GENDER @ WORK: A CASE STUDY OF A MALAYSIA VIRTUAL WORKPLACE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

Abstract

As widespread Internet usage continues to pervade everyday life, the concept of a computer-mediated workplace is steadily gaining traction. This thesis investigates the platform-facilitated discursive expressions of gendered identities in a Malaysia-based virtual workplace operated on a Discord server. Using the Community of Practice (CofP) framework, I perform a virtual ethnographic analysis of the self-presentation and discursive practices of selected core members. I collected the user profiles and the messages sent by four male and four female members from January 2020 to October 2021. The female members were found to prefer more nonymous modes of self-representation in their profile pictures and names. They also sent more messages than their male counterparts and used a larger range of emojis and emoticons. These findings suggest the female members put in more effort to construct a personable, personalised identity in the virtual team, creating a relational persona that extends beyond the transactional workplace.