DIGITAL SELF

Selective Self-Presentation and

Impression Management
O The information superhighway
that we know today gives more
focus on computer hardware,
software and systems in terms
of contribution to society as the
basic tools enabling fast and
efficient transfer of information.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management

OBefore,
personal computers were
mainly used for word
processing.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management

ONowadays, the
emergence of portable
computers enables
many people to transact
business everywhere.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management

OResearchers suggested,
however, that Facebook
and other Social Media
might lead to
depression.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management

Most of the time, we post

our smiling faces, favorite
foods, and perfect
vacation.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
We look at idealized
versions of our online
friends leaving us feeling
less attractive and less
secure about our own
status.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
We tend to compare how
many “likes” our post
generated. Due to the
comparisons, we become
more dissatisfied.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
Therefore, studies indicate
that our Social Networking
sites may disconnect
people (Garcia 2014).
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
Lesson?
Limit interaction online; establish
physical interaction with friends
and family beyond the digital
world where one can truly find
love, acceptance and self-esteem.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
O According to Goffman (1959)
and Leary (1995), self-
presentation is the “process
of controlling how one is
perceived by other people”
and is the key to relationship
inception and development.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
O According to Goffman (1959)
and Leary (1995), self-
presentation is the “process
of controlling how one is
perceived by other people”
and is the key to relationship
inception and development.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
O To construct positive images,
individuals selectively provide
information about them and
carefully cater this
information in response to
other’s feedback.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
O Belk (2013) explained that
sharing ourselves is no
longer new and has been
practiced as soon as human
beings were formed.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
O Digital devices help us share
information broadly, more than
ever before. For those who are
avid users of FB, it is possible that
their social media friends are
more updated about their daily
activities, connections and
thoughts than their immediate
family.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
ODiaries that were once
private or shared with
TRUSTED persons are now
posted as blogs which can
be viewed by everyone.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
OBlogs and Web pages have
been continuously used for
greater self-reflection and
self-presentation.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
O As a result, researchers and
participants become concerned
with actively managing identity
and reputation and to warn
against the phenomenon of
“oversharing”.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
O Sometimes, people become
unaware of the extent of
information they share online.
They forget to delineate what
can be shared online and
what should not.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
O Furthermore, it provides a
more complete narration of
self and gives people and
idealized view of how they
would like to be remembered
by others.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
O Many teenagers, as well as some
adults, share even more intimate
details with their partners like their
password. This could be an ultimate
act of intimacy and trust or the
ultimate expression of paranoia and
distrust with the partner.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
O Because of the conversion of private
diaries into public revelations of inner
secrets, the lack of privacy in many
aspects of social media make the users
more vulnerable, leading to compulsively
checking newsfeeds and continually
adding tweets and postings in order to
appear active and interesting.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
O This condition has been called “fear
of missing out.” People would like to
remain updated and they keep on
sharing themselves online because it
adds a sense of confidence at their
end especially if others like and share
their posts.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
OOne of the reasons for so
much sharing and self-
disclosure online is the so-
called “disinhibition
effect.”
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
O The lack of face-to-face gaze
meeting, together with feelings of
anonymity and invisibility, gives
people the freedom for self-
disclosure but can also “flame”
others and may cause conflict
sometimes.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
O The resulting disinhibition
causes people to believe that
they are able to express their
“true self” better online than
they ever could in face-to-face
contexts.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
O However, it does not mean
that there is a fixed “true
self”. The self is still a work in
progress and we keep on
improving and developing
ourselves everyday.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
O In addition to sharing the good
things we experience, many of us
also share the bad, embarrassing
and “sinful” things we
experience. We also react and
comment on negative
experiences of others
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
Sometimes, we emphatize with
people. We also argue with
others online. Relationships
may be made stronger or
broken through posts online.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management

Why confess to unseen

and anonymous others
online?
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
According to Foucalt, confession, along
with contemplation, self-examination,
learning, reading and writing self-
critical letters to friends, are a part of
the “technologies of the self”through
which we seek to purge and cleanse
ourselves.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
Despite the veil of invisibility,
writers on the internet write for an
unseen audience. Both the
number and feedback of readers
provide self-validation for the
writer and a certain celebrity.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
Confessional blogs may also be
therapeutic for the audience to
read, allowing both sincere
empathy and the voyeuristic
appeal of witnessing a public
confession.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
Consequently , we should have a
filtering system to whatever
information we share online, as
well as to what information we
believe in, which are being shared
or posted by others online.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
We should look at online
information carefully
whether they are valid and
true before believing and
promoting them.
Selective Self-Presentation and
Impression Management
In the same way, we should also
think well before we post or share
anything online in order to prevent
conflict, arguments and
cyberbullying and to preserve our
relationships with others.
 GENDER AND
SEXUALITY ONLINE
 Gender and Sexuality Online

According to Marwick (2013),

while the terms “Sex”,
“Gender” and “Sexuality” are
often thought of as
synonymous, they are actually
quite distinct.
 Gender and Sexuality Online

The differences between the

common understandings of
these terms and how
researchers think about them
yield key insights about the
social functioning of gender.
 Gender and Sexuality Online

Sex is the biological state that

corresponds to what we might call
a “man” or a “woman.” This might
seem to be a simple distinction,
but the biology of sex is actually
very complicated.
 Gender and Sexuality Online

While “sex” is often explained as

biological, fixed and immutable, it is
actually constructed. Gender, then is
the social understanding of how sex
should be experienced and how sex
manifests in behavior, personality,
preferences, capabilities and so forth.
 Gender and Sexuality Online

A person with male sex organs

is expected to embody a
masculine gender.
 Gender and Sexuality Online

While sex and gender are

presumed to be biologically
connected, we can understand
gender as a socioculturally specific
set of norms that are mapped onto
a category of “sex”.
 Gender and Sexuality Online

Gender is historical. It is
produced by Media and
Popular Culture.
It is taught by families, schools,
peer groups and nation states.
Gender and Sexuality Online

It is reinforced through
songs, sayings, admonition,
slang, language, fashion
and discourse.
 GENDER AND
SEXUALITY ONLINE
 Performing Gender Online

Theorist Judith Butler

(1990) conceptualized
gender as a performance.
 Performing Gender Online

She explained that popular

understandings of gender
and sexuality came to be
through discourse and
social processes.
 Performing Gender Online

She argued that gender was

performative, in that it is
produced through millions of
individual actions, rather than
something that comes
naturally to men and women.
 Performing Gender Online

Performances that adhere to

normative understandings of
gender and sexuality are allowed,
while those that do not are
admonished (for example, a boy
“throwing like a girl”)
 Performing Gender Online

Performances that adhere to

normative understandings
means that “if you’re a boy, act
like a boy. Play basketball or
Football.”
 Performing Gender Online

In the 1990’s, many Internet

scholars drew from Butler
and other queer theorists to
understand online identity.
 Performing Gender Online

According to the disembodiment

hypothesis, Internet users are free
to actively choose which gender or
sexuality they are going to portray
with the possibility of creating
alternate identities.
 Performing Gender Online

Recently, social media has

been celebrated for
facilitating greater cultural
participation and creativity.
 Performing Gender Online

Social Media sites like twitter and

Youtube have led to the emergence of
a “free culture” where individuals are
empowered to engage in cultural
production using raw materials,
ranging from homemade videos to
mainstream television characters to
create new culture, memes and humor.
 Performing Gender Online

At its best, this culture of

memes, mash-ups and
creative political activism
allows for civic engagement
and fun creative acts.
 Performing Gender Online

While Digg, 4Chan and Reddit

are used mostly by men, most
social network site users are
women; this is true in
Facebook, Livejournal, Tumblr,
Twitter and YouTube.
 Performing Gender Online

But mere equality of use does

not indicate equality of
participation. While both men
and women use Wikipedia,
87% of Wikipedia contributors
were identified as male.
 Performing Gender Online

Male students are more likely

to create, edit, and distribute
digital video over YouTube or
Facebook than female
students.
 Performing Gender Online

One explanation for these differences

is that user-generated content is often
clustered by gender. Researchers have
consistently shown that similar
numbers of men and women maintain
a blog –about 14% of Internet users.
 Performing Gender Online

While number of male and

female bloggers is roughly
equivalent, they tend to blog
about different things.
 Performing Gender Online

Overwhelmingly, certain types

of blogs are written and read
by women (e.g. food, fashion,
parenting), while others (e.g.
technology, politics are written
and run by men.
 Performing Gender Online

Although the technologies are

the same, the norms and
mores of the people using
them differ.
 Performing Gender Online

While number of male and

female bloggers is roughly
equivalent, they tend to blog
about different things.
Setting Boundaries to
your online self:
smart sharing
 Setting Boundaries to your
online self: smart sharing
O Is this post/story necessary?
O Is there a real benefit to this
post? Is it funny, warm-
hearted, teachable – or I just
making noise online without
purpose?
 Setting Boundaries to your
online self: smart sharing
O Have we (as a family or
parent/child) resolved this issue?
An issue that is still being worked
out at home, or one that is either
vulnerable or highly emotional,
should not be made public.
 Setting Boundaries to your
online self: smart sharing
O Is it appropriate? Does it stay within
the boundaries of our family values?
O Will this seem as funny in 5, 10, or
15 years? Or this post better suited
for sharing with a small group of
family members? Or maybe not at
all?
Rules to follow in the
use of internet
according to New
(2014):
 Rules to follow in the use of
internet according to New (2014):
O Stick to safer sites
O Guard your passwords
O Limit what you share
O Remember that anything you put online or
post on a site is there forever, even if you
try to delete it.
O Do not be mean or embarrass other people
online.
 Rules to follow in the use of
internet according to New (2014):

O Always tell if you see strange or

bad behavior online.
O Be choosy about your online
friends.
O Be patient.