A Pragmatic Study Of Identity Construction Through Self-Presentation In Online Context

As a social-psychological phenomenon,self-presentation has found favor in the eyes of researchers in social and psychological fields,where a large number of studies have been conducted to explore the means and identity construction functions.However,no one has mentioned about how identity is constructed through different self-presentation means and how it is recognized by others.Therefore,from a pragmatic perspective,the study adopts an interactive approach to study the process of identities construction through typical self-presentation means and the recognition of the participants.The study adopts a qualitative method to explore the self-presentation in CMC context based on a self-built corpus of Sina Micro-Blog.According to Jones'(1990)approaches to self-presentation,the study collects 141 performance related blogs used to construct identities,which are downloaded from 6 celebrities involving 3 females and 3 males in the recent 2 years.In order to study how the identities enacted by the celebrities are recognized by the audiences,the study explores the comments areas with the help of the Appraisal Theory(Martin and White 2005).The study aims to answer the following questions:(1)What self-presentation means are employed by the celebrities to construct identities according to their social roles?(2)How do audiences recognize the identities that the celebrities construct through self-presentation?(3)What are the identities constructed successfully by the celebrity's self-presentation in CMC context.The main findings are as follows:First of all,three types of self-presentation means are found employed by the celebrities in Sina Micro blogs to construct identities,including ingratiation,exemplification and competence.Among the three categories,ingratiation is the most frequent one,which far exceeds competence and exemplification in terms of the amounts and proportions.Specifically,ingratiation is a class of strategic behaviors designed to influence the perception other people form of him/ her by becoming more likeable,which is realized in this study by expressing gratitude,complimenting others and self-teasing.Competence is employed for a goal of being perceived skillful and qualified,examples of which are found in the data like self-praising and announcement.Exemplification is employed to be perceived as a “working model”,including ideological commitment or militancy for the film cause,self-sacrifice,and self-discipline,which is realized in this study by referring to hard experiences and self-encouraging.Taking a closer look at the sub-categories,gratitude tops the seven typical self-presentation means followed by announcement,refer to hard work,self-praise,while only a few blogs are formed in self-encouraging,compliment and self-teasing.Secondly,since identities intended by celebrities need to be recognized by audiences in order to take effects,the study has investigated the responses of the audiences in the comments area guided by the attitude system of Appraisal Theory(Martin and White 2005).As the core of Appraisal Theory,attitude is about stance taking oriented to affect,judgment and appreciation.Specifically,affect is about feelings;judgment targets to behaviors;appreciation is about things.The result of the study reflects the positive and explicit features of the overall attitudes,which shows that most identities enacted through self-presentation are positively recognized.Besides,judgment is predominant,which reflects the audiences' main attention on the behaviors of the celebrities.After calculating the distribution of every attitude in different self-presentation means,six attitudes are found pervasive and salient including capacity,tenacity,propriety,happiness,reaction and normality,which shows that audiences tend to recognize the identities of celebrities in terms of these aspects.The calculating results of the distribution of the six main attitudes reveals that the judgment of capacity focusing on performing competence is dominant when the celebrities do self-praising and announcement;the judgment of tenacity about working spirit is found prominent when referring to hard work and doing self-encouraging;the judgment of propriety about the appropriacy of behaviors is mainly elicited by expressing gratitude and praising others;the judgment of normality about personal characteristics can be only found in self-teasing while the reaction towards filming works can be found everywhere except in self-teasing;finally,feeling of happiness is mainly aroused by self-teasing.The result shows that in order to construct a particular kind of identity,the celebrity needs to be recognized in terms of the related attributes by employing a typical self-presentation means.Thirdly,four self-aspect identities are found to be constructed by celebrities during the interaction in Micro-Blogs: a competent celebrity,a perseverant celebrity,a modest celebrity and a humorous celebrity.Specifically,a competent celebrity identity is constructed when the celebrities do self-praising and announcing which are verified by positive evaluations on capacity and reactions to film works.A perseverant celebrity identity is constructed when the celebrities refer to hard work and do self-encouraging which elicit sympathy and judgment on the attribute of tenacity.A modest celebrity identity is constructed when they express gratitude and compliment to others and are therefore thought to have the virtue of modesty.Finally,a humorous celebrity identity is constructed when the celebrities do self-teasing to amuse the audiences and are recognized humorous.The contributions of the study can be seen in three aspects.Firstly,the study has implications to the study of identity considering the interactive process,where identity works with the recognition of the relevant others.Besides,it is an implementation of self-aspect model of identity in CMC context,which implicates that multiple identities can be achieved by different self-presentation means.Thirdly,practically speaking,the study will provide suggestions for people to control the images successfully by self-presentations in cyberspace,which is conducive to establish rapport with others in cyberspace.