Persona Studies

About the Authors ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction: A Short History of the New Public Self 1 References 13 Part I Conceptualising Persona 15 1 Persona and Its Uses 17 Persona Studies and the Public Self 18 From Personae to Persona 20 The Premodern to the Contemporary Self 24 Applying Persona 26 Persona in Psychology 27 Persona in Literature 28 Persona in Performing Arts 29 Persona as Performance 30 Persona Through Personalization 32 References 35 2 The Contemporary Significance of Persona 39 Introduction 39 Intercommunication: The Human-Machine Interface 39 Celebrity and Surveillance 42 Intercommunication 47 Intercommunication and Affect Theory 52 Conclusion 54 References 55 3 Intercommunication and the Dimensions and Registers of Persona 59 Introduction 59 Persona as Individualized 60 Persona as Interpersonal 61 Persona as Indexical 62 Persona as Internetworked 63 Registers of Performance 65 Professional 65 Personal 66 Intimate 66 Five Dimensions of Persona 67 Public Dimension of Persona 68 Mediatized Dimension of Persona 69 Performative Dimension of Persona 69 Collective Dimension of Persona 71 The Fifth Dimension of Persona: Value, Agency, Reputation, Prestige (VARP) 72 Value 74 Agency 75 Reputation 77 Prestige 78 Conclusion 79 References 80 4 The Collective Constitution of Public Persona 87 Micro-publics 87 Microcelebrity 90 Surveillance Capitalism and Persuasive Technologies 91 Persona as Digital Objects 94 Digital Objects, Micro-publics, and Hyperobjects 96 Digital Object and Autosurveillance 99 Conclusion 105 References 106 Part II Researching Persona 111 5 Analyzing Contemporary Persona: Methods to Reveal the Public Version of the Self 113 Researching Ourselves: Reflexivity, Autoethnography, and First-person Action Research 114 Interpreting the Public Self: Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis 115 Personas in the Making: Second-person Action Research 119 Reputation and Inter-related Persona: Prosopographic Field Study 123 Networked Selves: Information Visualization and Exploration 126 Conclusion 128 References 129 6 The Artist's Persona 133 The Artist as Subject 134 The Artist Myth 135 Romanticism and the Arts 136 Self-presentation in the Myth of the Artist 136 Artist's Typologies 137 Authors, Auteurs, and Makers 141 The Artist as Creative Laborer 144 Online Artistness 145 Conclusion 150 References 151 7 From Player to Persona 155 The Role of Avatars 157 From Avatar to Persona 159 The Rise and Fall of the Gamer 161 Gâmeur: From Modder to Indie Game Developer Persona 165 Public 167 Mediatized 169 Performative 170 Collective 171 Intentional Value (VARP) 172 Conclusion 174 References 175 8 The Professional Persona 179 Work, Public Identity, and the Concept of the Professional 179 Step 1: Identify Online Culture's Destabilizing Effect on Professional Personas 183 Step 2: The Instability of Past Value and the Push to New Value 185 Step 3: Agency, Active Visibility, and the Professional Persona 189 Step 4: The Online Transformation of Professional Reputation and Prestige 197 Conclusion 201 References 201 Conclusion 205 Glossary: Key Words in Persona Studies 221 Index 245