Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2006, Qupperneq 70

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INTERNET CHATTING IN THE FAROE ISLANDS
selves” as cultural and social beings. Indi-
viduals are choosing identities and lifestyles
from among many offers.
The reflexive identity work has got a new
dimension on the intemet. The intemet gives
you the opportunity to fínd information
about anything you are searching knowledge
about. Also, you can become a part of a net-
work or club involving people from all parts
of the world, no matter where you are lo-
cated - geographically and socially. Travel-
ling on the intemet is easy, fast and effec-
tive, and the virtual voyage often leads to
real travelling later in time (Lalander and Jo-
hansson, 2002: 94). The internet is con-
necting local and global, private and pub-
lic, in interplay, and has in the Faroe Islands,
e.g. through chat, changed the culture and
forms of communication of children and
young people.
Johansson says that “meetings in cyber-
space are in many ways paradoxical events.
Anonymity meets intimacy, closeness dis-
tance, authenticity construction, freedom re-
sponsibility” (in Sørensen and Olesen, 2000:
80). It is, most chatters say, exciting and non-
committal to chat with strangers; it gives a
special sense of freedom and creativity and
opens for unique opportunities to experi-
ment radically with identities. Some Faroese
chatters live in small remote villages where
there are almost only old people, and to these
people the chat communication represents
a way out of the local peripheral commu-
nity to a community covering all the islands
and villages. Young people are always
searching for new contacts, impulses and ex-
periences, and they avoid committing them-
selves to anyone or anything before they
have evaluated the consequences of the de-
cision thoroughly. Gitte Stahl (2001: 32)
says about Danish youth living under a bit
different conditions than Faroese youth, that
It looks like an eternal search for new
relations and new communities is taking
place. Every time you enter a chat room or
homepage and say hello, you say hello to
new acquaintances. The superfícial meet-
ings may maybe for a short while become
relations - friendly, sexual, confídent - but
these are easy to quit, without leaving any
traces.
Localcontext
Faroese chat culture is based on the utiliza-
tion of global technologies of information,
the intemet being the virtual youth commu-
nity’s form of communication. The tech-
nology creates new possibilities, but it is
adapted to local conditions by its users
(Sørensen and Olesen, 2000). The individ-
uals shape and domesticize the technology
and are at the same time influenced by the
same technology which frames and condi-
tions the communication. Faroese chat is
therefore not the same as Swedish or Ice-
landic chat; and even if we talk primarily
about a virtual imagined community,
Faroese chatters have their social commu-
nity where arenas like concerts and youth
clubs represent some of the physical meet-
ing places. Partly, the social is connected to
the virtual because of the close social ties in
the Faroe Islands; since there are so few
clubs and meeting places for young people,
they can hardly avoid meeting each other
sometimes in real life. Also, the social net-
work is often connected to the chat culture,