Social media has definitely been a growing phenomenon within the last 10 years and it is rare to find someone who does not use social media as a means to socially interact with others. Aside from being a form of communication, social media also serves as a way for people to display and manipulate their self-image or cyber selves to others. One of the most fascinating traits of online presentation is the flexibility to show only what people want to allow others to see and in a way exclude what they don’t. For this assignment I decided to analyze my good friend Janet’s social media pages and compare them to her corporeal self to determine if there were any significant differences between her online persona and her offline self. The three sites
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He describes the “Front” of a performance as that part of the individual’s performance which regularly functions in a general and fixed fashion to define the situation for those who observe the performance” ( Goffman, 1959). In this case Janet presents herself in a positive manner and as someone who is a caring and loyal friend. Online she has several pictures of her friends, which shows her as friendly popular person. I will also tie in what Goffman refers to as Idealization which means that we often try to present ourselves in favorable light, that we might simply accent those aspects about ourselves that are positive (O’Brien, 2017 pg. 351). This is the perfect example in illustrating the way some people stray from presenting negative information on their social media and stick to just positive presentation. In Janet’s case, her social media expresses nothing but positive, happy, and funny moments to include quotes, pictures and posts of good experiences. Earlier this year, I heard of Janet’s grandmother’s passing. I knew she was upset but I did not see any news about it in her social media. Perhaps this was too personal for her to share or she did not want to express herself on the topic but it is one example of how she chooses to only present positive …show more content…
Facebook’s new layout scrupulously combines the various needs for self-expression, self-communication and self-promotion through one and the same interface”. In comparing Jante’s different social media pages, I found this theory does not apply to her. In every one of her social media pages, she displayed herself as the same person. The only distinction, if any, was that she considered her snapchat to be more private than her other accounts and she was able to be more ‘fun’ and ‘random’ on this app. The amount of friends she has on this particular app is also significantly less than her other accounts, which limits the audience. There was definitely a common theme across the sites, there were no different identities among them perhaps because they are all related in a sense of being for
He describes the “Front” of a performance as that part of the individual’s performance which regularly functions in a general and fixed fashion to define the situation for those who observe the performance” ( Goffman, 1959). In this case Janet presents herself in a positive manner and as someone who is a caring and loyal friend. Online she has several pictures of her friends, which shows her as friendly popular person. I will also tie in what Goffman refers to as Idealization which means that we often try to present ourselves in favorable light, that we might simply accent those aspects about ourselves that are positive (O’Brien, 2017 pg. 351). This is the perfect example in illustrating the way some people stray from presenting negative information on their social media and stick to just positive presentation. In Janet’s case, her social media expresses nothing but positive, happy, and funny moments to include quotes, pictures and posts of good experiences. Earlier this year, I heard of Janet’s grandmother’s passing. I knew she was upset but I did not see any news about it in her social media. Perhaps this was too personal for her to share or she did not want to express herself on the topic but it is one example of how she chooses to only present positive …show more content…
Facebook’s new layout scrupulously combines the various needs for self-expression, self-communication and self-promotion through one and the same interface”. In comparing Jante’s different social media pages, I found this theory does not apply to her. In every one of her social media pages, she displayed herself as the same person. The only distinction, if any, was that she considered her snapchat to be more private than her other accounts and she was able to be more ‘fun’ and ‘random’ on this app. The amount of friends she has on this particular app is also significantly less than her other accounts, which limits the audience. There was definitely a common theme across the sites, there were no different identities among them perhaps because they are all related in a sense of being for