SELF-REPRESENTATION THROUGH ONLINE IDENTITIES: A CDA OF OFFICIAL WEBSITES OF PAKISTANI UNIVERSITIES

Abstract

Virtual world of Internet has provided a dynamic virtual space to the organizations like universities to represent themselves to a wider audience in a fast manner as well as construct desired online identities. In this article, we examined linguistic features in Pakistani universities’ websites and explored the ways Pakistani universities make use of virtual space to construct certain preferred online identities in and around organization.  The use of digital affordances such as anonymity and visibility in these websites add to the preferred self-representation of the universities. Eight Pakistani universities’ websites are selected for analysis using purposive sampling technique. The study employs critical discourse analysis and follows a three-dimensional analysis including textual analysis, process analysis and social analysis. The findings indicate that Pakistani universities’ websites are highly affected due to social changes such as globalization and commercialization of education. These websites are developed with a common purpose of constructing global identity, display international standard and high reputation among other universities as well as attract potential students. The analysis further revealed that these websites are a medium to construct various desired individual and collective online identities. Such diversified web-based constructs of university identities allow themselves to portrayal of both prominent as well as distinguished among all. As an outcome, the choice of website audience (who is not limited to students rather faculty, employees, and donors), regarding their future endeavors is influenced.

Keywords: Critical discourse analysis, online identity construction, Pakistani universities websites, homepage, linguistic features, visibility through digital affordances