Cultural Identity Politics in the (Post-)Transitional Societies

How modern technology shape-shifts our identity
future. This atomization separates individuals who have to see their friends, neighbours,
classmates, fellow citizens, and so on, primarily as competitors in existential struggles for
survival. The collective identities that many people shared were rather centrally defined
and did not allow a great deal of participation. This situation has changed; identity has
shifted from collective communities to individualization and the flexible association in
various networks that might be perceived as communities or not. The reason why people
are interested in virtual communities might be that they feel that society and the social
systems they live and work in do not provide them with opportunities that guarantee
participation and self-fulfilling activities. Many individuals feel alienated and search for
new communities that function according to principles that transcend the dominant
logic of competition and capitalism that today causes feelings of alienation.
Cyberspace and virtual communities are in fact substitutes for public places. They are
the most visited and grow into spaces where all users have an active role, or they turn
into more intimate and more private space that promotes more intimate discussions
between users or several carefully chosen users. In such spatially organized ways of
communication there is an unwritten, but universally accepted rule about which
discussion topics are appropriate, encouraged and regarded as suitable, and which topics
are banned, sanctioned or inappropriate. Particular forums, social networks or chats use
the metaphor of “room” to log in or to initiate certain topics for discussion. For example,
when it comes to “public rooms”, the discussions are moderate, usually monitored and
follow certain norms. On the other hand, intimate discussions are usually held in private
rooms and involve a dose of flirting, private and intimate discussion. Such rhetoric
would be considered inappropriate in other types of rooms, unless the discussion calls
for such type of language.
In cyberspace, the correlation between the choice of the name (or the picture that
represents us) and our identity is not completely free from everyday cultural and political
norms as the net utopians had imagined it to be. It is very important to consider the new
medium as a societal framework which relates to the known practices of the economic,
political and cultural environment which is still deeply chauvinistic, nationalistic and
racist. Even the absence of the actual physical body which is considered to be a proof
of someone’s identity, and in cyberspace is closely related to anonymity, is in doubt.
Social networks, such as YouTube and others put more emphasis on “the visibility” of
cyberspace users. “Revealing a user’s true identity” is sometimes unwillingly caused by
other Internet users.
In Macedonia, which is a small country with a relatively small percent of Internet
users, it is common for the true identity of Internet users to be revealed by other Internet
users. There have been a number of cases where the identity of particular bloggers has
been sought, which even led to certain accusations and construction of a virtual file.
In addition, on the Macedonian blog (http://blog.mk/) there have been many cases
of censorship or blocking of so called “Bulgarian bloggers”, or bloggers who write in
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