Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2006, Side 69

KJATT Á ALNETINUM í FØROYUM
67
the internet, not just the chat channel home-
Pages, young people can express their feel-
ings and opinions freely and without adult
intervention. It is a unique free zone for
young people. The Faroese “popular public
sphere” (Andreassen, 1992) is flourishing
on the internet, hence didn’t - as usually ar-
gued - disappear with the premodern peas-
ant society. The discussions on the internet
are obviously independent from the rest of
the public sphere, even if the youth is indeed
influenccd by Faroese television, radio and
printed press. The difference is that on the
net they have their own voice - without any
censorship. Barbro Johansson says (in Traff-
punkt Cyberspace, 1997:48) regarding free-
dom and anonymity on the internet:
Here you can just be yourself and go home if
you are tired...no excuses etc. becauseyou just
say bye and thanks forthe day. Nobody sees how
you look, you can saunter down to the chat in a
track suit and twenty kg overweight and who
cares? It is about talking dirty or airing
something that happened during the day to
which you want a clever comment, a little bit
anonymous, you know.
(my translation)
Everybody can participate in the discussions
on the internet, no matter what you look like
or which position you have in society, and
the language is in general youthful and
rather vulgar - it reminds one of informal
spoken language and slang. Even if the dis-
cussions on youth sites on the internet in
general are open and free, they seem pri-
vate and secret in content, because most
young people would never have expressed
themselves in a similar way in newspapers
or in the physical presence of adults. Enter-
ing a discussion forum on the intemet feels
like listening to somebody’s private phone
calls. The debates obviously touch relatively
sensible subjects like homosexuality, vio-
lence or religion but also people e.g. a named
teacher or chatter. Discussions may be too
personal and ethically unacceptable as when
two persons are spiting and harassing each
other even if everybody has free access to
the forum.
Latemodern society
Children and young people from the whole
world are using the chat functions of the in-
ternet to experiment with their identities. A
lot of research about identity work in cy-
berspace has been done: the game where
people play that they are of the opposite sex
in e.g. chat communication. Sherry Turkle
(1995: 216) writes about a man that has
changed sex on the net. He says:
... I wanted to experiment with the other side... 1
wanted to be collaborative and helpful, and I
thought it would be easier as a female...As a
man I was brought up to be territorial and
competitive. I wanted to try something new.
Not only sex can be changed on the inter-
net; you can also change ethnicity or age. In
principle everything is possible on the in-
ternet; everything has a degree of coinci-
dence (Lalander and Johansson, 2002: 91).
Young people are testing and turning
down different identities, they acquire ex-
perience and choose what they feel fits best
to their personality. Identity work is taking
place on the internet but not exclusively on
the net, because young people of today live
in a society where they have to “create them-