The New Face of Presentation: Enacting Gender Roles on Facebook Open Access
Vrabel, Anitra Kathryn (2010)
Abstract
Abstract
The New Face of Presentation:
Enacting Gender Roles on Facebook
By Anitra Vrabel
Erving Goffman's theory of the presentation of self posits that
people are rational actors
who perform in accordance to the roles associated with their social
statuses. These
performances may be altered depending on who makes up the audience.
This study looks
at these performances on Facebook, a popular social networking site
(SNS). Recent
research has shown that these sites may be influential in helping
adolescents develop an
identity because they can enact the roles associated with their
social statuses and gauge
how members of their audience approve them. This study looks at how
undergraduate
students at Emory University portray themselves on Facebook, where
they can construct
a specific audience, and how they interpret the presentations of
others. Additionally, it
seeks to uncover and understand gender differences associated with
these two issues. In-
depth interviews were conducted with twenty students in an effort
to uncover the
complex social processes involved in self-presentation on Facebook.
During the
interviews, several gendered differences in attitudes and behaviors
emerged. However,
most students in the study did not perform in a way that aligned
with the expected roles
associated with their gender status, even though they anticipated
that their peers were
performing in such a way. Thus, this study found that expectations
of gender roles were
more prevalent among these students than were actual enactments of
these roles.
Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction………………………………………………………………….…………..1-5
Theoretical Framework and Empirical
Background…………………………………..6-19
Erving Goffman, the Presentation of Self, and Identity
Management………….5-9
Gender Expectations for
Presentation……………………………………..…..9-11
The Internet as a Unique Forum for Identity
Management…………………..12-16
Summary and Research
Questions…………………………………………...16-19
Methodology………………………………………………………………………….19-24
Research
Design……………………………………………………………...19-20
Sample………………………………………………………………………..20-21
Data
Collection……………………………………………………………….21-24
Data
Analysis……………………………………………………………….........24
Results…………………………………………………………………………………..24-59
Understanding the Purpose of Facebook: Communication and
Connections..25-31
Audience: Creating and Understanding an Online Social
Network………….31-38
Defining an
Audience…………………………………………..…….32-33
Building an Audience: Requesting
Friends…………….…………….33-35
Building an Audience: Accepting and Denying
Requests……………35-36
Building an Audience: Removing Friends From a
Network…………….36
Anticipating Audience
Approval……………………………………..37-38
A "Front" on Facebook: Presenting Oneself on a
Profile…………………....38-52
Presentation of Self: The Information
Section……………………….38-42
Presentation of Self: The Relationship
Status………………………..42-47
Presentation of Self:
Photographs……………………………………47-52
Acting as an Audience: Interpreting Others' Performances on
Facebook…...52-59
About this Honors Thesis
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