Os Perfis Identitários na Comunidade Virtual Orkut

Resumo (EN)

ldentity Profiles in an Orkut Virtual Community is the title of this dissertation that aims to identifying and analyzing the logical of users' identity profiles in the Orkut virtual community. This dissertation also talks about the concept of "Community", and how it was used in the Orkut site, besides recovering the original meaning of "Community", based on respected theorists to verify, though, whether the denomination of "Virtual Community" in the site is appropriate. The objective of this dissertation consists of understanding what makes the users assume different identities. Thus, the specific objective is to map the constant identities profiles in Orkut; to analyze them as well as the communities related to the identity topic inserted in Orkut; to identify the needs that originated the creation of new identities; to research and to understand the reason why the human being is seduced by virtual means and, mainly, for the effective participation on the Orkut community, which deals with more than 60 million users since 2004. This dissertation is referred in the netnographic method that, according to Vergara (2005), it is a research methodology which permits to study other cultures as the virtual communities. lt is also used in the exploratory research, which is considered a new topic, because this subject was little explored.
The research is divided into two parts: bibliographic and field, in which main theoretical references are used; the authors: Zygmunt Bauman who discusses the most important points of the dissertation - the concepts of the ldentity Community - which were well explored and approached by the author;
Norval Baitello Junior, with his concepts on visibility and invisibility that enriches the research and shows the visibility as the main responsible success of Orkut; Guy Debord with the Spectacle Society and Edgar Morin, with his Culture of Mass. Besides them, Stuart Hall, Raquel Paiva, Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas, among others, make part of the literature contextualizing the research. As a secondary source, the use of newspaper material and print and electronic magazines about Orkut were considered. These materials permit us to illustrate and to prove the discussion through theoretical references, exemplifying them through the use of the profiles and Orkut communities.
ln the field area, data collection was obtained on the pages and member communities from Orkut whose profiles and communities characteristics as character, anonymous, clone, fake and fragmented identities were found. Besides that, it was selected the profiles and communities that exemplify the consumption and entertainment in Orkut. From this point, an observation and participant process was started. lt was an important moment to get information (texts and images), observing and processing them with the aim to analyzing each profile, through texts and aesthetic (photos) resources used to describe the profile, avatar picture, photo albums, messages, community participation in order to understand from one side, why this space permits to the participant member to project false characteristics that they will likely have, generating, though, fragmented identities, fake profiles, among others. And on the other side, to understand why people look for this space and with this configuration.