Hiding in plain sight: street artists online

Abstract

Identity and privacy concerns related to social media are the subject of widespread academic enquiry and mass media reporting. Although academic research tends to present identity play and online self-presentation as positive in most circumstances, media reporting in Australia makes much of the risks of identity theft, privacy breaches and online predators. This research explores the phenomenological experience of creating a persona online focusing particularly on street artists. For street artists, the threat of unwanted exposure has to be balanced with the positive implications of sharing their creative work outside its geographical and temporal constraints. I argue that street artists use complex persona creation strategies in order to both protect and promote themselves. The two street artists discussed here experience their engagement with social media and digital networks in ways that offer new insight into the opportunities and problems associated with the presentation of persona online.