Abstract

Digital everyday life brings with it new kinds of challenges. Transparency and anonymity are becoming relevant values for individual identity. Visibility is a fundamental condition for participating in society. But how can people deal with the insecurity that is inherent in self-presentation on the Net when we use personal data to pay for the (apparently) free services of data-hungry companies? Subjects are thus constructed and evaluated only from individual puzzle pieces of their identity, while the remaining parts inevitably remain "invisible." Consequently, can the ideal of empowering people to be masters of their tools only be secured through a pseudonymous appearance on the Internet? But how can communicative action function if the agent remains in the dark?