인터넷 개인 홈페이지의 자기노출 기능에 대한 연구 = Self-disclosure in the Personal Home Page

국문 초록 (Abstract)

인터넷 개인 홈페이지는 개인이 자신에 대한 자적인 정보를 자발적으로 인터넷 망을 통해 공중에게 공개하는 커뮤니케이션 장르이다. 문자, 사진 또는 동영상을 통한 개인의 사생활의 공개라는 점에서 홈페이지는 쉽게 노출증이 발현된 형태로 이해되기도 한다. 하지만 홈페이지 운영자의 제작 동기를 살펴보면, 운영자들은 자기 정보의 공개를 통해 심리적 쾌감을 느낀다기보다는 자기 정체성의 확립이나 타인과의 사회적 관계의 형성 등과 같은 적극적인 사회적 커뮤니케이션 행위의 일환으로 홈페이지를 제작하며 운영하며 그 과정에서 일정한 심리적 안정감을 얻는다는 것을 알 수 있다. 이것은 심리학적 연구를 통해 밝혀진 자기노출(self-disclosure)의 기능을 홈페이지가 수행한다는 것을 보여준다.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The personal home page on the Web is a new communicative genre. It is intended to introduce the person to the world. It generally contains various personal information: personal statistics, biographical details; interests, likes and dislikes; ideas, beliefs and causes; current activities; original creative works by the author; lists of (and links to) friends, family, workmates and Web acquaintances; details of the author's real-world home, town, region and/or country etc. It is considered as real home. But unlike a real home, the home page is not a place keeping the world out, but a way of letting the world in.
The home page is a place in which the boundaries of public and private are blurred. What is present in a home page is automatically accessible on a global scale. Home pages of which the contents are personal and private are simultaneously public. Home page authors seem to want to share their very personal informations with millions of strangers on the Web. Their desire to expose themselves in public could be considered as a form of exhibitionism.
Exhibitionism is, in the strict sense, a sexual perversion where one derives pleasure from exposing one's genitals to others. Through personal home pages, people expose themselves not by stripping off all clothes, but by writing their secrets and by showing their private life. In that sense, one can say that home page authors are exhibitionists and that doing so, they are giving up their privacy.
But contrary to what one thinks about, when we examine carefully the behavior of home page authors, we perceive that they don't really expose themselves for sexual pleasure. It seems that there are three reasons to create one's own home page.
First, a person creates his/her own home page in order to present and disclose himself/herself as an acceptable person to others. It helps him/her to interact with others and to escape the social isolation.
Second, is the need to feel secure. The home page with 'webcam', which expose constantly its author to the gaze of others, can feed this need. By webcam, supposed observers become constant companion to the home page author. Their supposed presence assuages the anxiety of the home page author caused by the perception that he/she is alone in the hostile external world.
Finally, the home page serves the author's exhibitionism. Through his/her own home page, the author can expose himself/herself safely without being aware of a rebuff. But even in this case, the very purpose of the author remains the same: sharing his/her information with others and establishing good interpersonal relations.
Pleasure derived from a personal home page could be somewhat exhibitionistic. But the very reason to create a personal home page on the Web is the building of the social relationship through self-disclosure.