Abstract
This article examines the ways in that children's identities are constructed in one form of online community. The online community I have selected is that of "The Palace," a graphical chat world in that users represent themselves as an image, or avatar, and interact with others within visually defined worlds. In particular, this article focusses on a small group of children who have been the subject of a pilot study undertaken for my doctorate, and who have been interacting on a palace especially constructed by me for this purpose. The article aims to identify those discursive practices that are operating in this particular context to produce the "discursive child." It examines those narratives and fictions that operate as truth in this context with the aim of making them explicit, conscious, and understood. I will give my reading of the way in that children are constructed as they participate in the palace. Based on Foucault's (Discipline and Punish, 1977, Harmondsworth: Penguin) notion that discursive practices operate in the realms of power, knowledge, discipline, and regulation, I will tease out what this might mean for these children.
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