A Typology of Persona as Suggested by Jungian Theory and the Evolving Persona Studies Literature

Abstract

What is persona? Is there a single definition that all Persona scholars agree on? Are Persona scholars all using it in the same way? These are questions that I set out to answer in this paper, exploring both the contemporary persona studies literature and the Jungian concept of persona that is frequently cited as the intellectual root of the discipline. I begin by looking at the definition of persona in core persona studies texts, move on to Jung’s writings on the topic, and then examining the definition and construction of persona in the early volumes of the Persona Studies journal. On the basis of this literature I draw together a typology of persona that reflects the interests and perspectives of authors who have contributed to the development of this discipline. It comprises four categories: 1) persona in the Jungian tradition, a continuous performance pertaining to an individual; 2) generic persona that relates to a particular group of individuals, such as professional personas; 3) fictitious persona that is created in order to serve a specific purpose as art or entertainment, or to inform product design and marketing; and 4) attributed persona, where the characteristics of human persona are applied to a nonhuman entity such as a product or institution. I conclude with a number of suggested directions for research that builds on the Jungian foundations of persona but that draws on other relevant theory from psychology.

Exploring Depression and Identity Formation of Turkish Adolescent Migrants in the Novel Ein Schnelles Leben

“…Persona secara umum menjelaskan tentang bagaimana seseorang menampilkan invidualitasnya atau "performance of individuality", Namun bukan serta merta menjelaskan individu tersebut secara langsung (Giles, 2020). Para ahli Persona Studies meneliti bagaimana penampilan "real person" dapat berbeda dengan "the public self".…”

“…al., 2019;Bogaerts, et. al., 2021) yang dikaitkan dengan konteks migran (Appadurai, 2019;Dawson, 2020), serta teori persona (Giles, 2020).…”

Role of Personas in Political Marketing in Canada

“…This paper builds upon existing literature by analysing how these personas are used in political communications and marketing, examining their applications for: persuasion and mobilization; voter segmentation and microtargeting; and policy-making and internal communications. Whereas earlier research primarily focuses on the Jungian model of personas -how politicians strategically present themselves to the public -our research examines the use of fictitious personas by political actors to achieve their electoral and policy goals (Giles 2020). Our research is grounded in extensive secondary research and a novel set of interviews with key political communications and marketing experts from Canada, centred on the 2006 and 2008 Conservative Party campaigns.…”

“…Several scholars have developed nuanced interdisciplinary frameworks to bridge these fields of study. Of these, David Giles's (2020) typology of persona studies distinguishes between four approaches: (i) the Jungian model, which conceptualises persona as a continuous performance by an individual; (ii) the generic persona, a cultural archetype that sometimes involves specific roles and that multiple people can inhabit, such as a blue-collar worker or a baby-boomer ; (iii) the fictitious persona, crafted for a specific purpose such as a character in art or a targeted consumer in marketing; and (iv) the attributed persona, where characteristics of a human are applied to an inanimate object, institution, or concept, such as the identities adapted by large corporations like Walt Disney.…”