Paper short abstract:

The paper aims is to investigate, starting from Erving Goffman’ proposal, the theme of identity in the context of the cyberspace, where the “individualistic” model of sociality is the prevailing one.

Paper long abstract:

The present research aims to investigate the theme of identity and self-representation, even more fluid, multiple and diversified, especially in the context of the so-called cyberspace, starting from the concept of the “presentation of Self in everyday life” examined by the sociologist Erving Goffman, that takes up and reworks, at a micro level, two elements of Durkheim's proposal regarding the religious dimension. Indeed, according to Goffman, the individual always lives in a specific situation that determines his social identity (this is the reason why the actions are defined as 'dramaturgical'), and this is even more true when the individual acts in a digital reality. In fact, the digital dimension could be seen as a material support to the diffusion of the “individualistic model” as the prevailing model of sociality (in this respect, some authors suggest the definition of “networked individualism”).

Cyberspace, therefore, by combining episodic interactions in real time, makes it possible to ‘wear’, depending on the people with whom one establishes relation, different lives. So, the digital dimension becomes the representation of a new environment for discussion and exchange of ideas in which it is possible to form new communities managed by individuals who, although they do not meet physically, build effective relationships where identity, founded primarily on the Kantian categories of space and time, is, inevitably, modified.