bernie hogan the presentation of self

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The Presentation of Self in the Age of Social Media: Distinguishing Performances and Exhibitions Online

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The Presentation of Self in the Age of Social Media: Distinguishing Performances and Exhibitions Online

2010, Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society

Presentation of self (via Goffman) is becoming increasingly popular as a means for explaining differences in meaning and activity of online participation. This article argues that self-presentation can be split into performances, which take place in synchronous “situations,” and artifacts, which take place in asynchronous “exhibitions.” Goffman’s dramaturgical approach (including the notions of front and back stage) focuses on situations. Social media, on the other hand, frequently employs exhibitions, such as lists of status updates and sets of photos, alongside situational activities, such as chatting. A key difference in exhibitions is the virtual “curator” that manages and redistributes this digital content. This article introduces the exhibitional approach and the curator and suggests ways in which this approach can extend present work concerning online presentation of self. It introduces a theory of “lowest common denominator” culture employing the exhibitional approach.

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Yantong Jin

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(Undergraduate Essay) Introduction: Interactions between social agents are said to be governed by norms in how the self is presented to the other – that is, the audience, in Goffman's dramaturgical analysis (1990). In light of the emergence of online spaces for interaction, it is of interest to consider how foundational understandings of self-presentation, or impression management, apply to our interactions in those spaces, or social networking sites (SNSs), especially in relation to the sharing of secondary or usergenerated content. The aim of this essay is to address briefly some questions surrounding the 'self' and self-presentation in the context of the internet. In the first section, we will consider a brief personal experience which appeared to illustrate the paradigm shift which has occurred in social spaces, towards online interactions as an extension of traditional ones. Secondly, in the main section, we will consider directly the question of self-presentation on SNSs, and its implications for our understandings of sharing and privacy. Finally, we will make some reflections on discourses around narratives of the postmodern self, and its reported “saturation” and “population” in the age of contemporary technology (Gergen, 1991), and by way of conclusion reflect on what the considerations made in the essay may be able to tell us about the contemporary self and its presentation online.

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The genuine and PC-interceded virtual selves have tossed a few worries to social researchers. This paper finds its gap in the application of Erving Goffman's theory of dramaturgy to contemporary web-based entertainment clients. It looks at whether the genuine existences of social media users get impacted by their self-projection on virtual spaces alongside taking a gander at these virtual spaces to honestly introduce an individual's personality. It draws on the constant dealings that social media users engage in while they travel between their real and virtual lives while subconsciously applying dramaturgy to their social media projections. The study used mixed methods. The quantitative part of the study was done by collecting data in form of a survey and the qualitative part was done by interviews with specialists.

Ivan Perkov

This paper presents a sociological theoretical framework for the study of self-presentation in social networks. Theoretically, the paper draws on the sociological classics of E. Goffman and M. Castells and work from other academic fields in which self-presentation and social networks have been explored as social phenomena. The first part of the paper provides a contextual framework for the development of information technology and the growth of social network users, and offers some terminological clarifications. Then, the sociological approaches to the phenomena of social networks and self-presentation are analysed within the framework of the dramaturgical approach. The spatio-temporal framework created by the emergence of the Internet is questioned, and self-presentation is examined in this context. The notion of the exhibition site that defines the new form of appearance on social network platforms, the temporal status of the contemporary form of self-presentation on social networks and the asynchronous character of communication implied by this self-presentation are also analysed.

Natalie Ramus

It is the nature of the visual artist to explore and examine both the world around and the self within, and also to experiment with new advancements in available materials. The subject of the self has been one that has been explored since the days of Aristotle; artists have commonly explored the subject through the means of self-portrait and portraiture. The artist is aware of the context in which they live and they are making work in response to this experience. If this is the case then as a visual practitioner within today’s contemporary culture it seems appropriate to explore cultural trends that exist within society. This dissertation is the result of extensive research conducted in the field of social media and the way it has affected both the way in which we explore and present the self and also how we connect with others through these new platforms. Chapter one discusses the emergence of social networking, particularly Facebook. This first chapter attempts to dissect the way in which the emergence of this new technology has affected the way in which we accept and utilise the online interface as a site of self exploration and presentation. This leads to the second chapter in which the phenomenon of the selfie is discussed. The instantaneous nature of the selfie makes it an accessible way of communicating the self and connecting with others in a visual way. But what is the difference between a selfie and a self-portrait created by an artist? Chapter three looks at a more abstract version of the online visual self; the avatar. It will discuss how this serves as a tool of self exploration and also what effect it has on the way in which we connect with others. It is intended that through these discussions an argument will be made which will illustrate the deconstructive nature of this method of self exploration and presentation. It is the initial perception that the internet has provided a platform for masses to be more connected, more expressive and more visually communicative than ever, but I suggest that this is at the expense of what makes us human. To what extent are we in control of what’s online and to what extent are we influenced by it?

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This chapter examines the revolution in self-representation across the cyber-space engendered by the advent of new interactive social medias. It argues that in the attempt to face the challenges of self-imaging in everyday life and in an era where discourses of “identities in flux” have become the norm, photographic trends on Facebook usage seek to portray a sense of coherence of the self through popular media practices. In this dimension, the new media spaces have provided a propitious space of autobiographic self-showing-narrating through a mixture of photos/texts in a way that deconstructs the privileges of self-narration hitherto available only to a privileged class of people. The self (and primarily the face) has thus become subject to a dynamic of personal and amateurish artistic practices that represent, from an existentialist perspective, the daily practices of self-making, un-making and re-making in articulating one’s (social) being.

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Dr Bernie Hogan

Profile Contents

Positions at the oii, news & press.

Bernie Hogan (PhD Toronto, 2009) is a Associate Professor, Senior Research Fellow at the OII and Research Associate at the Department of Sociology. With training in sociology and computer science, Hogan focuses on how social networks and social media can be designed to empower people to build stronger relationships and stronger communities.

Hogan’s theoretical work was among the first to identify the role of the social media platform as curator and to distinguish certain social media as the ‘real name web’ . His practical work has shown how network visualizations can reveal new information to individuals from their social media data. He believes that the way networked information comes us in feeds is akin to being given a route through social space. This might get us where we want to go, but to truly empower people we need to see the map , not only the route along the way.

Hogan’s innovations in social network analysis began with his work at NetLab at the University of Toronto. With Barry Wellman and fellow graduate students, he introduced participant-aided sociograms as a means to capture social networks with pen and paper. He subsequently applied this to social media, and especially Facebook with the introduction of NameGenWeb, a Facebook network visualizer (with Joshua Melville). The second generation of this visualizer, CollegeConnect, was empirically shown to help high school students reveal social resources in their networks. Most recently, with Melville and collaborators at the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing at Northwestern University, he has been working on Network Canvas . This software makes the collection of self-reported network data accessible to non-technical researchers.

Hogan has published in a wide variety of venues, from peer-reviewed papers in sociology journals (such as Social Networks , City and Community , Bulletin of Science Technology and Society , and Field Methods ), in computer science proceedings (such as CHI , ICWSM , and CSCW ) and related disciplines, particularly geography (with papers in Environment and Planning B , the Annals of the Association of American Geographers and Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie ) and communication (with papers in New Media & Society , Social Media + Society , International Journal of Communication , and Information, Communication and Society ). This is in addition to many chapters in books, grey literature reports and public opinion pieces. He is on the editorial boards of Social Media + Society, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication and Social Networks.

Public dissemination of research is a core part of Hogan’s work. With colleagues, he has worked with UK therapy organizations, Tavistock and Relate to produce guidelines on internet infidelity for patients and practitioners. He has also published related work in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy . He has been featured on BBC 1 morning and Newsnight, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Vice and NBC in America. He is routinely featured on BBC 4 radio including as a mentor in Radio 4’s So You Want to Be a Scientist. He has given keynotes at conferences in France, UK, Switzerland and Japan.

As an academic Hogan is keen on service to the University and the wider academic community. He has run small academic seminars on Internet and Relationships at the OII as well as hosting the International Conference on Web and Social Media at Oxford in 2015. He was previously program chair for ICWSM in 2013 and 2014 and is currently a member of the ICWSM steering committee.

Many of Hogan’s papers can be found at his ssrn page and registered on his Google scholar . His ORCID is here . He is currently accepting graduate students on his active interests of names and naming practices, egocentric social networks, network visualizations, politics of social media and social identity, especially identity issues relating to gender and sexual minorities.

• Associate Professor, June 2023 -
• Senior Research Fellow, May 2017 -
• Research Fellow, October 2008 - May 2017

Publications

All publications, conference papers, journal articles.

• Hogan, B.J. (2018) " Break-ups and the limits of encoding love " In: A Networked Self and Love Papacharissi, Z. (eds.) First . A Networked Self . New York, NY : Routledge . 113-128 .
• Allagui, I., Graham, M. and Hogan, B. (2015) " Wikipedia Arabe et la Construction Collective du Savoir (Wikipedia Arabic and the Collective Construction of Knowledge) " In: Wikipedia, objet scientifique non identifie Barbe, L., Merzeau, L. and Schafer, V. (eds.) . Paris : Presses Universitaries du Paris Ouest . 177-194 .
• HOGAN, B.E.R.N.A.R.D. and LaViolette, J. (2019) "Using Platform Signals for Distinguishing Discourses: The Case of Men’s Rights and Men’s Liberation on Reddit" , Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media . International Conference on Web and Social Media , Munich, Germany , 12 – 14 June 2019 . Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence . 13 (1) 323-334 . ( Copyright © 2019, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (www.aaai.org). All rights reserved. This paper was presented at the 13th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2019), Munich, Germany, June 2019. The final version is available online from AAAI at: https://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/3357 )
• Jeon, G., Hogan, B.J., Ellison, N. and Greenhow, C. (2016) " First-Generation Students and College: The Role of Facebook Networks as Information Sources " , Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing [CSCW ’16] . Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing , 27 February – 2 March 2016 . Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) . 887-899 .
• Polonski, V.W. and Hogan, B. (2015) " Assessing the structural correlates between friendship networks and conversational agency in Facebook groups " , Proceedings of the Ninth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, . Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) . 9 (1) 674-677 . ( This is the published version of a conference proceeding published by Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in Proceedings of the Ninth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media on 2015-03-07, available online: https://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM15/paper/view/10579/10472 )
• Macdowall, W.G., Reid, D.S., Lewis, R., Perez, R.B., Mitchell, K.R., Maxwell, K.J., Smith, C., Attwood, F., Gibbs, J., Hogan, B., Mercer, C.H., Sonnenberg, P. and Bonell, C. (2023) " Sexting among British adults: a qualitative analysis of sexting as emotion work governed by 'feeling rules' " , CULTURE HEALTH & SEXUALITY . 25 (5) 617-632 .
• Roden, B., Lusher, D., Spurling, T.H., Simpson, G.W., Klein, T., Brailly, J. and Hogan, B. (2022) " Avoiding GIGO: Learnings from data collection in innovation research " , Social Networks . 69 3-13 .
• Salganik, M.J., Lundberg, I., Kindel, A.T., Ahearn, C.E., Al-Ghoneim, K., Almaatouq, A., Altschul, D.M., Brand, J.E., Carnegie, N.B., Compton, R.J., Datta, D., Davidson, T., Filippova, A., Gilroy, C., Goode, B.J., Jahani, E., Kashyap, R., Kirchner, A., McKay, S., Morgan, A.C., Pentland, A., Polimis, K., Raes, L., Rigobon, D.E. and Stanescu, D.M. (2020) " Measuring the predictability of life outcomes with a scientific mass collaboration " , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 117 (15) 201915006 .
• Norton, A., Brown, C.C., Falbo, R. and Hogan, B. (2020) " Video Game Use, Acceptance, and Relationship Experiences: A Moderated Actor-Partner Interdependence Model " , CYBERPSYCHOLOGY BEHAVIOR AND SOCIAL NETWORKING . 23 (7) 453-458 .
• HOGAN, B., Janulis, P., Phillips II, G.L., Melville, J., Mustanski, B., Contractor, N. and Birkett, M. (2020) " Assessing the stability of ego-centered networks over time using the digital participant-aided sociogram tool Network Canvas " , Network Science . 8 (2) 204-222 .
• Hamilton, J., Hogan, B., Lucas, K. and Mayne, R. (2019) " Conversations about conservation? Using social network analysis to understand energy practices " , Energy Research & Social Science . 49 180-191 .
• McConnell, E., Neray, B., Hogan, B., Korpak, A., Clifford, A. and Birkett, M. (2018) " "Everybody Puts Their Whole Life on Facebook": Identity Management and the Online Social Networks of LGBTQ Youth " , INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH . 15 (6) 1078 .
• Hogan, B.J. (2018) "Social Media Giveth, Social Media Taketh Away: Facebook, Friendships, and APIs" , International Journal of Communication . 12 592-611 .
• Norton, A.M., Baptist, J. and Hogan, B. (2018) " Computer-Mediated Communication in Intimate Relationships: Associations of Boundary Crossing, Intrusion, Relationship Satisfaction, and Partner Responsiveness " , Journal of Marital and Family Therapy . 44 (1) 165-182 .
• Hogan, B., Melville, J.R., Phillips II, G., Janulis, P., Contractor, N. and Mustanski, B.S. (2016) " Evaluating the Paper-to-Screen Translation of Participant-Aided Sociograms with High-Risk Participants " , CHI '16 Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems . 2016 5360-5371 .
• Radovanović, D., Hogan, B. and Lalić, D. (2015) " Overcoming digital divides in higher education: Digital literacy beyond Facebook " , New Media & Society . 17 (10) 1733-1749 .
• Graham, M., Straumann, R.K. and Hogan, B. (2015) " Digital Divisions of Labor and Informational Magnetism: Mapping Participation in Wikipedia " , ANNALS OF THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN GEOGRAPHERS . 105 (6) 1158-1178 .
• Hogan, B. (2015) " Mixing in Social Media " , Social Media + Society . 1 (1) 205630511558048 .
• Brooks, B., Hogan, B., Ellison, N., Lampe, C. and Vitak, J. (2014) " Assessing structural correlates to social capital in Facebook ego networks " , Social Networks . 38 1-15 .
• Graham, M. and Hogan, B. (2014) Uneven Openness: Barriers to MENA Representation on Wikipedia .
• Graham, M., Hogan, B., Straumann, R.K. and Medhat, A. (2014) " Uneven Geographies of User-Generated Information: Patterns of Increasing Informational Poverty " , ANNALS OF THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN GEOGRAPHERS . 104 (4) 746-764 .
• Graham, M., Hogan, B., Straumann, R.K. and Medhat, A. (2014) " Uneven Geographies of User-Generated Information: Patterns of Increasing Informational Poverty " , Annals of the Association of American Geographers . 104 (4) 746-764 .
• Parag, Y., Hamilton, J., White, V. and Hogan, B. (2013) " Network approach for local and community governance of energy: The case of Oxfordshire " , Energy Policy . 62 1064-1077 .
• Hogan, B.J. (2013) " Comment on Elena Pavan/1: Considering Platforms as Actors " , Sociologica . 3 .
• Kan, A., Chan, J., Hayes, C., Hogan, B., Bailey, J. and Leckie, C. (2013) " A time decoupling approach for studying forum dynamics " , WORLD WIDE WEB-INTERNET AND WEB INFORMATION SYSTEMS . 16 (5-6) 595-620 .
• Hogan, B. and Berry, B. (2011) " Racial and Ethnic Biases in Rental Housing: An Audit Study of Online Apartment Listings " , City & Community . 10 (4) 351-372 .
• Brooks, B., Welser, H.T., Hogan, B.J. and Titsworth, S. (2011) "Socioeconomic status updates: college students, family SES, and emergent social capital in Facebook networks" , Information, Communication and Society . 529-549 .
• Hogan, B.J. (2010) " The Presentation of Self in the Age of Social Media: Distinguishing Performances and Exhibitions Online " , Bulletin of Science Technology and Society . 30 (6) 377-386 .
• Hogan, B. and Quan-Haase, A. (2010) " Persistence and Change in Social Media " , Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society . 30 (5) 309-315 .
• Hogan, B.J. (2010) "Pinwheel layout to highlight community structure. Visualization Symposium" , Journal of Social Structure .
• CARRASCO, J.A., HOGAN, B., WELLMAN, B. and MILLER, E.J. (2008) " AGENCY IN SOCIAL ACTIVITY INTERACTIONS: THE ROLE OF SOCIAL NETWORKS IN TIME AND SPACE " , Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie . 99 (5) 562-583 .
• Carrasco, J.A., Hogan, B.J., Wellman, B. and Miller, E. (2008) " Collecting social network data to study social activity-travel behavior: an egocentric approach " , Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design . 35 (6) 961-980 .
• Hogan, B.J., Carrasco, J.A. and Wellman, B. (2007) "Visualizing Personal Networks: Working with Participant-Aided Sociograms" , Field Methods . 19 (2) 116-144 .
• Hogan, B.J. (2007) "Using Information Networks to Understand Social Behavior" , IEEE Data Engineering Bulletin . 30 (2) 6-14 .
• Graham, M. and Hogan, B.J. (2014) Uneven openness: Barriers to MENA representation on Wikipedia . Oxford : Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford .
• Hogan, B.J., Li, N. and Dutton, W.H. (2011) A Global Shift in the Social Relationships of Networked Individuals: Meeting and Dating Online Comes of Age . Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford .
• Fisher, D., Hogan, B.J., Brush, A.J., Jacobs, A. and Smith, M. (2007) Using Social Sorting to Enhance Email Management. Microsoft Research Technical Report. MSR-TR-2007-19 .
• Hogan, B.J. and Fisher, D. (2006) "A Scale for Measuring Email Overload. Microsoft Research Technical Report, MSR-TR-2006-65" In: Microsoft Technical Reports . Microsoft .

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The Presentation of Self in the Age of Social Media: Distinguishing Performances and Exhibitions Online.

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Citation Count

스크린 위의 삶 = Life on the screen : identity in the age of the internet

Cultivating social resources on social network sites: facebook relationship maintenance behaviors and their role in social capital processes, no sense of place: the impact of electronic media on social behavior., facebook use, envy, and depression among college students, knock, knock. who's there the imagined audience, the presentation of self in everyday life, social network sites: definition, history, and scholarship, frame analysis: an essay on the organization of experience, the benefits of facebook “friends:” social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites, the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, related papers (5), i tweet honestly, i tweet passionately: twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience, identity construction on facebook.

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The Presentation of Self in the Age of Social Media: Distinguishing Performances and Exhibitions Online

Author: Hogan, B.

Description: Presentation of self (via Goffman) is becoming increasingly popular as a means for explaining differences in meaning and activity of online participation. This article argues that self-presentation can be split into performances, which take place in synchronous “situations,” and artifacts, which take place in asynchronous “exhibitions.” Goffman’s dramaturgical approach (including the notions of front and back stage) focuses on situations. Social media, on the other hand, frequently employs exhibitions, such as lists of status updates and sets of photos, alongside situational activities, such as chatting. A key difference in exhibitions is the virtual “curator” that manages and redistributes this digital content. This article introduces the exhibitional approach and the curator and suggests ways in which this approach can extend present work concerning online presentation of self. It introduces a theory of “lowest common denominator” culture employing the exhibitional approach.

Subject headings: Presentation of self; Social media

Publication year: 2010

Journal or book title: Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society

Pages: 377-386

Find the full text :  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0270467610385893

Find more like this one (cited by):  https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1417642314098182630&as_sdt=1000005&sciodt=0,16&hl=en

Type: Journal Article

Serial number: 1363

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Bernie Hogan: The Presentation of Self in the Age of Social Media Essay (Article Review)

Introduction.

The article The presentation of self in the age of social media: Distinguishing performances and exhibitions online was written by Bernie Hogan and published in 2010 in the journal Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society. It focuses on how individuals present themselves in the context of social media and online participation which are analyzed as performances in the digital realm. The topic is relevant in the context of the modern digital culture where the availability of smartphone technology has shifted a large majority of interaction, communication, and sharing of personal experiences to social media platforms, and where virtual popularity attracting “likes” is seen as the new form of social influence. This review will seek to summarize and investigate the contents of the article and critique its findings in the context of other academic research on the topic of social media and social interaction. Hogan (2010) suggest that social media self-presentation takes on a dramaturgical exhibition approach where the collected data is curated and allows to establish a mediated architecture that displays current and past performance that is then interacted with by other users and essentially guides the self-presentation phenomenon with its benefits and perils in the digital age.

Hogan portrays social media presence as a performance similar to that of an actor on stage. Taking on this metaphor, an individual is an actor which performs in real-time for an audience. An artifact is the result of a past performance that exists in the current time for others to view. Hogan seeks to clarify the ontological distinction between the actor and the artifact. Furthermore, the past “performances” are categorized into exhibition spaces where individuals collect artifacts for each other to view. Goffman’s dramaturgical approach suggests that individuals present idealized rather than authentic versions of themselves in activities. Behaviors are bound to settings such as time, place, and other individuals. When applied to social media, this approach as shown in numerous research suggests that individuals utilize selective disclosure of personal details and impression management in a “dramaturgical” manner to present an idealized notion of self (Hogan, 2010).

The article then goes on to describe the exhibition approach which is essentially an online platform where people submit reproducible artifacts or digital media. Whole databases of content are created, which are then distributed by the curator (algorithms) to audiences based on pre-established parameters. The scope of this data is tremendous, and one cannot be ever fully aware of the full audience that has access to these artifacts over time since a third party decides what happens with it. Essentially, social media creates a large exhibition platform that allows sharing, search, distribution, and manipulation of these artifacts online, some with the initial user’s input while others without. It comes down to certain parameters such as friends lists and followers, that differ from their real-life meanings but rather represent a level of information management. The article also discusses the theory of the “lowest common denominator” which represents individuals who have access to one’s posts and establish what content is normatively acceptable socially and culturally. Individuals commonly form an online profile based on these lower common denominators and assess whether their identity can be effectively represented, also depending on the type of platform and social circumstances (Hogan, 2010).

The author’s intention for the article seems to be to research and frame self-identity and information sharing on social media in the context of this unique theoretical perspective of Goffman’s exhibition approach and other relevant elements which apply to social media sharing. While Goffman’s performance theory is attributed to the television era of the late 20th century, as evident, they are relevant in the modern age as well. The author is pushing this perspective as a psychological and metaphorical examination of the social media phenomenon and how that information is shared. By utilizing the metaphor of the exhibition with the curator and how that information is uploaded and distributed, he is able to explain a difficult technological concept of algorithms and database storage in a simple way while at the same time analyzing some of the social and psychological ongoing phenomena. The paper is structured correspondingly by introducing new concepts by layers. First presenting the metaphor, then outlining the exhibition approach theory, and then detailing minute concepts of operations such as the curator and sharing according to the lowest common denominator, tying it together in a conclusions section.

The article directly relates to the themes of self and identity since according to Hogan (2010), individuals create performances and upload media to be viewed at a later date by others as a representation of their identity. Users are constantly evaluating the social media platform, their uploads, and other users that see it are a good representation of their said identity. This matches research by Boyd and Ellison (2008) which indicates that social media profiles are unique pages where individuals can “type oneself into being” creating an identity (p. 211). Based on this created identity, users can match with each other based not only on social connections in real life but potentially commonalities in ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, and other elements which inherently drive a person’s identity.

How does this tie into the process of forming an identity online? Hogan refers to algorithm curators who drive the social aspect to properly sharing these performances. However, research by Rui and Stefanone (2013) indicates that there is a strategic aspect to self-presentation online based on cultural aspects and audience diversity. They state that individuals update profiles based on what is better accepted in their respective cultures and in a manner, which would create the most positive acceptance and reactions. Users actively manage the information in order to influence self-presentation behaviors in accordance with their audience. This can be tied to Hogan’s concept of the least common denominator.

Nevertheless, identity shaping can take on many different forms and is strongly defined by the said curator or algorithm which shapes the narrative sometimes just as much if not more than the individual. For example, the app Carrot created an aspect of shaming and sexualizing attributes of women. The one-dimensionality of identity via the app created difficult social situations and potential harassment. Carrot created an intimate relationship between an individual and the app at the expense of an identity prosthesis which was developed based on stereotypes (Murray, 2018). Overall, it seems Hogan’s conclusions are correct and largely supported by other social media research that ties identity online to a complex juxtaposition of strategic performance and sharing algorithms.

Social media is a prevalent activity and method of exchanging information in the modern day where individuals often seek to control the narrative that is presented to the outside world about their lives. Taking this concept, Hogan (2010) applied a metaphorical analysis to the process using Goffman’s exhibition theory that outlines the concept of presentation and performance on social media, and how this information is stored and distributed by algorithms for one’s social media connections and later use. It is highly relevant to consider such topics, considering that other research largely supports the contexts described by Hogan and evaluates social media behaviors as well as certain social implications.

Boyd, D. M., & Ellison, N. B. (2008). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication , 13 (1), 210–230. Web.

Hogan, B. (2010). The presentation of self in the age of social media: Distinguishing performances and exhibitions online. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 30 (6), 377–386. Web.

Murray, S. (2018). Carrot. In J. W. Morris & S. Murray (Eds.), Appified (pp. 72-81). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Rui, J., & Stefanone, M. A. (2013). Strategic self-presentation online: A cross-cultural study. Computers in Human Behavior, 29 (1), 110–118. Web.

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Bernie Hogan: The Presentation of Self in the Age of Social Media." June 6, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-presentation-of-self-in-the-age-of-social-media-the-article-by-bernie-hogan/.

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Article Contents

Introduction, literature review, acknowledgments.

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Performing a Vanilla Self: Respectability Politics, Social Class, and the Digital World

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Mikaela Pitcan, Alice E Marwick, danah boyd, Performing a Vanilla Self: Respectability Politics, Social Class, and the Digital World, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication , Volume 23, Issue 3, May 2018, Pages 163–179, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmy008

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“Respectability politics” describes a self-presentation strategy historically adopted by African-American women to reject White stereotypes by promoting morality while de-emphasizing sexuality. While civil rights activists and feminists criticize respectability politics as reactionary, subordinated groups frequently use these tactics to gain upward mobility. This paper analyzes how upwardly mobile young people of low socio-economic status in New York City manage impressions online by adhering to normative notions of respectability. Our participants described how they present themselves on social media by self-censoring, curating a neutral image, segmenting content by platform, and avoiding content and contacts coded as lower class. Peers who post sexual images, primarily women, were considered unrespectable and subject to sexual shaming. These strategies reinforce racist and sexist notions of appropriate behavior, simultaneously enabling and limiting participants’ ability to succeed. We extend the impression management literature to examine how digital media mediates the intersection of class, gender, and race.

They [privileged people] kind of dictate what’s good to say because we’re trying to appeal to them. Because they’re the ones who have the jobs, and they’re the ones who have the money to give us jobs, so we don’t want to say anything that would … make us seem lesser in their eyes. I mean in a lot of ways we don’t really care, but we have to pretend that we do. And that’s kind of what I think Facebook is, it’s the performance of, “No look, I’m viable for this, I’m viable for that. I’m vanilla enough so everyone enjoys me.”

On social media, people edit themselves to fit what Bernie Hogan (2010) calls the “lowest-common denominator.” This practice is typically analyzed through the frame of “impression management,” which argues that people alter self-presentation, or code-switch, based on the audience, attempting to regulate how others feel about them ( Goffman, 1959 ; Schlenker, 1980 ). Yet, social media complicates the ability to code-switch, because historically separate audiences are collapsed into flattened digital contexts ( Litt, 2012 ; Marwick & boyd, 2011 ; Vitak, 2012 ). Furthermore, impression management literature fails to account for structural differences that affect the options available to different individuals and the risks of performing incorrectly for a perceived audience.

We use the concept of respectability politics to analyze the self-editing that individuals engage in online through a lens that incorporates race, class, and gender. Respectability politics are rooted in resistance to racist imagery of Black people, particularly Black women, who adopted self-presentation strategies that downplayed sexuality and emphasized morality and dignity to reject White America’s stereotypes of them ( Harris, 2014 ; White, 2001 ). In this context, respectability is a tactic used by low-status individuals in the hope of obtaining social mobility ( Shaw, 1996 ). However, behaviors are judged respectable by comparing them to racist, sexist, and classist norms that idealize upper–middle class versions of White womanhood ( Muhammad, 2011 ). Moreover, respectability politics’ emphasis on individual uplift ignores structural inequalities, which are not changed by ascending class status ( Harris, 2014 ). Digital technologies like social media are sites through which hegemonic norms are made visible, and are tools for regulating and resisting norms. They also disrupt strategies that allowed individuals to maintain respectability in face-to-face situations, such as through code-switching ( DeBose, 1992 ). Digital respectability politics loom large for young people like Jorge who believe they must adopt the norms of the “vanilla” upper-class online in order to succeed.

This paper draws from interviews with upwardly-mobile New York City young people from low socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds to understand how race, class, and gender affect impression management in the face of context collapse, examining how participants draw from discourses of respectability politics. We highlight how the strategies and tactics that our participants take to achieve respectability in digital environments—and judge others—regulate norms and status, thereby helping maintain social divisions rooted in structural oppression.

Respectability politics

Respectability politics are a continuum of behaviors and attitudes that reproduce dominant norms, and strategies for producing a counter-narrative to negative stereotypes placed upon subordinated groups ( Harris, 2003 ). Coined by Evelyn Higginbotham (1993) , the “politics of respectability” describe how early 20 th century Black women presented themselves as polite, sexually pure, and thrifty to reject stereotypes of them as immoral, childlike, and unworthy of respect and protection ( Harris, 2003 ; McGuire, 2004 ). Paisley Harris (2003 , p. 213) summarizes that respectability had two audiences: “African Americans, who were encouraged to be respectable, and White people, who needed to be shown that African Americans could be respectable.” Respectability also encompasses messages of class status and privilege, denoted through dress, organizational affiliation, and behavior. Thus, respectability refers to a set of rules embodied by the White middle class that appealed to Black American reformers, and subsequently other marginalized groups, as a tactic for social uplift ( Wolcott, 2013 ). Critiques of respectability politics have since emerged in Latinx, LGBTQ, and Asian-American scholarly work ( Chong, 2008 ; Vargas & Ramírez, 2015 ; Ward, 2008 ).

Respectability politics has three main facets. First, it reinforces within-group stratification to juxtapose a respectable us against a shameful other, such as unrespectable Black people or promiscuous gay men ( Ward, 2008 ; Wolcott, 2013 ). While Higginbotham (1993) describes it as a way to counter racist stereotypes and structures, respectability requires condemning behaviors deemed unworthy of respect within one’s in-group. For example, advising women to dress modestly positions the speaker as more respectable than those who dress immodestly, reinforcing sexism ( Hasinoff, 2015 ). Second, respectability endorses values that contradict stereotypes, such as presenting Black women as modest, thereby enforcing a dominant narrative that women should exercise sexual restraint. Third, practicing respectability involves impression management to align with White, middle-class indicators of class status and privilege, such as using standard English rather than African-American vernacular English in racially-mixed audiences ( Warner, 2015 ). Thus, strategies to enact respectability reflect and reinforce the norms of the status quo ( Wolcott, 2013 ). Underlying these tactics is the belief that respectable behavior allows marginalized individuals to obtain upward mobility ( Shaw, 1996 ). As politics of respectability reflect the broader culture in which they are situated, such tactics both facilitate social mobility and limit the ability to challenge oppressive systems.

Respectability excludes African-Americans who do not live up to bourgeois standards ( Harris, 2003 ). In the early 20 th century, necessary behaviors for survival amongst the working class (e.g., women engaging in paid labor) were disparaged by the middle-class, who saw them as detrimental to efforts to uplift the race ( Wolcott, 2013 ). As a result, many activists and scholars view respectability politics as delegitimizing justifiable Black rage, and have turned to social media to voice opposition ( Smith, 2013 ). After the death of Trayvon Martin, pundits claimed that Martin’s hoodie, not race, marked him as “gangsta” and threatening ( Wemple, 2013 ). In response, individuals posted pictures of themselves wearing hoodies on social media platforms to protest racial profiling ( Graeff, Stempeck, & Zuckerman, 2014 ). Similarly, in response to problematic media depictions of victims of police brutality, activist C. J. Lawrence’s tweet with the hashtag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown spawned a movement in which people of color posted pictures of themselves captioned “#iftheygunnedmedown which picture would they use” ( Korn, 2015 ). One portrait typically showed the user in graduation cap and gown or professional dress, while the other included trendy clothes or hip-hop iconography. The images critiqued the media’s tendency to choose less “respectable” photos to represent victims of police brutality, as White suspects are often portrayed more positively than Black victims in media ( Jackson, 2016 ). This campaign called attention to the phenomenon of media using positive images for White perpetrators and less “respectable” images for victims of color. Thus, available “unrespectable” images may be a danger for victims of color, as they are often used to justify negative media portrayals and the less respectable images yield less empathy among viewers and harsher public opinions ( NPR Staff, 2014 ). Furthermore, photos marked respectable versus less respectable revealed viewers’ notions of what is considered appropriate and valuable. As Jenny Korn (2015) notes, adhering to respectability requires that people of color perform as defined by structures of Whiteness before they are deemed worthy of exclusion from racialized violence ( Croeser, 2015 ).

Despite critique, respectability politics maintain cultural currency. Black elites continue to criticize lower- and working-class Black culture, such as Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter’s address to Black churchgoers, in which he blamed an outbreak of violent flash mobs on poor Black people’s parenting, out of wedlock birthrate, clothing styles, and vocabulary ( Harris, 2014 ). His statements reinforced class tensions and placed the blame for structural inequality on subordinated groups, ignoring racist and classist institutions and histories ( Harris, 2014 ; Higginbotham, 1993 ).

Critique of respectability politics also occurs in Asian and Latinx communities ( Carbado, 2002 ; Chong, 2008 ; Sharpless, 2016 ). Devon Carbado incorporates Latinos in his analysis of public critiques of racial profiling, which often involve the police mistaking “respectable” Blacks and Latinos (doctors, lawyers, professors) for “unrespectable” people, thus reinforcing the idea that unrespectable people deserve police suspicion ( Carbado, 2002 ). Similarly, Rebecca Sharpless (2016) criticizes immigration reform that relies on distinguishing decent immigrants from those convicted of a criminal offense as reproducing and reinforcing inequality. Sylvia Shin Huey Chong analyzes the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shooting, perpetrated by a Korean-American student. She criticizes the “model minority” stereotype of Asian-Americans and the inclination of Asian-American communities to distance themselves from problematic members ( Chong, 2008 ). Thus, gradations of respectability exist not only within communities, but also between and across racial categories.

Respectability also depends on acceptably performing gender and sexuality. Gender theorists argue that respectable femininity is contingent upon whether behavior threatens hegemonic masculinity ( Schippers, 2007 ). To maintain social and economic capital, women manage their identities and sexual reputations to avoid association with “pariah femininities” ( Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005 ). Even feminist role models have reflected politics of respectability, in that the women chosen reflected the altruistic feminine tradition ( Firestone, 1970 ). In terms of sexuality, Amy Hasinoff (2015) argues that women who craft an image of innocence may obtain sympathy and avoid culpability in, for instance, criminal sexting cases. The ability to adhere to an image of respectability can be crucial in determining who is punished for violating a social or legal norm. Jane Ward’s (2008) work on LGBT activist organizations also demonstrates how neoliberal claims to participation often require communities to discard members who do not fit market needs. She writes, “lesbian and gay activists embrace racial, gender, socioeconomic, and sexual differences when they see them as predictable, profitable, rational, or respectable, and yet suppress these very same differences when they are unpredictable, unprofessional, messy, or defiant” (Ward, 2008, p. 4).

Respectability politics reflect neoliberal, White, bourgeois normativity, and provide a frame for understanding subordinated group behavior from a gendered, classed, and racialized perspective. Respectability politics reinforce designations of appropriate or inappropriate behavior rooted in structural inequality. Moreover, the process of deeming an act respectable is reflexive. Those enacting respectability respond to their perception of the dominant narrative of respectability, and this response informs ideas of what is respectable. In other words, by privileging racist, sexist, and classist values, respectability politics lead members of subordinate groups to internalize them. Analyzing how young adults attempt to manage impressions through the frame of respectability politics allows for a critique of how appeasement to dominant norms acts to simultaneously enable and limit participants’ ability to succeed, and how digital media mediates the intersection of class, gender, and race.

Impression management and respectability

The concept of impression management originates in social psychology, describing people’s attempts to control how others perceive them ( Leary & Kowalski, 1990 ; Schlenker, 2003 ). It is closely related to the concept of self-presentation ( Goffman, 1959 ). Erving Goffman’s sociological approach to in-person interaction in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life used a theatrical metaphor to analyze choices when interacting with others. He argued that people present themselves strategically to influence how others see them, primarily to avoid embarrassment or reduction in status ( Goffman, 1955 ). While some self-governance is deeply self-conscious, such as making a good impression during a job interview, Goffman notes that even in relaxed social situations, people habitually monitor their behavior. In this dialectic process, individuals respond to feedback from their audience, revealing and concealing information accordingly ( Leary & Kowalski, 1990 ). Since then, considerable research has been done in psychology and interpersonal communication on the specifics of self-presentation and impression management ( Baumeister, 1986 ; Brown, 1997 ; Schlenker, 1980 ). Such scholarship notes that people change aspects of their self-presentation based on the nature of who they are speaking with, including gender, race, social status, and strength of social ties ( Banaji & Prentice, 1994 ; Tice, Butler, Muraven, & Stillwell, 1995 ). In other words, self-presentation depends on context (or environment) and audience (who they interact with). This is particularly challenging for subordinated groups. W.E.B. Du Bois’ concept of “double consciousness” describes the challenge of integrating sense of self while managing the need to curate presentation based on normative Whiteness ( Du Bois, 1903/2000 ). Lisa Nakamura’s work on “cybertypes” further shows how racist stereotypes shape how people of color are viewed online, requiring constant navigation of presumptions of Whiteness ( Nakamura, 2002 ).

Drawing on Erving Goffman’s work, internet studies’ scholars have used impression management to understand why, how, and what people share online ( Kendall, 1998 ; Manago, Graham, Greenfield, & Salimkhan, 2008 ; Murthy, 2012 ; Robinson, 2007 ; Walther, 1996 ). In early, text-based online communities, people “typed themselves into being” to participate ( Sundén, 2003 ), embodying themselves in textual descriptions that could be fantastic or mundane. In sites like MySpace ( Manago et al., 2008 ) and online dating sites ( Ellison, Heino, & Gibbs, 2006 ), people constructed idealized images of themselves to appeal to peers or prospective partners, picking pictures, language, and graphics to attempt to manage the impressions of others.

However, modern social media presents new challenges for self-presentation and impression management. Because platforms like Facebook encourage users to “friend” people from many aspects of their lives, audiences that might typically have been kept physically distinct (such as high school friends and coworkers) collapse into one. This is not entirely new to social media. Joshua Meyrowitz (1985) describes how Black Power advocate Stokely Carmichael adopted different rhetorical styles for Black and White audiences, tampering down his fiery rhetoric for pro-integration White people. On television, he was forced to choose between these two modalities, and chose his Black style. This “filled his secondary audience with hatred and fear and brought on the wrath of the White power structure” (Meyrowitz, 1985, p. 43). This “context collapse” makes it difficult for people to vary self-presentation based on audience and context ( Marwick & boyd, 2011 ; Vitak, 2012 ). While in Carmichael’s day, only politicians, celebrities, and the like had access to forms of mass media that presented these challenges, sites like Twitter or YouTube, in which the scale of possible audiences has expanded far beyond bounded interpersonal groups, make it difficult to tell who is actually reading one’s content ( Litt, 2012 ). People have adopted a variety of strategies as a result. For instance, Bernie Hogan (2010) argued that this phenomenon often leads to a “lowest common denominator” approach, where people share only what is likely to be inoffensive, or safe for their parents or bosses. Eden Litt (2012 ; Litt & Hargittai, 2016 ) writes that the “imagined audience”—the mental construct people form of their audience given the lack of knowledge about who is actually reading their content online—is influenced by social norms, social context (including both material affordances and community norms of a particular app or site), and the people who are visibly active on the site. Even so, people can be wildly inaccurate in their assessment of who is speaking, which can create serious issues when content spreads beyond its intended audience ( boyd, 2014 ; Marwick & boyd, 2011 , 2014 ).

Careful impression management is central to respectability politics, where actors negotiate impressions not just in relationship to each other, but to broader social norms. For instance, in her study of low-income teenagers of color in Texas, Jacqueline Vickery (2015) notes that her informants disassociated themselves from peers they considered “ghetto.” Vickery’s participants knew their Facebook connections were visible to peers, requiring those who wished to maintain distance from people they considered unrespectable to carefully manage publicly articulated networks.

However, digital impression management literature rarely accounts for structural inequities among audiences and the subject positions of non-dominant individuals attempting to negotiate with members of a dominant culture. The imagined audience, for instance, resembles the concept of the White audience inherent to respectability politics; namely, that one must be able to successfully perform a White-defined bourgeois self to achieve upward mobility. The complexities faced when trying to manage impressions with an invisible audience through social media are magnified when there are clear differentials between dominant, acceptable social norms, and class, gender, racial, or ethnic norms viewed as less respectable through the eyes of the dominant gaze ( Russell, 1991 ). Social media makes such differentials widely visible.

Little is known about the ways that digital media disrupts or transforms tactics of maintaining respectability through impression management. This paper draws from interviews with a group of young adults to understand how race, class, and gender complicate impression management, using respectability as an analytical lens. The strategies and tactics that these young people use to achieve respectability in digital environments, and judge others as unrespectable, reproduce social divisions.

This paper draws from a qualitative study of young people of low-socioeconomic status and their privacy experiences and practices ( Marwick, Fontaine, & boyd, 2017 ). Participants included 28 young adults, aged 21 to 27, who lived in New York City (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Long Island). Participants were required to have a smartphone or handheld device with similar capabilities and to regularly use at least one social media platform. The first group of participants (11) was recruited through emails to NYC-area high school and city college educators. To solicit individuals from low socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds, recruitment flyers specified people who were immigrants, first-generation American or college students, from single-parent households, public housing residents, and/or Section 8 housing voucher recipients. Prospective participants were screened over the phone to determine study eligibility. All names are psudonyms and identifying information of participants has been removed.

Principal investigators (PIs) conducted 30- to 90-minute, individual, semi-structured interviews with 11 participants, for which we paid participants $25. The interview protocol included general questions about participants’ interests and questions about social media use. PIs wrote field notes and memos about the participant and conversation after each interview, consistent with best practices of ethnographic research ( Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995 ). Field notes and memos included information about interview content, interactional dynamics (e.g., body language and gestures), and how participants appeared to tailor their self-presentation to meet the researcher’s expectations.

Inspired by collaborative and participatory methodologies ( Torre, Cahill, & Fox, 2015 ), we recruited a subset of eight interview subjects as participant researchers (PRs) to enhance the validity of interpretation. Each PR interviewed two to six of their contacts, and five participated in a 90-minute focus group. Based on the PRs’ initial interview, we suggested themes to investigate and encouraged them to rephrase questions, react to emerging topics, and introduce additional subjects as desired. PRs were paid $25 for completing training on basic interviewing techniques. They emailed completed interviews to the researchers or uploaded them to a shared file system. Participants received $50 for the first set of 2–3 interviews and $50 more for an optional, second set of 3 interviews. An outside transcription service transcribed the interviews.

Participants

We identified two themes of participant practices: tactics for enacting respectability online in order to obtain social mobility, and judging female sexuality as unrespectable. Our participants knew their online activity could be viewed by people with different ideas of respectability. To maintain respectability, they developed strategies to create an image that would be consistently acceptable across collapsed contexts. They self-censored in a manner they described as presenting a “neutral” or “vanilla” face, catering to the respectability norms of the most powerful potential viewers—often potential employers or high-status community members—rather than peers.

Consistent with previous research on respectability, the female body was the primary site of regulation and norm maintenance for our participants, who valued sexual propriety and desexualized self-presentation ( Shaw, 1996 ; Wolcott, 2013 ). These notions of female respectability were reinforced through a cycle of sexual shaming directed at women who failed to embody these characteristics. Participants regulated their peers’ behavior through discourse around acceptable sexuality, while norm ascription for upward mobility was determined by the perceived expectations of groups in power.

Part one: Navigating respectability across context

If we don’t take responsibility for our image online, who will?—Vikrama

Participants developed tactics to navigate a space in which being visible led to vulnerability to judgment and online harassment. Digital media disrupted local boundaries where, while notions of respectable behavior might vary, people could tailor self-presentation depending on context and audience. Instead, online, participants responded to divergent audiences and values. Complicating matters further, the scale at which people could engage in public shaming put vulnerable individuals even more at risk than in previous media landscapes, upping the stakes of non-respectability. Our participants often responded by varying tactics of self-censorship and avoidance of gaze to limit risk.

Avoiding the gaze

Participants were aware that the boundaryless nature of online participation challenged traditional tactics of carefully managing impressions to maintain respectability. However, they acknowledged the necessity to maintain some sort of online presence to engage with the world around them. Aviva said, “you need to use the Internet. That’s just the way society works unless you want to go off the grid, which I am not willing to do.” For some, the only agentic solution to context collapse was to avoid producing or sharing specific types of messages and images (often related to sexuality) in any context, while others attempted to curate their shared content depending on how they imagined their audience on different social media platforms.

When you’re doing these things, you’re kind of presenting a form of yourself that isn’t 100% genuine because you want to present yourself in a very specific way.

I carefully consider everything I say, put out there, and do, that’s going to translate to the Internet. If it’s going on Twitter, if it’s going on Facebook, if it’s going on Instagram, I either try to make it as neutral as humanly possible, or as PC as possible.

Stacy: I think I post certain things on my Facebook because I have friends and family. And even, sometimes, I do kind of cross a—like sometimes I’ll put … not necessarily like sexually inappropriate things, I don’t do that. But I will put, you know, just the occasional something that’s adult humor, or …

Jun: Not tasteful?

Stacy: Yeah. Some people that are just like, “Oh, you shouldn’t put that, you’re a lady,” whatever. Whereas on Tumblr, I have no family, virtually no friends who use Facebook—sorry, Tumblr—because they … at one point they used it, but they don’t anymore. So, I pretty much have free rein more on Tumblr than I do on Facebook.

So, let’s say a person who’s already among […] the so-called privileged class. Let’s say the kid who is heir to a billion-dollar fortune, I think that person has the luxury to say, “Screw it” and just do whatever he or she wants.

Imagined and future audiences

Upwardly mobile young people must develop effective ways of navigating unfamiliar audiences in new social spaces. Online, users navigate an abstracted audience and future, leading participants to make presumptions about their audiences and the long-term impact of their behaviors online.

You know, like you have this bright child who’s a genius, who’s in a bad neighborhood, the schools are bad, but still he or she is still a genius and trying to get out. But the people from the hood is always going to try to take them back, and if they are not successful in converting the person, then the next step is probably death. They don’t want to see this person succeed because they never could.

Since online content is persistent, participants worried about the future impact of their current online behavior, amplified by their tenuous social positions. Without the social or economic capital needed to rebound from a reputational assault, a negative impression could undo efforts to climb the social ladder. Batuk believed that people should be careful online and keep opinions to themselves. He was wary about his online presence and does not take a stand on anything that might jeopardize his job prospects, saying that he does not take “political stances” in his posts and does his best to ensure that his posts “don’t offend any particular demographic.”

Batuk tried to portray himself as respectful and hardworking everywhere, but anxiety about future employment led him to portray a sterile version of his life online.

Some people have something called professionalism, where they can be absolute jackanapes when they’re out with their friends, but they can conduct themselves in a very mature manner when they’re at work. Though there are some people who just, you need to see ratchetry coming from a mile away. If you have way, way too many pictures of you or videos of you twerking anywhere on social media and getting drunk on a weekday, I’m pretty sure I don’t wanna hire you for my nine to five. There’s a huge chance you’ll come in hammered.

Part two: Regulating the digital (female) body

The main site of respectability has historically been the female body, where norms are negotiated and women are turned into a marker of social values of sexual restraint and maintenance of traditional gender roles rather than agented actors. Due to the intersection of race and gender, women of color are further subject to critique and objectification, prompting a long history of highly gendered and racialized respectability politics that center on what women wear, how they engage sexually, and how they behave in public ( Ford, 2015 ). Our interviewees modernized these dynamics for the digital ecosystem. Participants ascribed to the fundamentally sexist notion that women should not flaunt their sexuality for public audiences, lest they be perceived as lacking self-respect. Behaving otherwise left women at risk of attack by their peers, and reduced opportunities for upward social movement. As a result, male and female participants felt that girls should behave in ways that decreased their likelihood of being targeted, primarily by reducing their visibility.

Sexuality as unrespectable

Shaka: Be careful what you put on social media, and respect yourself, ‘cause if people seeing that you don’t respect yourself, they not gonna respect you. And they will talk shit about you, and they will fucking be creepy on you.

Jun: They begin to feel like they have the right to destroy you.

Shaka: Exactly, because you destroying yourself, so they will help you to destroy you, of course. Nobody wanna see you taking care of yourself. That’s why people talk bullshit about you.

If you’re posting a picture where I can see 95% of your skin, and someone shows that around, if you posted that yourself, apparently, that’s something you want people to see. And I feel like it is wrong if someone goes and shows that to 50,000 other people, but then if it’s like if you didn’t want or expect something like that to happen, knowing that teenagers do it a lot, then you shouldn’t have posted it on there.

Cause it’s like if you have money, if you have the means and you have power, if you see something you don’t like on the Internet, you can change it. You could change it. I, I’m a minority from the hood who has a little bit of know how. My friend had nudes posted up on a website and she was 15. I wasn’t okay with that. I was upset. I was blowing up her phone and I was calling her. And she just kind of gave up. It took me three days to get into that website and shut it down.

Sexual shaming as a revenge tactic

It’s a nightmare, and I value my sense of safety, and I’m very aware of Deep Net stuff, and one of my top fears is getting doxed and people coming after me, because there’s not much to me. I don’t have nudes out somewhere on the Internet. I don’t have a reputation or anything like that, but the thought of my normal life being disrupted by crazy people is just not appealing to me.

And I’m always afraid that she’s going to say the wrong [thing], she’s going to be stupid and get into a fight with somebody that’s going to want to get back at her for something and that they’ll go after her somehow. Because she is a person that has pictures of herself online and she is a person where, in special situations, but there have been naked things exchanged. And I hope to God she never gets into that kind of a fight with someone with which that’s happened but I would say out of everyone, she’s the one person I’d be the most afraid for.

Angelique believed her friend was dually at fault for arguing with others online, and for taking nude photos that others could use for revenge. To Angelique, the best solutions were silence and avoiding immodest photos, rather than blaming those who might seek to do harm. Echoing the notion that women should not take sexual images, Fatima said she was “not stupid enough to send anyone lewd pictures, because those don’t end up where you want them to be.” Throughout our interviews, both male and female participants felt that defying the prescription to maintain invisibility would lead to negative ramifications.

The tendency to blame the victim in interpersonal violence can be attributed to the desire to preserve faith in personal invulnerability, as well as a way of stressing one’s own social status and of safeguarding against re-victimization ( Vynckier, 2012 ). For our participants, blaming the victim served these functions. By distancing oneself through judgment, our participants could soothe anxiety about being potential victims while emphasizing their own relatively high status in comparison to “stupid” girls who sent sexy photos. By defining appropriate versus inappropriate behavior, participants developed guidelines for decreasing risk. Aviva described the curation of self as a safeguard against vulnerability, saying that you have to be very careful about “what you present” and who you communicate with online.

Our female participants faced the added pressure of being judged by peers, family, and respected community members. Participants did not argue that men needed to maintain content acceptability for such a broad range of personal and distant figures. Although some participants acknowledged the potential consequences of men behaving in an unrespectable manner online, discussion was largely focused on the negative ramifications of explicit female sexuality. Consistent with literature examining the gendered nature of respectability politics concerning sexual expression ( Marwick, 2017 ), the risk of sexual shaming was exclusive to girls, while boys were not at risk. Shaka was aware of the gendered aspect of sexual shaming, specifically that there were more stringent requirements for girls. He expressed sympathy for girls who were unable to post specific kinds of content for fear of being shamed or targeted, saying that he felt “a little bad about females on social media” because “random creepy-ass guys” try to talk to them. However, he said that because others’ behavior cannot be controlled, girls have to “just be careful what [they] do” online. Replicating offline respectability politics, both the burden of maintaining sexual propriety and the risk for not doing so fell disproportionately on women. “Creepy-ass guys,” while regarded negatively, were considered a given in the social media ecosphere.

Politics of respectability rely on a degree of control over oneself, and a sense of personal responsibility for how others perceive you. Grounded within and reliant on the White, middle-class norms of U.S. culture, respectability politics assume that careful impression management can relieve the burden of systemic racism and structural inequality. Digital media has upended traditional strategies for maintaining respectability, which took boundaries for granted. While it was historically possible to code-switch and maintain respectability, context collapse undoes certain assumptions of how respectability politics operate.

Digital media can provide new opportunities for mobility, but confers greater risk upon those with tenuous social positions. Our participants understood that online dynamics reflected the same systems of inequality, discrimination, and structures of power as offline. By participating respectably on social media, upwardly mobile individuals invite the dominant gaze in an effort to obtain success, but they also participate online to maintain connections with friends and families, producing tension between modes of being across contexts. Their ability to control the distinctions between these contexts was further limited by the way in which networks reveal identities through associations. The larger the gap between our participants’ home lives and the hegemonic norms that determined respectability, the greater the potential that curated images could be shattered by networked digital media. In the United States, the American Dream maintains that upward mobility can be obtained through hard work, excluding the reality that social impressions and networks weigh heavily on one’s likelihood to succeed ( Burton & Welsh, 2015 ). The logic that job-specific skills and merit will lead to success is challenged in a context in which the personal (social media) can easily be accessed and used to judge the professional.

Practically speaking, our participants’ avoidance of the gaze has the potential to damage their chances of professional success. Aligning with respectability has traditionally diverted negative judgment to those who are not behaving respectably. Our participants diverted the gaze through self-censorship and limiting of participation online. However, pursuit of upward mobility is largely about writing yourself into being online through the curation of profiles on sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter; by opting-out, participants may limit future professional possibilities. While male participants discussed managing their presentation to achieve professional goals, female participants had the additional need to avoid harassment and protect their virtuous sexual identity. Ascription to respectability politics may allow individuals to succeed, but doing so fails to address the systems of inequality and oppression that necessitate their use.

Our participants’ all shared a self-identification as upwardly mobile New York City young adults. However, they differed across lines of queer identity, race, ethnicity, and gender. This raises questions of what digital respectability looks like at the intersection of gender and race, and how digital respectability differs dependent on these varying intersectional identities: all fertile grounds for future research. Although rooted in the struggle of Black American women, respectability politics shape broader cultural norms and are reinforced by these norms. For example, the misogyny intrinsic to respectability was represented by our male participants’ offering of advice for women participating online. Intending to protect women, men offered prescriptions on the behavior of women that aligned with values of purity and conservatism that police female sexuality.

We are not arguing that digital media is changing our notions of respectability. In contrast, respectability—even operating in digital spaces—remains entrenched in values and assumptions of worth, determined by hegemonic norms. What has changed is the ability of upwardly mobile individuals to maintain the boundaries that enabled them to do the identity work necessary to move towards higher social standing.

This research was funded by a grant from the Digital Trust Foundation. The authors would like to thank Claire Fontaine for her work on the Reframing Privacy project. We would also like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers, as well as André L. Brock, Dan Greene, Jenny Korn, and the other participants in the Data & Society Eclectic Workshop, for their close reading and useful feedback on previous versions of this manuscript. Special thanks to our participants for their insights and willingness to share with us.

All names are pseudonyms.

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Belief, Identity and the Presentation of Self

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What motivates people to take part, in their own view? This chapter reflects on some of the possible origins of the political beliefs and related ideas about identity that lie behind and motivate much online political expression, both from a theoretical perspective and from participants’ self-understanding. Perceived beliefs and feelings of ‘rightness’ are motivators for many people taking part, but where do those feelings originate and how are they further shaped by encounters on social media? This chapter compares theoretical conceptualisation with people’s own understanding and narrative accounts of their own political beliefs, how they develop and how they maintain them in the face of challenge in the environment of social media. It also considers self-perceptions of the role of identity and how this is used online. It shows that participants have subjective takes on the nature of belief, identity and how they present themselves. They do not approach this in a systematic way. Further, the relationships between belief, identity and political practice seem to enter a particularly complex feedback loop on social media as participants can at times feel almost forced into defensive processing and fast-thinking assertions of position.

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Bailey, E.A. (2021). Belief, Identity and the Presentation of Self. In: Political Participation on Social Media. Political Campaigning and Communication. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65221-0_5

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What does your profile picture say about us ?

In his work , The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis , “The Split between the Eye and the Gaze,” Psychoanalyst Jaques Lacan appropriates Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological model of vision that identifies a fundamental “reversibility” in the way human beings see the world. Lacan adopts Merleau-Ponty’s theory that the human body is both subject and object, the “seeing” and the “seen.” Taking this notion of reversibility a step further, Lacan insists that, despite the reversibility of the seeing and the seen, the possibility of “being seen” is always primary. As humans, according to Lacan, we exist in relation to an internalized or imagined “gaze” of an “Other” (74). In many ways, social media can be understood as Lacan’s notion of the “Other.”The technology of social media allows for the construction of a digital “Other” which is internalized and is changing the way we see the world.

Our social world is increasingly becoming digitized and mediated through our computers, smartphones and personal devices. According to the Pew Research Center , as of 2015, 62% of the adult population United States is on Facebook. 24% of the United States adult population is on Instagram. 70% of Facebook users use the platform daily, and 60% of Instagram users check their profile at least once a day, up 10 points from 2014. Furthermore, according to Pew , over two-thirds of Americans are smartphone owners, allowing constant access to social media platforms. These numbers are expected to increase in 2016. This cultural obsession with social media is changing the way we see the world. It’s changing the way we see each other, and it’s changing the way we see ourselves.

Bernie Hogan (2010), a social network analyst with Oxford University, argues that self-presentation can be split into “performances” and “exhibitions.” According to Hogan, “performances” take place in “synchronous situations” between the presenter and the viewer, while exhibitions depend on “artifacts,” which take place in “asynchronous” displays. Exhibitions include status updates and photos that require contributions from a third party “curator.” Hogan compares social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook to curators, in that we trust them first with our information, which they then distribute to our social networks. In this way, the technology of social media allows individuals to consume and view each other’s past “artifacts” without directly engaging the individual, or in many instances, even letting the profile owner know that his or her information is being viewed.

The importance of online profiles in our notion of self-presentation makes this a time when the visual begins to take prominence over the real. Instead of experiencing our lives from our own points of view, we view the world from the perspective of how others will view and respond to our vantage points. Because we are each responsible for creating our own media, we are always visible and therefore, always “seen.” Invisibly determining the way we relate to ourselves and establish our worth is the “gaze,” so omnipresent we often forget that it’s even there. Lacan’s notion of the gaze of the “Other” is more internalized than ever because of our focus on how we are perceived through the images we deliver.

The idea that the gaze of social media has become internalized is troubling when we consider that, as life becomes more connected to the digital, so does a sense of social identity and self-worth. Establishing value on social media means collecting more followers, shares, and likes. This means that we often bolster our profiles with images that we feel people will like to see, and evaluate ourselves based on how our images are received. In order to participate in social media, we are constantly curating and marketing ourselves to fit the expectations of the gaze.

And what does our cultural value, visually?

In her classic essay, “The Visual Pleasures of Narrative Cinema,” film theorist Laura Mulvey examines Freudian ideas of scopophilia, or the pleasure in looking. As Mulvey argues, “in a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female.” Mulvey derives the term, the “male gaze,” to describe the way in which the male “projects its phantasy on to the female figure which is styled accordingly.” As Mulvey points out, the “female character simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact.” In short, the woman is given meaning according to how the male views her; she is a spectacle for both the male character and male viewer, with little agency of her own.

Mulvey was writing in the 1970s about classical narrative cinema. This was well before the rise of social media, but her idea of the “male gaze” is still pertinent today and perhaps even more so as we move further into the digital age. Because our culture is so indoctrinated in the male gaze, we respond most favorably to those who operate within it. The accounts with the most followers on Instagram and Facebook are women who have modified their bodies and faces, and who only post photos of themselves, their various body parts, and their friends who look eerily similar. It’s not only men who are devoted followers, but also women, too, who look up to them as an ideal.

If we couple Hogan’s theory of presentation of self in the digital age with Mulvey’s idea of the male gaze, we reveal a critical problem with the impact social media has on our social identities.  The idea that we trust our “artifacts” of self to be curated by platforms that cater to the male gaze is particularly problematic because ou r fetishization with what we “see” online affects the way we present our own profiles. As both men and women work to “fit in” and cater to the male gaze, we enter a state of groupthink, and everyone begins to “look” the same. The more our lives move away from the real and into the digital, the more we subject ourselves to the gaze of the digital “Other.” Our social lives become digitized and the gaze becomes a controlling force distributed  into our pockets and onto our bodies. We have all been “othered.”

The problems inherent in the gaze are not mechanical. They are cultural.  At a certain point we need to push back. If we—men and women alike—are to continue to subject ourselves to the “gaze” by posting to social media, we need to push back. We need to poke holes in the group think, and this begins by recognizing that there is a problem. The next time you update your online profile, or like one of your friend’s pictures, be sure to ask yourself not only what it says about you but also what it says about us.

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