Yap Ying Ye
1155156757
Prof. Oliver Ngai Keung Chan
COMM3131 Tutorial Paper - Week 10: Identities in the Social Media Age
Everyone has a unique identity and representation, and identity can be presented in everyday life.
For this essay, I will be solely focusing on identities and self-representation in social media. To
further explore this, imagined audiences and affordances will be discussed and analyzed.
Firstly, what is identity and its relevant theories? Identity is a concept that makes up how we choose
to present ourselves to others, and distinguish ourselves from others (Why identity matters, 2019).
One’s identity can consist of gender, social class, age, sexuality, race, career. For example, figure
one shows the Instagram profile of an American artist. “They/them”, “26 yr old non-binary gay”,
“artist” are written in their Instrgram biography. From that, this individual has presented their
identity as a 26 year old, non-binary artist from the LGBT+ community.
It is believed that identity is not static. This is supported by Goffman’s theory and Higgin’s three
selves theory. Goffman’s theory states people present different identities to people under different
situations to give off specific impressions (Goffman, 1959). He believes that social life is a
theatrical production where people are “actors” on a stage who chooses what to share with their
“audience”. According to Goffman, the front stage is where people maintain their appropriate
appearances because they know that the audiences are watching, hence people act in a way that
reflects internalized social norms for that particular setting (Goffman, 1959). Contrastingly, back
stage is where people feel the most free to express themselves, showing one’s authentic self.
Higgin’s Three Selves theory indicates everyone has three versions of themselves (Higgins, 1987).
Actual self is a representation of who we really are, the perception of our own attributes. Ideal self
is the representation of attributes we wish we possess, who we aspire to be. Ought self are attributes
others expect us to possess.
Figure 1: Example of identity presented on Instagram
A factor that greatly impacts the way individuals’ self-representation and identity on social media
platforms are affordances. Affordances are the actions social media platforms allow or restrict
users from doing. There are two types of affordances: high and low-level affordances. High-level
affordances are more abstract and are the actions allowed or restricted by a platform. It can be
divided into four major traits: replicability, persistence, scalability and searchability (boyd, 2010).
Replicability is how easily content posted can be replicated. Persistence is how long content posted
lasts on platforms. For example, tweets on Twitter are automatically archived in the Library of
Congress, which is available to Twitter workers (Singel, 2010). This indicates Twitter has high
persistence as content posted will forever remain. Scalability is the visibility of content posted. For
example, Instagram allows users to set their account as public or private. Content on public
accounts can be seen by everyone whereas posts on private accounts are only visible to the
account’s followers. Lastly, searchability is how easy it is for one’s content/account to be searched
up on social media platforms. On the other hand, low-level affordances refer to a platform’s
features, such as setting a profile picture on Facebook, posting on a thread of Reddit.
Imagined audiences is the second factor that shapes identities on platforms. Imagined audiences
are who we are thinking of when we post content on social media, and our target audiences (Litt,
2012). Some common examples include people’s friends, families, coworkers, acquaintances.
However, how do affordances and imagined audiences impact my identity and representation on
social media? The two platforms I will be referring to will be Instagram and LinkedIn. Instagram,
launched in 2010, is a photo and video sharing social media platform with roughly one billion
active users. Low-level affordances features of Instagram include Instagram stories, caption
writing. The second platform, LinkedIn, is a social media app aimed for professional networking,
and for users to find employment opportunities. Low-level affordances features of LinkedIn
include the addition of one’s educational and work background, skills, achievements and awards.
Firstly, my self-representation and identity as presented on Instagram will be discussed, in
particular, my finsta. Finstas are a rising phenomena, coined as one’s “fake Instagram” (Duffy,
2017). People post about their day-to-day lives, including awkward encounters, unflattering
selfies, personal struggles. Finstas differ from the typical Instagram culture where people post only
the highlights of their lives, where a finsta presents one's less polished version. This definition also
applies to my finsta on Instagram. Shown in figure two, my finsta appears to be messy and random.
I post pictures ranging from cats, selfies, pictures snapped from my day-to-day life. I would post
anything that comes to my mind without thinking twice, be it a funny and awkward interaction, or
a personal struggle. I present my identity as someone who is silly, disorganized, funny, which I
believe to be my real personality. My self-representation on Instagram is personal, therefore my
audience would be able to tell what I like or dislike, what makes me happy or sad, what I like to
do in my free time.
Figure two: My Instagram finsta self-presentation and identity
Contrastingly, my identity presented on my LinkedIn is a full time student at the Chinese
University of Hong Kong studying the JLM-BBA double degree program who is also a part-time
English tutor, member of the English Debate Team, and a volunteer at various NGOs in Hong
Kong. My identity on my LinkedIn account is largely based on my education background, extracurricular activities, volunteer work, past work experiences. Hence, the impression I choose to
give off is that I am a professional and hardworking student. In contrast to my finsta, my LinkedIn
is a lot less personal and information presented about is purely academic and work-related.
Yet, why is there such a huge difference in my identity and self-representation on Instagram versus
LinkedIn? To answer that, we will take a look at the differences in high-level affordances and
imagined audiences on both platforms. The scalability on LinkedIn is high, since all LinkedIn
accounts are public. There are no restrictions on who can see the contents posted on my profile.
LinkedIn alo has high searchability as it is extremely easy to search up my profile. As demonstrated
in figure three, all it takes to search my profile up is to type my full name in the search bar. The
high-level affordances on LinkedIn also shapes my impression management, where I choose to
give off the impression of a hardworking, professional student. The reason for impression
management on LinkedIn is because of my self-interests, in which I wish to get a job/internship in
the future, and I believe that the way to do so is to show the best side of myself to future employers.
Furthermore, my imagined audiences on LinkedIn also greatly impacts my self-representation on
the platform. As mentioned, LinkedIn is a professional networking site which I primarily use to
seek out work opportunities. Hence, my imagined audiences are employers, future colleagues, who
are people that can potentially impact my future career. Since the high searchability and scalability
of LinkedIn makes my content extremely public to people who hold huge stakes in my future
career, I will only present academic and educational information about myself which cultivates
my identity.
Figure three: LinkedIn searchability
Contrastingly, high-level affordances and imagined audiences on Instagram differ. Firstly, the
scalability on Instagram is much lower in comparison. Instagram’s privacy settings allows me to
choose whether my account is public or private, allowing me to set my finsta as a private account.
As a private account, I will need to approve people’s follow requests before they can view my
content as shown in figure four. Therefore, I am able to pick and choose who gets to view my
content and filter out people I do not know well, or people I do not wish to see my content. The
searchability on Instagram is also low compared to LinkedIn, as it is not easy to search for my
account. Shown in figure four, even if someone types my name in the search bar, my finsta does
not come up. This is because my real name is not included in my Instagram biography nor my
username, making it easier to stay anonymous. Since the purpose of creating my finsta is to share
about my day-to-day life encounters and struggles, my imagined audiences are people closest to
me, people I am most comfortable around. Resultantly, my self-representation is similar to how I
think I identify as: someone who is awkward, funny, disorganized.
Figure four: scalability and searchability of Instagram
The disparity between imagined versus actual audiences on my Instagram and LinkedIn also
explains the differences between my self-representation on both platforms. Based on a survey
conducted by Bernstein, most people underestimated the actual audience size of their Facebook
profiles. His findings can be applicable to all social media platforms, where our imagined audience
does not match the actual audience. On LinkedIn, it is likely that there is a disparity between my
imaged and actual audiences. Even though my imagined audience are future employers and
colleagues, since my LinkedIn profile is open to everyone due to LinkedIn’s high searchability
and scalability, my actual audience could be anyone on the internet, and this is not something I am
able to control. Contrastingly, the disparity between imagined and actual audiences on my
Instagram finsta is a lot smaller. Due to the comparatively lower searchability and scalability, I am
able to pick and choose who gets to follow me. Therefore, it is likely that my imagined audience
is my actual audience on Instagram.
Due to factors such as differences in affordances, imagined audiences, disparity between imagined
and actual audiences on LinkedIn versus Instagram, Instagram represents my authentic self and
identity the most, reflecting my actual self. and the attributes that represent who I think I am: a
funny, awkward, disorganized cat-lover. Contrastingly, my LinkedIn profile represents my ought
self, reflecting the attributes that represent who everyone expects me to be: a hardworking, proper,
professional student at CUHK. Goffman’s theory is applicable when comparing my selfrepresentation and identity on my Instagram and LinkedIn. I will purposely choose to omit some
information about me on LinkedIn in order to guide people’s impression. Whereas on my finsta, I
want my audience to get to know my authentic self. Therefore, I will post content that reflects my
authentic self. LinkedIn is my front stage, where I maintain my appropriate appearance, because I
know that my audiences (future employers, or even random strangers because I have no control of
my actual audience) are watching. My idealized performance reflects internalized social norms
such as people are expected to act in a professional, proper way in a workplace (Higgins, 1987).
On the other hand, my Instagram finsta is my back stage, where I am the most comfortable being
myself and showing my personality. My finsta is an outlet for me to post things that might not fit
into my ought self.
To conclude, high-level affordances are more significant in shaping my self-representation and
identity on social media platforms, as compared to low-level affordances. High-level affordances
greatly affect my ability to be more anonymous and control my actual audiences, as they physically
restrict users from being able to do certain tasks, such as remain anonymous. On LinkedIn, since
high-level affordances make it difficult to stay anonymous, I am forced to omit some information
that does not fit into my desired impression of a professional and hardworking student. However,
low-level affordances are feature-oriented, and do not physically restrict users from performing
tasks, but merely encourage. Next, finsta is a phenomenon that has been discussed in great detail
throughout this essay, and I believe it is a positive rising trend. Finsta directly opposes the typical
social media culture of having a perfect life, shaping your social media to appeal to potential
employers (Duffy, 2017). That culture is extremely restrictive as most of the time, people’s lives
are far from perfect. This restrictive culture perpetuates that people do not have an outlet to talk
about their personal lives and struggles, to be their real selves on social media. However, Finsta is
the outlet to do so without receiving any judgement and a chance to be real on social media, which
I perceive as positive.
Word count: 1986
Works Cited:
boyd, d. (2010). Social network sites as networked publics: Affordances, dynamics, and
implications. In Z. Papacharissi (Ed.), Networked self: identity, community, and culture on
social network sites (pp. 39-58). Routledge
Duffy, B. E. (2017, August 30). The trend of fake Instagram accounts exposes how work is taking
over our lives. Quartz. Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://qz.com/1065732/finstasor-fake-instagram-accounts-expose-the-troubling-way-that-work-is-taking-over-ourlives/.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Anchor
Litt, E. (2012). Knock, Knock. Who’s there? The imaged audience. Journal of Broadcasting &
Electronic Media, 56(3), 330-345.
Singel, R. (2010, April 14). Library of congress archives twitter history, while Google Searches
it. Wired. Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://www.wired.com/2010/04/loc-googletwitter/.
Why identity matters. Critical Media Project. (2019, August 12). Retrieved December 6, 2021,
from https://criticalmediaproject.org/why-identity-matters/.