In the past, individuals' identities were often assigned to them by the hegemonic culture, largely based on their conceptualization of identity. Hegemonic culture has dominated identity discourse by drawing distinct boundaries between racial and cultural groups, separating and defining them. However, modern discourse has seen individuals take the power to ascribe identity signifiers to themselves, often in periods of great social change. Although times of resistance are often the easiest examples to remember, subtle trends in society have a huge impact, often unbeknownst to society's awareness. Over the past two decades, Western culture has witnessed a radical transformation of identification processes. Technology has become increasingly central to popular culture, and as such, it has had a profound influence on how we create and assert our self-worth. Identification categories have become less rigid than thirty years ago, and people are on average more open to identification across borders. The process of blurring identity boundaries between distinct groups has redistributed the power to attribute signifiers of the hegemonic element of popular culture to the individual. Means of instantaneous distribution and exchange of information, speech, and academic research, such as instant messaging, social networking sites, Wikipedia, and others, are perhaps among the most influential because of their immediacy . Even though boundaries have become blurred at the social level, individual identities are often affirmed. In the past, identity boundaries were strictly controlled by hegemonic discourse. Laws and social conventions aimed at controlling “the other” were commonplace. Racial, ethnic, and religious...... middle of paper ......moodle/file.php/14506/Course_Readings/15_katalin_szepesi.pdfMoore, DC (1994). Itineraries: Alex Haley's roots and the rhetoric of genealogy. Retrieved from https://moodle10.yorku.ca/moodle/file.php/14506/Course_Readings/28_david_chioni_moore.pdf Yon, D. (2000). Elusive culture. NY: State University of New York Press. Cruz-Hacker, A. (nd). With one foot here and the other there: blurring the boundaries between home and exile. Retrieved from http://www.csustan.edu/honors/documents/journals/soundings/Cruz-Hacker.pdf Beyond “culture”: space, identity and the politics of differenceAkhil Gupta and James Ferguson. Cultural AnthropologyVol. 7, No. 1, Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference (February 1992), pp. 6-23Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org /curie/656518