Assignment task:
Self-presentation has to do with the way we package ourselves for others to see, especially with the popularity of personal webpages, social networking sites, and blogs. Self-presentation looms even larger in social networking sites. These are online communities where individuals manipulate their self-image as they communicate and share information with others, such as on TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.
According to the text, there are two types of self-presentation: strategic and verification. In strategic self-presentation, an individual contrives to shape an identity in such a way as to gain an advantage with others for purposes of being liked or to be seen as competent. In verification self-presentation, the goal is to be viewed by others in accordance with how the individual sees him- or herself.
You will be asked to
- Review social networking sites and/or blogs such as TikTok, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
- Discuss the form of self-presentation that is predominant in personal webpages, social networking sites, and blogs.
- Which type of self-presentation do they think is most evident in the home videos posted on YouTube?
- Discuss some of the positive and negative aspects associated with such sites.
- Do you see any other advantages to being connected to others in this fashion? In the future, might this type of social networking become a springboard to professional networking?
- Further explore possible problems with this form of social networking.
- How do they infer whether or not online portraits are accurate?
- Do these sites encourage the posting of information that is dishonest or inappropriate in a quest for popularity?
- Is there a tendency to disclose more information online than one would in real-life interactions?
- What are some clues that they use in real life to judge the genuineness of self-presentations that are lacking online?