Rethinking the Perceived Self: Samples from Facebook

• Authors: Anita Kasabova
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

How the self perceives reality is a traditional topic of research across several disciplines. I examine the perceived self on Facebook, as a case-study of self-knowledge on „classical” social media. Following Blascovich & Bailenson (2011), I consider the distinction between the real and the virtual as relative. Perceptual self-knowledge, filtered through social media, requires rethinking the perceived self in terms of social reality (Neisser, 1993). This claim dovetails Jenkins’s (2013) notion of the self as an active participant in consumption. I argue that the perceived self in social media could be conceived in terms of how it would like to be perceived and appraised by its virtual audience. Using Neisser’s (1993) typology of self-knowledge and Castañeda’s (1983) theory of I-guises, I analyse seven samples from Anglo-American and Bulgarian Facebook sites and show that the perceived self produces itself online as a captivating presence with a credible story. My samples are taken from FB community pages with negligible cultural differences across an online teenage/twens (twixter) age group. I then discuss some problematic aspects of the perceived self online, as well as recent critiques of technoconsumerism.

Keywords

EN

perceived self; social media; perceived reality; Facebook

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 209-228

Dates

published

2014-12-01

online

2015-03-17

Contributors

author

Anita Kasabova

• Anita Kasabova, NBU, Sofia

References

• Agger, Ben. 2004. The Virtual Self. A Contemporary Sociology. Boston: Blackwell.
• Benson, J. and B. Heath, eds. 2009. Encyclopedia of Infant and Early Childhood Development. Language, Memory, and Cognition in Infancy and Early Childhood. Oxford: Academic Press, Elsevier (EID).
• Blascovich, Jim and Jeremy Bailenson. 2011. Infinite Reality, Avatars, Eternal Life, New Worlds and the Dawn of the Digital Revolution. London: Harper&Collins.
• Bosker, Bianca. 2012. I Was Just Befriended by Myself on Facebook. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/09/fake-facebook_n_2104102.html. Last accessed at 24. 09. 2014.
• Castañeda, Hector-Neri. 1983. The Self and Its Guises. Noûs vol. 17 no. 1:60-62.
• Eggers, Dave. 2013. The Circle. London: Penguin.
• Eler, Alicia. 2012. Why People Have Fake Facebook Profiles. http://readwrite.com/2012/01/23/why_people_have_fake_facebook_profiles#awesm=~opORHM5UVYsuuE. Last accessed at 24. 09. 2014.
• Genette, Gérard. 2002 [1987]. Seuils. Paris: Seuil.
• Genette, Gérard. 2004. Métalepse: De la figure à la fiction. Paris: Seuil.
• Jenkins, Henry, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green. 2013. Spreadable Media. New York: NY University Press.
• Kasabova, Anita. 2010. Shifters in Reporting and Recollecting. Analyzing Aspects of Culture. Lexia vol. Or no. ???5-6, CIRCE: 147-177.
• Marwick, Alice. 2014. How Your Data Are Being Deeply Mined http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/jan/09/how-your-data-are-being-deeply-mined/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=January+3+2014&utm_content=January+3+2014+CID_3c39f7d631bb15986977bdfe914bfcde&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software. Last accessed at 24. 09. 2014.
• Neisser, Ulric, ed. 1993. The Perceived Self: Ecological and Interpersonal Sources of Self-Knowledge. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Recanati, François. 2007. Perspectival Thought: A Plea for (Moderate) Relativism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Ryan, Marie-Laure. 2006. Avatars of Story. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Rydberg-Lidén, Josephine and Mathias Noschis. 2013. The Impact of Participatory Experience on the Audience Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts.
• Sparer, Stephanie. 2011. “Likes” crazy. http://hellogiggles.com/like-crazy-2. https://www.FB.com/hellogiggles. Last accessed at 24. 09. 2014.
• Stein, Joel. 2013. Millenials, the Next Generation? http://nation.time.com/2013/05/09/millennials-the-next-greatest-generation/. Last accessed at 24. 09. 2014.
• Stern, Daniel. 1993. The Role of Feelings for an Interpersonal Self, ed. U. Neisser. In The perceived self, 205-215. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/ausfm-2015-0011