Revisaging the Face: Levinas and the Limits of Online Communication

Current approaches examining aggression, or flaming, in online communication often fail to recognize the unique characteristics of communication conducted in virtual environments. Virtual environments inherently complicate communication because of the fragmentation of identity and space that persists within them. This article suggests that the fragmentation of identity results in an ambiguity of self and agency, and that the ontological assumptions on which modern ethical paradigms are based are ill-suited to online communication. This article considers the thought of Emmanuel Levinas and his attempt to preserve the ambiguity of alterity as an alternative to methods that seek to totalize alterity.