Name, Identity, and Power in Digital Worlds: PalTalk as An Analytical Case

Abstract

Objectives: This research aims to examine the role of symbolic names in shaping identity and exercising power within digital spaces, using the "PalTalk" platform as an analytical case. It challenges reductionist views that treat digital platforms merely as arenas for representing offline selves, arguing instead that they enable the construction of parallel lives governed by autonomous symbolic logics. The research foregrounds naming practices as central mechanisms through which recognition, legitimacy, and power are produced beyond bodily presence and institutional accountability. Methods: The research adopts a qualitative analytical approach grounded in an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that integrates sociology, psychoanalysis, digital anthropology, and behavioral economics. It employs conceptual and discursive analysis, alongside autoethnography (27 years of experience on PalTalk) and semi-structured interviews with 20 Arab users, to frame symbolic naming as a form of symbolic capital embedded in platform architectures and collective imaginaries.  Results: The analysis demonstrates that digital recognition increasingly competes with, and in some cases surpasses, embodied identity in terms of social value and existential significance. Symbolic names evolve into accumulative social-affective assets, through which authority and influence are exercised independently of traditional bodily or institutional constraints, particularly within fragile or crisis-prone societies. Five patterns of "Identity Shock" are identified: Full Integration (25%), Conscious Separation (35%), Chronic Fragmentation (20%), Denial (10%), and Creative Integration (5%).  Conclusion: The research concludes that the primary risk does not lie in identity multiplicity itself, but in the unreflective rupture between parallel selves and in the transformation of digital recognition into an end in itself. Understanding this phenomenon requires a critical re-examination of identity, power, and recognition under contemporary digital conditions, especially within fragile Arab contexts where platforms have become alternative public spheres.