Your task is to try to apply identity theory to your
performance online. Choose one particular social media platform (e.g. Twitter /
Instagram) – or you can discuss all of them at once - and link it to the theory
we have learned. How do you perform your identity online? What kind of person are you? What do you
share with others?
Twitter
Personally I think I perform my identity online as my true
self, well it mostly depends on the social media. For example with twitter, I
am very close to my true self because I express my thoughts and feelings in 140
characters. This supports Goffman’s theory because my performance is very
sincere. Even though I may not be very specific in the posts I put online I
still think I clearly let my followers know what I am feeling. So according to
Rogers theory I would say that I show my private self quite a lot on twitter.
Even though my followers are not my closest friends or some are people who I do
not know I still like to reveal my feelings to them, this is because most of
the time it kind of makes me feel better by writing something online because I
got a feeling that someone is reading it and are interested in what I have to
say.
Instagram
& Facebook
On Instagram I think I am mostly closest to my ideal self,
this is probably the same with Facebook. I think this because I try to make
myself look good and I show what other people would like to see. For example on
my ‘selfies’ on Instagram I always try to look ‘good’ in them because I don’t
want to look bad where the whole world can see it. If that would happen my
self-esteem would definitely go down which is why I try to have a good
self-image on Instagram and Facebook. Facebook is the app or social media where
I hardly ever post anything. I mostly share things, like things and change my
profile picture every now and then. This is because that’s what most people
want, they don’t want you posting loads of pictures all the time or keep
updating your statuses. I am what society wants me to be like.
However even though I am what other people want me to be like
on Instagram and Facebook, Johari’s Window theory proves that I can also be my
blind self on Instagram, also on Facebook. This is because if I think I look
‘good’ in a selfie others might think that I look horrible but I will not know
that. Or if I share something on Facebook because I found it very funny, others
might think it’s stupid and not funny at all. This shows that there are many
things that other people can notice about you but you don’t realise them.
So
overall I think that identity really depends on the context and the situation
which explains Goffman’s theory. You act different and show yourself
differently on social medias, depending on what one it is. So from Goffman’s
theory I can see that we have many different identities dependant on the social
role we are doing.
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