Description
TitleImpression formation and identity management in social media
Date Created2018
Other Date2018-05 (degree)
Extent1 online resource (xii, 169 p. : ill.)
DescriptionThis project explores the connection between information-seeking strategies used in impression formation and on self-presentation in social media. The goal is to amplify and quantify earlier findings of a recursive relationship between seeking and providing interpersonal information in social media environments (Ellison, Heino, & Gibbs 2006). This study builds on two trends identified by researchers. Using Ramirez, et al.’s (2002) model as a guide, it notes that due to changes in the ways in which social media is presented and consumed, the active and interactive strategies – while still important – are becoming increasingly less dominant over the passive and extractive strategies (Antheunis, Valkenburg, & Peter, 2010). Second, it notes that the “vocabulary” of social interaction in social media has expanded to include a whole raft of indirect interactions (liking, sharing, emoji, etc.) that carry meaning and information in ways that differ from the primarily text-based overt communications that characterized social media previously (McEwan, 2013; Oh, Ozkaya, & LaRose, 2014). This study supposes that there exists some connection between the increasing prevalence of passive and extractive types of social information seeking in social media, and the increasing prevalence of the use of indirect communication for the purposes of self-presentation and impression management. This study seeks to understand the nature of this connection by using a mixed-method approach in order to establish a holistic understanding of the interaction between information seeking, uncertainty reduction, and identity management in a single, cohesive theoretical structure. As such, qualitative and quantitative techniques were used to compose a model of information seeking and impression formation. Termed the “Identity Formation / Information Seeking (IF/IS)” Model, it is designed specifically for the investigation of behavior related to these phenomena in social media. It identifies five use types or “personas” that are both drawn from and applicable to quantitative and qualitative data. Further, this model identifies a set of variables that can be used to efficiently model behavior in each of these interaction modes. Finally, the model illustrates and measures changes in use patterns surrounding both information seeking (increasingly passive/extractive), and communication (increasingly indirect), providing some explanation for the convergent trends identified above.
NotePh.D.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
Noteby Charles File
Genretheses, ETD doctoral
Languageeng
CollectionSchool of Graduate Studies Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.
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