontaneously. For instance facial
expressions that can change nearly every moment when people have interaction. As
Goffman suggests that “… some of these sign vehicles are relatively mobile or
transitory from one moment to the next.” 27 The expressions given off by someone will
be evaluated by the audience, how serious or successful she made her self-presentation.
Facial expressions, bodily gestures and speech pattern are much easier to manipulate.
However, the other signals like race, gender and age are somewhat difficult to conceal
in face-to-face interaction.
In relation to the phenomenon that personal homepage is used by the author to
have self-presentation, it is likely leading to what Giddens calls the ‘reflexive project.’
Self-identity becomes unobservable characteristics in the post-traditional order. It is
individual’s own reflexive understanding of her biography. 28 Anyone can make her own
narrative about her own self. Furthermore, Giddens says:
In traditional societies, roles and identities were more-or-less given to people. But in post-
traditional (modern) societies, people have to make their own identity. Everyone
necessarily has to face the questions, ‘Who am I? What do I want from life? Where am I
going?’ 29
The World Wide Web and personal homepages emerged in the post-traditional order,
amongst modern societies who (many of them) are also definitely challenged to set out
their identity. Homepage authors present anything about any aspects of their ‘selves’,
about the things they associate with, about what they are proud of. They want to show
themselves to the world. Moreover, with the increasing availability of mediated
experience, the project of the modern self has become a symbolic project. As Thompson
explains:
it is a project that the individual constructs out of the symbolic materials which are
available to him or her, materials which the individual weaves into a coherent account of
who he is or she is, a narrative of self-identity …To recount to ourselves or others who we
are is to retell the narratives – which are continuously modified in the process of retelling –
of how we got to where we are and of where are going from here. 30
Here we find the correlation between Giddens’ and Goffman’s notions and the
presentations of self and also the construction of identity on personal homepages.

7. 7
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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[01/03/01]
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Gauntlett, David (ed) (2000) Web.Studies: Rewiring media studies for the digital age.
London: Arnold Publishers.
Gauntlett, David (2002) Media, Gender and Identity: A New Introduction. London:
Routledge.
Giddens, Anthony (2000) Modernity and Self Identity: Self and Society in the Late
Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Goffman, Erving (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin.
(page references are to 1990 edition)
Jarvis, Chris (no year) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. [WWW document]
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http://www-home.calumet.yorku.ca/pkelly/www/id1.htm. [26/03/01]

8. 8
Kurniawan, Yusuf (2001) The Presentation of ‘Self’ on Personal Websites
(dissertation). Leeds: Institute of Communications studies, University of Leeds.
Kurniawan, Yusuf (2002) Presentation of ‘Self’ on Personal Websites (paper presented
to the English Department’s Discussion Forum, Sebelas Maret University, June 2002).
Mackay, Hugh and O’Sullivan, Tim (eds.) (2000) The Media Reader: continuity and
transformation. London: Sage Publications.
Meyrowitz, Joshua (1985) No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social
Behaviour. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Internet’ [WWW document] URL http://www.ntu.ac.uk/soc/psych/miller/goffman.htm
(paper presented at Embodied Knowledge and Virtual Space conference, Goldsmiths’
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Turkle, Sherry (1996) Life on the Screen: Identity on the Age of the Internet. London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

9. 9
Notes
1
Power, Richard (2000) Tangled Web: Tales of Digital Crime from the Shadows of Cyberspace.
Indianapolis: QUE, p. 1.
2
Cyberspace was originally a term from William Gibson’s science-fiction novel Neuromancer.
3
Initially Tim released the WWW only for the NeXT, second, the line-mode browser and third, the basic
server for any computers outside CERN (Conseil Europeen pour Recherche Nucleaire) laboratory –the
European Particle Physics Laboratory-- in Geneva Switzerland. Berners-Lee, Tim (1999) Weaving the
Web: The Past Present and Future of the World Wide Web by Its Inventor. London: Orion Press. See also
A Little History of the World Wide Web at http://www.w3.org/History.htm.
4
Cheung, Charles (2000) A Home on the Web in Gauntlett, David (ed) (2000) web.studies: Rewiring
media studies for the digital age. London: Arnold Publishers, p.43.
5
See in Chandler, Daniel (1997) Writing Oneself in Cyberspace. [WWW document] URL
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/homepgid.html, Erickson, Thomas (1996) The World
Wide web as Social Hypertext. [WWW document] URL
http://www.pliant.org/personal/Tom_Erickson/SocialHypertext.html, Turkle, Sherry (1996) Life on the
Screen: Identity on the Age of the Internet. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Miller, Hugh (1995) ‘The
Presentation of Self in Electronic Life: Goffman on the Internet’ [WWW document] URL
http://www.ntu.ac.uk/soc/psych/miller/goffman.htm and Chandler, Daniel (1998) Personal Home Pages
and the Construction of Identities on the Web. [WWW document] URL
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/webident.html
6
Meyrowitz, Joshua (1985) No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behaviour.
New York: Oxford University Press.
7
Chandler, Daniel (1995) Technological or Media Determinism. [WWW document] URL
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/tecdet/tecdet.html.
8
Miller, Hugh (1996) The Hypertext Home: images and metaphors of home on World Wide Web home
pages. [WWW document] URL http://www.ntu.ac.uk/soc/psych/miller/homeweb.htm.
9
Chandler, Daniel (1997) Writing Oneself in Cyberspace. [WWW document] URL
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/homepgid.html.
10
Erickson, Thomas (1996) The World Wide web as Social Hypertxt. Available at:
http://www.pliant.org/personal/Tom_Erickson/SocialHypertext.html
11
Kelly, Paul J. (1995) ‘Human Identity, Part 1: Who Are You?’ [WWW document] URL http://www-
home.calumet.yorku.ca/pkelly/www/id1.htm.
12
Seabrook, John (1995) ‘Home on the Net’ [WWW document] URL
http://levity.com/seabrook/homenet.html
13
There are many other features of personal homepages stated by media theorists, but they are more or
less the same in one another. See Chandler, Daniel. Writing Oneself in Cyberspace. [WWW document]
URL http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/homepgid.html and Cheung, Charles (2000) A
Home on the Web in Gauntlett, David (ed) (2000) web.studies: Rewiring media studies for the digital age.
London: Arnold Publishers.
14
Email interview on 25 May 2001, one of the respondents of the research for the dissertation at the
University of Leeds. Vibeke Courtney’s homepage URL http://www.gynodummy.com.
15
Chandler, cited in Slevin, James (2000) The Internet and Society. London: Polity Press, p. 172.
16
Turkle, Sherry (1996) Life on the Screen: Identity on the Age of the Internet. London: Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, p.258.
17
Miller, Hugh (1995) ‘The Presentation of Self in Electronic Life: Goffman on the Internet’ [WWW
document] URL http://www.ntu.ac.uk/soc/psych/miller/goffman.htm (paper presented at Embodied
Knowledge and Virtual Space conference, Goldsmiths’ College, University of London, June 1995.
18
Cited in Slevin, James (2000) The Internet and Society. London: Polity Press, p. 173.
19
Xena : the Warrior Princess, the TV serial is proven the most admired by TV viewers in nearly the
whole Europe and America. To show their admiration and love to their idolized stars they did not merely
purchase accessories which represent the actress, but also set up online community through personal
homepages that feature the ‘warrior princess.’ For more details about making online fans community, see
Pullen, Kirsten (2000) I-love-xena.com: Creating Online Fan Communities in Gauntlett, David (ed.)
(2000) Web.Studies: Rewiring media studies for the digital age. London: Arnold Publishers, p. 52-61.

10. 10
20
I took these themes from the research I conducted for my dissertation, based on the respondents’
personal homepages. Kurniawan, Yusuf (2001) The Presentation of ‘Self’ on Personal Websites
(Dissertation), Leeds: University of Leeds.
21
Rio was one of my research respondents from Jakarta. On his personal homepage, Rio emphasizes the
importance of self-promotion. E-mail interview, 04 June 2001. His homepage URL:
http://www.rio.allhere.com.
22
Kurniawan, Yusuf (2002) Presentations of ‘Self’ on Personal Websites (paper presented at the English
Department’s Discussion Forum), Sebelas Maret University.
23
Snyder, Donald (2000) Webcam Women: Life on your screen, in Gauntlett, David (ed) (2000)
Web.Studies: Rewiring Media Studies for the Digital Age, p. 69.
24
Goffman, Erving (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin.
25
Cheung, Charles (2000) Presentations of Self on Personal Homepages in Gauntlett, David (ed) (2000)
Web.Studies: Rewiring media studies for the digital age, p. 47.
26
Goffman, Erving (1959), p.34.
27
Ibid.
28
Gauntlett, David (2002) Media, Gender and Identity: A New Introduction. London: Routledge.
29
Giddens, Anthonny (2000) Modernity and Self Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
30
Thompson, John B. (2000) The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media. London: Polity,
p. 210.