In the contemporary moment where aspects of our lives are rendered visible for display, circulation and exchange via our involvement in online cultures, investigating the concept of persona and the production of the networked self is critical to understanding the patterns and flows of everyday and extraordinary public identities.

Persona is usually perceived as a mask of identity, something that clouds and occludes a truer or raw version of ourselves, or thought of in a Goffman-like way as a form of “role-playing” and “impression management”. The production of persona can therefore be seen as something strategic, something essential to the modern experience, and ultimately something that is filled with affect and agency as the individual both constructs and inhabits these public identity formations.

Persona inhabits a space between the fictive and the real and has been explored as constitutive of what it means to be human/citizen (Cicero), what constitutes consistency of character (literary persona), what allows a public figure to negotiate a surveilled life (celebrity persona or an artistic persona), and even what kind of avatar/identity and presentation of the self is presented in play and the broader structures of social interaction and participation in game cultures (gamer persona) and fandoms. Circulating through the meaning of persona are some utopian ideals of reputation, recognition, value, and integrity that have moved to higher prominence in the contemporary moment where culture has been both individualised and personalised.

This issue of M/C Journal explores all aspects of the concept of persona. It invites articles that explore it both from a contemporary context but also those informed by the formation of persona historically. Authors are encouraged to apply the concept of persona and work through examples in a variety of areas. Some of those areas might be the following:

• Social networks and reputation
• Serial persona – how media construct their public identities
• Performance and Persona
• Political persona
• Business persona
• Portfolio culture and looking-for-work persona
• Professional persona
• The formation of reputation and persona
• Damaged or toxic persona
• Relationship between celebrity and persona
• The meanings and dangers of the academic persona/the public intellectual persona
• Constructing an aggregate persona: online monetisation and commodification of the self
• Persona as brand
• Institutions as personas
• The technological persona
• Fandom and participatory persona
• Geek culture and the geek persona
• Gender and persona
• Persona in artistic and cultural practice
• Migration, immigration and persona
• Temporary/discardable persona
• Gamer persona
• Persona and publics
• Character and persona
• Mapping, charting or visualising online persona
• Sport and persona

Prospective contributors should email an abstract of 100-250 words and a brief biography to the issue editors. Abstracts should include the article title and should describe your research question, approach, and argument. Biographies should be about three sentences (maximum 75 words) and should include your institutional affiliation and research interests. Articles should be 3000 words (plus bibliography). All articles will be refereed and must adhere to MLA style (6th edition).

Details

• Article deadline: 25 Apr. 2014
• Release date: 25 June 2014
• Editors: P. David Marshall, Christopher Moore, and Kim Barbour

Please submit articles through this Website. Send any enquiries to persona@journal.media-culture.org.au.