Pseudonyms mitigate these issues, but do not dispel them. A student who posts online under an assumed name may feel more comfortable speaking frankly, or raising controversial or potentially off-topic concerns; the assumed name creates a distance between the online persona and the real world, lowering the stakes enough to allow for a wider range of discourse. In his studies, Lester Faigley found that “pseudonymous networked discussion was not markedly different from other occasions when students sent messages using their own names” (178). A pseudonym is, after all, a static identity like any other. Though removed from the embodied state of being, pseudonyms nevertheless allow an accumulation of reputation and identity, and, in the classroom, still carry the danger of negative assessment. For instance, students who posts under assumed names in an online classroom may be hesitant to voice opinions that they know contradict the instructor’s
Unlike online pseudonyms, anonymity allows for discussion free of consequence. Online communities without registration allow discussions to take on a fluid, amorphous quality that often leads to rapid generation of new content. A study conducted at The State University of New York showed that anonymity in group work can, under the right circumstances, reduce “inhibitions to question others’ ideas and enables group members to abandon old ways of thinking in favor of new ones” (Kahai et. al, 503) Most classrooms encourage this kind of experimentation, but ironically the biggest obstacle to it may be the teacher’s presence. In Hypertext Order and Coherence, Cooper and Selfe argue that computer conferences offer “powerful, non-traditional learning forums for students not simply because they allow another opportunity for collaboration and dialogue-although this is certainly one of their functions-but also because they encourage students to resist, dissent, and explore the role that controversy and intellectual divergence play in learning and thinking” (849). I argue that only in an anonymous space without instructor oversight can this resistance and dissent manifest in an honest way.