The Importance Of Self-Representation In Social Media

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1. Introduction

With Instagram’s user base of over 400 million active people per month, it does not come as a shock to discover that Instagram has sparked a new trend of sharing oneself as a visual medium. The possibility of achieving Instafame, the condition of having a relatively great number of followers on the application, seems to be the ultimate goal, especially for young female users. All over Instagram one can see pictures of beautiful, young women, apparently living the life every girl dreams of. Online self-representation has been attracting attention since the rise of social networks and their integration into everyday life has become a lifestyle which many young adults are accustomed to. Moreover, social media is changing the …show more content…

Identity and self-representation are strongly intertwined, whereby the expressiveness of an individual changes in the presence of others. According to Goffman, self-representation can thus be seen as a part of social interaction, of two or more individuals attempting to obtain information about each other, such as status, relationship, attitude, trustworthiness etc. (Goffman 1959: 13). His concept of human interaction is based on the idea that individuals aspire to convey a certain impression of themselves, marked by a particular behavior; a disclosure of personal information that individuals can only control to a limited extent. The creation of one’s identity is thus, always influenced by the impression an individual attempts to create, which in turn, is associated with a socially desired image. Baym and boyd maintain that Goffman “laid the groundwork for thinking about how even the most private of selves are formed in relation to diverse others, and how the challenges of differing audiences can complicate self-presentation” (2012:

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