The Power of Self-Presentation: Spanish Speakers Constructing Digital Identity 3031529308, 9783031529306

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 Introduction
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Defining Self-Presentation
1.3 Dimensions of Self-Presentation
1.4 Types of Self-Presentation Profiles
1.5 Online Profile(s) as a Digital Visiting Card
1.6 Ethics
1.7 Chapter Summary
1.8 Structure of the Volume
References
2 Self-Disclosure or Disclosing Personal Information
2.1 Introduction
2.1.1 Self-Disclosure Online
2.2 Why Do We Share Personal Information Online?
2.3 How Do Others Respond to Self-Disclosure Online?
2.4 Demographic Variables and Their Effect on Self-Disclosure
2.5 Case Study: Spanish Members of Parliament (MPs) Self-Disclosure on Twitter Bios
2.5.1 Methodological Considerations
2.5.2 Results
2.6 Chapter Summary
References
3 Positivity and Authenticity
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Why Do Users Tend to Enhance the Self?
3.3 Positivity, Authenticity and Culture
3.4 Eudaimonic Self-Presentation
3.5 Case Study: Self-Presentation on Instagram Bios by Middle-Aged Spanish Women
3.6 Chapter Summary
References
4 Humour as a Self-Presentation Strategy
4.1 Introduction
4.2 How Do We “Make” Humour?: Humour Theories and Dimensions
4.3 Previous Studies on Humour and Self-Presentation
4.4 Case Study: Using Humour as a Self-Presentation Strategy by Spanish Male Tinder Users
4.5 Chapter Summary
References
5 The Profile Picture
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Profile Photos: Influencing and Being Influenced
5.2.1 Profile Photographs and Personality Traits
5.2.2 Profile Photographs in E-commerce
5.2.3 Profile Photographs and Gender
5.2.4 Profile Pictures and Cultural Differences
5.3 The Grammar of Visual Design
5.4 Case Study: Spanish Users’ Profile Photographs on WhatsApp
5.5 Chapter Summary
References
6 Multimodal Presentations of the Self
6.1 Introduction
6.2 The Grammar of Visual Design
6.3 Types of Profiles: From Monomodality to Multimodality
6.4 Case Study: Same Users, Different Platforms
6.5 Chapter Summary
References
7 Conclusions and Pointers to Future Research
References
Index

Citation preview

The Power of Self-Presentation Spanish Speakers Constructing Digital Identity Carmen Maíz-Arévalo

The Power of Self-Presentation

Carmen Maíz-Arévalo

The Power of Self-Presentation Spanish Speakers Constructing Digital Identity

Carmen Maíz-Arévalo English Studies: Linguistics and Literature Complutense University of Madrid Madrid, Spain

ISBN 978-3-031-52930-6 ISBN 978-3-031-52931-3 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52931-3

(eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Alex Linch/shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Acknowledgements

Writing this book would not have been possible without the thoughtful comments and critiques of the three anonymous reviewers who read the initial proposal. Thanks also to Cathy Scott and Shreenidhi Natarajan, whose editing work has been so helpful. My most sincere thanks go to all of them. Last but not least, I would also like to thank my husband for his aid with statistics and data gathering, and more importantly, for his constant support. His help has been immensely valuable in so many respects that I cannot express them all in just a few words. Thanks, Carlos, for everything and more.

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Introduction 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Defining Self-Presentation 1.3 Dimensions of Self-Presentation 1.4 Types of Self-Presentation Profiles 1.5 Online Profile(s) as a Digital Visiting Card 1.6 Ethics 1.7 Chapter Summary 1.8 Structure of the Volume References

1 1 4 8 13 16 19 21 22 23

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Self-Disclosure or Disclosing Personal Information 2.1 Introduction 2.1.1 Self-Disclosure Online 2.2 Why Do We Share Personal Information Online? 2.3 How Do Others Respond to Self-Disclosure Online? 2.4 Demographic Variables and Their Effect on Self-Disclosure

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Contents

2.5 Case Study: Spanish Members of Parliament (MPs) Self-Disclosure on Twitter Bios 2.5.1 Methodological Considerations 2.5.2 Results 2.6 Chapter Summary References 3

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Positivity and Authenticity 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Why Do Users Tend to Enhance the Self? 3.3 Positivity, Authenticity and Culture 3.4 Eudaimonic Self-Presentation 3.5 Case Study: Self-Presentation on Instagram Bios by Middle-Aged Spanish Women 3.6 Chapter Summary References Humour as a Self-Presentation Strategy 4.1 Introduction 4.2 How Do We “Make” Humour?: Humour Theories and Dimensions 4.3 Previous Studies on Humour and Self-Presentation 4.4 Case Study: Using Humour as a Self-Presentation Strategy by Spanish Male Tinder Users 4.5 Chapter Summary References

5 The Profile Picture 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Profile Photos: Influencing and Being Influenced 5.2.1 Profile Photographs and Personality Traits 5.2.2 Profile Photographs in E-commerce 5.2.3 Profile Photographs and Gender 5.2.4 Profile Pictures and Cultural Differences 5.3 The Grammar of Visual Design 5.4 Case Study: Spanish Users’ Profile Photographs on WhatsApp

50 51 53 59 60 73 73 76 81 85 88 93 94 101 101 106 116 120 127 128 133 133 136 136 138 142 148 149 152

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5.5 Chapter Summary References

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Multimodal Presentations of the Self 6.1 Introduction 6.2 The Grammar of Visual Design 6.3 Types of Profiles: From Monomodality to Multimodality 6.4 Case Study: Same Users, Different Platforms 6.5 Chapter Summary References

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Conclusions and Pointers to Future Research References

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Index

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List of Figures

Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

1.1 1.2 1.3 3.1 3.2 3.3 4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1

Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

5.2 5.3 5.4 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5

Example of sharing personal information on X Profile pages “Who to follow” on X and LinkedIn Facebook joke (quoted in West and Trester, 2013: 142) Instagram versus reality memes Examples of inspirational quotes online Macro-memes Mock inspirational quotes Humour dimensions System of interactive meanings in visual grammar (adapted from Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006: 149) Two WhatsApp profile photos Dataset description Detachment Memes about Facebook relationship status Coca Cola Instagram and LinkedIn profile pages X-Twitter Profile Page (information value) (Left) LinkedIn and (Right) Facebook profile page Profile information: system of choices

6 14 18 78 79 86 108 110 112 151 152 154 157 167 168 171 172 176

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List of Tables

Table Table Table Table Table

2.1 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4

Themes and depth according to political ascription Contact dimension according to gender Social distance according to gender Attitude according to gender Angle and power according to gender

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1 Introduction

1.1

Introduction

As social beings in almost permanent contact with other individuals, it is difficult to refrain from making and getting impressions about the self and others. The way we speak, dress and even carry ourselves is likely to trigger certain judgements—either positive or negative. While in the past these impressions were mostly made in physical interactions face-to-face (or by letter when distant from each other), the pervasive presence of social media has expanded the ways in which individuals may present themselves to others. Indeed, it is hard nowadays to find individuals who do not use at least one of these platforms or have these apps (e.g., WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, etc.) installed on their smartphone and/or computer, tablet, etc. Despite their different purposes, one common aspect shared by all these social media is that they provide users with a profile which they can tailor to their own preferences, becoming a sort of “digital visiting card” where they can include an image such as the profile picture, background

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Maíz-Arévalo, The Power of Self-Presentation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52931-3_1

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image(s) and some information about the self. As trivial as it may seem, the profile page is often carefully edited, and the information displayed is more often than not intentionally chosen in an attempt to project a specific (often favourable) image of the self, as this volume intends to show through its chapters. The aim of the present volume is twofold: on the one hand, it aims to explore the different strategies social media users employ to present themselves (especially, albeit not exclusively, on the profile pages) and, on the other, to find out whether sociological variables such as cultural background, gender or age may influence these self-presentations. Given the complexity of self-presentation, the approach I adopt is multidisciplinary, with insights from different disciplines such as sociology, psychology or social psychology, even if the main focus will lie on linguistics, more specifically on pragmatics. In other words, we will explore the connection between what users—mostly intentionally— choose to reveal about the self and what this intends to show about them and what effect they hope to trigger in other users. Following the pragmatic approach of classic speech act theory (Austin, 1975; Searle, 1969), we could say that, when users choose a specific profile on social media, what they write/post and the image/video they upload could be understood as a multimodal locutionary act, the intention behind this would hence be the illocutionary force and the effect they intend to trigger on the other users would be the perlocutionary effect. Consider, for example, the following profile on Tinder (see also Cantos-Delgado & Maíz-Arévalo, 2023), where the user’s main objective is presumably to get as many “matches” as possible: 1. Holy shit: I’d date me If we think about the kind of information users typically share on edating apps, this example stands out as the user does not include any personal information regarding his physical appearance—maybe because he considers the profile photo enough for that—or other details such as his profession, hobbies, etc. The comment may have been intended as a humoristic remark, in the dimension which has been defined as selfenhancing humour (Martin et al., 2003) (see also Chapter 4). While

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this might attract other users and trigger a felicitous perlocutionary effect—i.e. users might swipe right to indicate a match—it might also be perceived by other users as lacking modesty, bragging, and hence trigger a negative response—i.e. swipe left or unmatch. In fact, prior research has frequently shown that self-praise tends to be negatively evaluated by other interlocutors, especially when performed in a serious tone rather than humoristically and in face-to-face interaction (Maíz-Arévalo, 2021). Self-praise, however, seems to be slightly different in social media, where self-praise may be more acceptable, especially when modified or preceded by interpretation cues like #brag (Dayter, 2018; Guo & Ren, 2020; Matley, 2018, among others), or, more recently, even the use of translanguaging when performing selfpraise, in what is becoming increasingly known as Versailles literature (VL), defined as a type of online self-praise where self-praise is performed in another language, implicitly or as questions-answers adjacency pairs, indeed as a mitigating device. VL seems to be increasingly frequent on Chinese platforms like Weibo (Ren et al., 2022) or WeChat (Zuo, 2023). The rest of the chapter is structured as follows. Section 1 below will provide a definition of self-presentation and the Goffmanian division between front and backstage behaviour. Next, I will briefly introduce and define the dimensions of self-presentation, which will be further developed in Chapters 2 to 3, respectively. Section 3 will focus on the linguistic types of self-presentation: verbal/textual, visual and multimodal, while Sect. 4 will centre on the profile information, conceived as a digital visiting card, and hence one of the ways which users can employ to perform self-presentation in different apps and platforms. Section 5 will briefly deal with the main ethical issues present in any research on digital communication and how to tackle them. Section 6 will provide readers with a summary of the chapter. Finally, Sect. 7 will offer a brief presentation of the volume’s structure.

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1.2

Defining Self-Presentation

The concept of self-presentation goes back to Goffman (1959: 15–16), who argues that “when an individual appears in the presence of others, there will usually be some reason for him [sic] to mobilize his activity so that it will convey an impression to others which it is in his interests to convey”. Furthermore, Goffman compares interaction to a stage, where individuals play different “roles” or “personae” as if they were actors. He further distinguishes between frontstage and backstage behaviour, i.e. professional or public versus personal or private personae. In his own words, individuals are performers who “keep up appearances” as long as they remain within the frontstage, but “terminate their performance when they leave it” (Goffman, 1959: 33). We might hence be willing to project a very different image of ourselves at work from the image we project when being at home, with friends, and so on. Although Goffman’s approach to self-presentation focused on face-toface interaction, self-presentation is pervasive online, even more so than the one performed offline. In digital communication, users project an image of themselves that often varies depending on the platform or social networking site and the main intentions behind the use of these different platforms (Boulianne & Larsson, 2021; Van Dijck, 2013; Yau & Reich, 2019, among many others). For example, the same user might choose one self-presentation strategy when using Tinder, where they will probably aim to get as many matches as possible, but a different one when using LinkedIn, where they might be trying to get a better job, or on Twitter where they might be willing to get retweets and followers. Following Goffman’s metaphor of the theatrical stage, this user might hence reveal more backstage information when using Tinder than on LinkedIn. Intentionality is often behind each self-presentation strategy on social media, as users can carefully choose what to disclose and how to do it. In Kilvington’s words (2021: 265), “virtual frontstage performances, then, can be carefully constructed and shaped by individuals as we have the power to decide what information is public and private”. The distinction between front and backstage has, thus, become increasingly blurry in digital communication (Bowman, 2004; Hogan,

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2010). As pointed out by Merunkova and Slerka (2019: 271), “[t]he line between private and public is blurred in the context of social media because virtual frontstages often feel private and personalised despite being public”. In fact, private information belonging to what Goffman would consider the backstage is often publicly and extensively available, either because users themselves share this information or because they, for example, get “tagged” by some other user, as may happen on Facebook photographs or when their comments get retweeted (Yus, 2022). Already back in 2010, authors like Persson drew attention to the generosity with which users shared information about their personal and private lives (Goffman’s backstage) on social media. This has become known as “oversharing” and defined as “[s]haring too much information about one’s private life or the private lives of other people appears to be a relatively common phenomenon (or at least an often-noted problem) on the Internet and in particular in social media” (Persson, 2010: 3). Furthermore, given the pervasiveness of content on social media, standing out from the crowd may only be achieved by disclosing what is often unseen in public. As Persson (2010: 9) also argues, “[i]t appears that making backstage behavior public is the very thing that draws attention”. Possibly, this blurriness goes back to the advent of mobile phones, which allowed for private conversations to take place in public places and for others to “eavesdrop”—often unwillingly—and get to know personal details about strangers. For example, Persson (2010) also points out that, in Sweden, this caused “publicly voiced indignation” over users speaking on their phones in public places like the underground or buses. Similar claims have been made by Australian authors (see West, 2009) and are still a matter of controversy nowadays, even if an increasing number of individuals are no longer bothered and consider it a normal phenomenon. According to a survey conducted in the USA in 2015 by Forbes,1 75% of the informants thought it was “generally ok” to speak on the phone on public transport. If mobile phone communication diffused the limits between the private and public, Web 2.0 helped to increase such distinction, and the 1

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/ (last accessed April 2023).

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use of Smartphones has smashed it, with many users oversharing all sorts of backstage information, ranging from their feelings when they wake up to what they had for dinner. For example, these users on X (formerly known as Twitter) have publicly shared tweets such as the ones illustrated by Fig. 1.1, where the first user (tweet on top) simply posts “Today I have woken up a bit like this + emoji showing different emotional states” and the second one (bottom) states “I love fried eggs”, accompanied by a picture of the user’s lunch. Interestingly, both apparently trivial and irrelevant comments have been either viewed by other users (68 in the first case) or liked (41 users in the second case), the latter also attracting 11 comments. The question this raises is why do people need to share such personal and “irrelevant” details of their personal lives on a public platform such as Twitter? As Yus (2022) has rightly argued, there are different reasons why individuals might be willing to make public such personal (backstage)—and often trivial—information. Sharing might indeed be triggered mostly by

Fig. 1.1 Example of sharing personal information on X

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affective factors such as the need for connectedness, or need of belonging, which seems to be an innate want of human beings (Wong et al., 2019). This is closely related to what has been termed ambient intimacy or the feeling of closeness to others on social media (even if they are complete strangers). For example, in the survey among Twitter users carried out by Lin et al. (2016), it was shown that users who followed strangers regularly developed this ambient intimacy.2 Further affective effects include receiving positive reinforcement, which helps increase self-worth, for example in the form of “likes” or positive reactions when sharing content online. To put it simply, we all like to be liked by others. In fact, there seems to be a multidisciplinary consensus that such a need to be liked is a universal feature shared by all human beings (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Ellemers et al., 2004; Leary & Baumeister, 2000; Srivastava & Beer, 2005, among many others). As I argued somewhere else (Maíz-Arévalo, 2017: 575): This necessity appears to stem from the evolutionary need to be part of a social group in order to survive (cf. Weir, 2012) but also from the actual physical reactions our brain experiences when being liked. Thus, being liked has proven to activate primary (and pleasant) reward in parts of the brain such as the nucleus accumbens, the ventral tegmentum or the amygdala. (Goleman, 1995, 2006; Punset, 2007; Davey et al., 2010)

However, there might be fewer candid reasons for individuals to share their backstage or private information online such as narcissism or what has also been termed “communicating exhibitionism” (Maddox, 2017). However, if this communicating exhibitionism holds for mobile phone conversations in public places, the need to share our everyday lives online seems to be even more extended and connected to different factors, exhibitionism or narcissism being just two of them, however powerful. Indeed, in their study on Koreans’ use of Instagram, Moon et al. (2016) found out that individuals higher in narcissism tended to post selfies and self-presented photos, update their profile picture more often, and spend 2 Closely related to the notion of ambient intimacy are other terms such as “connected presence”, which involves individuals continuously interacting with one another (Licoppe, 2004) or “affective publics” (Papacharissi, 2015).

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more time on this social networking site. This is in line with more recent studies, such as Grieve et al. (2021), who also show that “phubbing”—i.e. ignoring face-to-face interlocutors to answer their phone or check up for social media notifications and social media engagement—is significantly more frequent among vulnerable narcissists. The need for gratification— e.g., the wish to receive positive reactions to uploaded comments or photos—becomes so high than it can easily develop into an addiction or nomophobia (no mobile phone phobia), defined as “the anxiety and distress experienced by individuals who habitually use Internet-based communication devices, especially when the devices are not available” (Ayar et al., 2018: 589) or the related phenomenon known as FoMO (fear of missing out), which has been defined as “a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent” (Przybylski, 2013: 1841; see also Tanhan et al., 2022 for a current review).

1.3

Dimensions of Self-Presentation

Self-presentation takes place along five major interconnected dimensions (Kim & Dindia, 2011; Yang & Brown, 2016): breadth, depth, positivity, authenticity and intentionality. The first four focus on the content of the information disclosed while the last relates to the individual’s consciousness while disclosing it. In addition, breadth and depth are considered as sub-dimensions within self-disclosure, which relates to the presentation of the self based on personal, intimate information or Goffman’s “backstage behaviour”. Breadth relates to the quantity of personal information—Goffman’s backstage behaviour—that we may share on social media. It has also been defined as “the amount of self-relevant statements” (Lin & Utz, 2017: 427). Disclosing a great deal of personal information such as our favourite foods, hobbies, personal anecdotes and the like can be positively valued by other members, who might hence experience a feeling of increased connectedness (Lind & Utz, 2017; Utz, 2015). However, disclosing too much can also have counter effects, especially when the information disclosed is regarded as too personal or inappropriate. In

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a recent study, AlRabiah et al. (2022) show the negative effect on other users (and consumers) when influencers advertising products disclose too much personal information. The inappropriateness or what is colloquially termed “TMI” (too much information) even led to a reduction of trust in the influencers’ discourse and, more worryingly, to a decrease in purchase intent by their followers. Closely related to breadth, depth refers to the level of intimacy in a disclosure (Kim & Song, 2016). AlRabiah et al. (2022) compare depth to the inner layers of an onion. For example, we can disclose superficial information such as our place of origin or main tastes or hobbies (especially if they are normative) while inner layers refer to deeper, more intimate self-disclosure, e.g., relationship status, sexual tendencies, etc. It should be kept in mind, however, that depth—or the level of intimacy of the information about the self—is not only influenced by the user’s personality but may also be quite mediated or influenced by their cultural background. For example, while in some cultures disclosing the user’s age might be regarded as too revealing, in others it may be a usual topic for conversation (Malatji et al., 2022). The same could be argued for sexual preferences, where age also plays a key role, with younger users having less trouble revealing what older generations may still consider taboo topics. Another example might be disclosing our political tendencies and beliefs on social media, which might be regarded as too personal information (or socially inappropriate to display publicly). Besides personality, cultural background, age and other sociological variables that affect self-presentation, the very same nature of the different social media also influences it. As rightly argued by Attrill (2012), different affordances will also lead to different types of selfdisclosure. In the case of Facebook, for example, the interface provides users with the possibility to offer semi-automatic self-disclosure by choosing from the available options: work and education, places you’ve lived in, contact and basic information, family and relationships, details about you and life events. Curiously enough, most options are kept open for users to fill in with their personal information whilst the relationship tag provides them with a cline including eleven “possible” relationship statuses, from single to widowed, passing by the implicit “it’s complicated”. Other social media like Twitter do not offer this possibility,

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leaving it for users to choose what level of self-disclosure (if any) they wish to perform on their profile bios. For example, as an X-Twitter user, I have chosen to disclose just professional—not very intimate—information about myself and superficial hobbies like reading, or languages, while intentionally employing vague language to include more personal information. 2. Lecturer in English and Linguistics at Complutense University of Madrid. Love my job, reading, learning and languages, among many other things! The third dimension is known as positivity, which involves users selectively choosing positive and desirable aspects of the self, hence presenting themselves in a positive light by enhancing their positive qualities, e.g., physical, social, psychological, etc. This kind of self-presentation strategy has been theoretically related to acquisitive in contrast to protective self-presentation (Leary & Allen, 2011). In simple terms, protective self-presentation involves curating information (often posted by other users) where we do not appear “in our best light”—e.g., because we are performing a socially sanctioned action like public drinking—while acquisitive self-presentation portraits us in a positive way, hence also known as positive self-presentation. In one of my previous studies on Facebook (Maíz-Arévalo, 2013: 62), one of the interviewees put this distinction in very clear terms, as she explained that she carefully chooses photographs where she looks her best (acquisitive, positive self-presentation) as her friends often upload the photographs where she does not: 3. Well, I usually upload those photos where I look pretty, haha. I’m not going to upload one where I look ugly, am I? I’ve got my friends to do that, hahaha. This enhancement usually depends upon the users’ interactional intentions, such as e-dating, getting Twitter followers, etc. In other words, positive comments about oneself try to target the imagined audience (Marwick and Boyd, 2011) and to attract “contacts, contracts,

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customers, or employers” (van Dijck, 2013: 203). In other words, the positive aspects of the self that we choose to disclose on Twitter may not coincide with those of other social media like Tinder, LinkedIn or Instagram, to name a few. As in the case of the previous dimensions, positivity may also be deeply influenced by the user’s cultural background. For example, LeeWon et al. (2014) carried out a contrastive study comparing college Facebook users in the US and South Korea. Their findings reveal that culture exerts a statistically significant difference in relation to positive self-presentation, with a more individualist culture like the US favouring it in contrast to the collectivism of South Korea, where modesty seemed to be more relevant for users and too positive a self-presentation was negatively perceived as “bragging”. Something similar seems to be the case in Spanish, where Facebook users presenting themselves in too favourable a light run the risk of being jocularly mocked by other users, as in the following example given by Maíz-Arévalo (2015: 298), where User 1 (U1) has uploaded a couple of pictures taken during an important—and highly private and elitist— academic ceremony to which he has been invited and is immediately mocked by a second user, even if the mockery is presented jocularly and pragmatically marked by the use of the wink emoji: 4. U1: En la investidura honoris causa de [Name] U2: En la primera foto pareces el DJ del acto Translation: U1: At [Name’s] honoris causa investiture U2: In the first picture you look like the event’s DJ Enhancing the self can clash against the fourth dimension of selfpresentation: authenticity. Authenticity relates to the degree to which the disclosed information accurately reflects reality (Yang & Brown, 2016). As already mentioned, even if the information they present is authentic, users often carefully craft this self-presentation so as to enhance the positive over the negative and present the user as “likeable” (as in example 2).

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As Zhao et al., (2008: 1829) argue, “it is equally instructive to consider what aspects of identity [are] not being stressed” (emphasis in the original). Rather than lying, it could be said that users are simply economical with the truth. In other words, presenting a pessimistic, apprehensive, sad or negative persona is extremely rare in nonymous settings as opposed to disclosing happy or fun moments, even though this may also be disclosed, as they may help boost other users’ empathy and foster social connectivity. For example, users may post a photograph of themselves branding a broken limb, expressing indignation at a social injustice or, as in the following example by celebrity David Ghetta, expressing their sadness after one of his friends passed away, which may also help present himself as a caring, loving and sensitive individual: 5. Alan, I just can’t believe you’ve gone, my friend. Thank you for all you did for me. I lost my production manager and the house community lost a true music lover. I’m hurting and sending love to Lainie, family and friends. Finally, intentionality refers to the “extent to which individuals consciously and intentionally disclose a piece of information” (Yang & Brown, 2016: 404). Intentionality differs from the previous four dimensions (i.e. breadth, depth, positivity, and authenticity) as it focuses on the individual’s “attentiveness” to self-presentation rather than focus on content. In other words, when a user chooses to edit the WhatsApp profile picture, for instance, they are doing so intentionally—i.e. they are aware to be doing so and that this new profile picture is susceptible of being seen, evaluated and possibly commented upon by other users, as in example (6) from my own WhatsApp, where another user sent me a message to compliment the new profile picture just some hours after updating it: 6. Me encanta la foto que has puesto! (I love the picture you have uploaded!) In line with speech act theory, intentionality could be considered as the illocutionary force of our message. In other words, what we mean

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rather than what we say. For example, when choosing a specific photo of ourselves to share with others, we are intentionally projecting extra messages that help construct an image and identity of ourselves (e.g., “I am a social being as I am being portrayed with a group of friends having fun”). As in face-to-face communication, however, our illocutionary force may not always attain the desired perlocutionary effect on others. This is particularly poignant in the case of humorous selfpresentations, where the user intends to appear as witty, funny, creative, etc. to others, but if the others fail to understand the humour or this is simply not to their liking, the perlocutionary effect may be far from the intended one (see Chapter 4).

1.4

Types of Self-Presentation Profiles

Profile information is often multimodal, that is, it relies on different modes of communication such as text and images, as illustrated by Fig. 1.2, where four different profile pages (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Weibo) are partially reproduced: Despite being different platforms with different purposes (top left, LinkedIn; top right Twitter; bottom left Facebook and bottom right Sina Weibo), these images show a high degree of similarity between profile pages. Typically, a background photograph at the top is combined with a more salient image, the degree of saliency further framed by default by the platform itself. Interestingly, users often choose the framed and salient element to include their own profile picture depicting the self, rather than doing so in the larger, backgrounded element. Furthermore, in line with the theory of visual grammar (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1996), information seems to flow from left to right, from given information to the new one—for example, potential new contacts or topics to follow, although this reading pattern is by no means universal and shows the Western bias in these platforms. Sina Weibo, for example, presents the information from top to bottom, although the user’s profile picture is similarly framed by a circle.

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Fig. 1.2 Profile pages

This visual information is combined with text where users may edit what personal information to provide, which often includes their name, and depending on the main purpose of the platform, may vary from their professional role and position, educational background to their hobbies and personal relationship status. As already pointed out, these choices are intentional, as users decide what and how to present this information as a way to project a specific image of the self. In the case of LinkedIn, most users aspire to project a professional persona, hence both text and images coherently tend to align to that purpose (Van Dijck, 2013). Other information is arranged by the interface itself, guiding users to the editing of their profile page.

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Textual information is, however, also susceptible to being multimodally modified by, for example, adding emoticons, emoji or other typographic alterations like the use of capitals or punctuation signs. Besides “adding colour to the text to stand out from the crowd” (Yus, 2022), visual elements before, within or after the text may perform different pragmatic functions, as extensively argued in the literature (Dainas & Herring, 2021; Sampietro, 2019). Yus (2022: 83) sums up all these functions in three macro-functions: (i) emoji within, emoji without and emoji beyond. In the first case, the emoji influences how the accompanying text is interpreted. In the second case, emoji (or emojis) appear in isolation or “naked” or they perform a speech act on their own. Finally, emoji beyond refers to those emoji that “do not qualify the content of the typed message but connote the act of communication as a whole, providing affective attitude or propositional attitude towards the act of communication instead of directly towards the content of the message typed” (Yus, 2022: 95). This classification, however, is not unproblematic as some cases may be seen as overlapping such as example (6) above, where the user might be argued to be using an emoji “beyond” to qualify the whole act of communication but also as a way to emphasize the textual message itself (“I love it”). Following previous classifications (Sánchez-Moya & Cruz-Moya, 2015; Maíz-Arévalo, 2018), textual profiles may hence be described as purely verbal or textual—i.e. including only text; iconic or visual—i.e. including only visual elements such as emoji or, most commonly, hybrid or multimodal, which combine both textual and visual modes. Example (2) above illustrates a purely textual profile text, while examples (7) and (8) below respectively reproduce an iconic and hybrid profile on WhatsApp and Twitter. As in the rest of the examples, the users’ identity has been omitted to preserve their privacy, although they have both agreed to share this information with the author: 7. 8.

Aire Agua Alimento

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Abrigo Afecto (Translation: Air, Water, Food, Shelter, Affection) After interviewing the users to find out their intentions behind posting such as status, the User in example (7) explained that she intentionally included three groups of musical notes as a way to denote that she cannot conceive life without music, hence projecting some personal information about herself. On the other hand, the user in example (8) stated that his message referred to a film he had really enjoyed watching,3 where one of the protagonists explained that there are only 5 things essential to human beings, all of them starting with A (in Spanish). He further pointed out that he wanted to make others aware that we were destroying the first four, hence the use of the downright arrow while the only one still surviving was the last one (hence the different position adopted by the arrow). As his explanation reveals, there is a high degree of intentionality (and effort) behind the message, which also helps to present himself as someone concerned and deeply committed to taking care of the environment, in line with his general beliefs and social values. These implicatures, however, are hard to pin down without the user’s own help explaining them. This will be further explored in Chapter 6.

1.5

Online Profile(s) as a Digital Visiting Card

Arguably, profile users can edit in the different apps and social platforms may be said not to entail interaction with others. In fact, it is not usual to check other users’ profiles, especially on certain apps like WhatsApp, where the profile picture and maybe the temporary statuses are more often consulted. However, in other social media like Twitter, the bio or profile is crucial to determining whether or not to follow someone. More 3

The film is entitled El olvido que seremos [The Forgetfulness We Will Become] and recreates the life of the Colombian doctor Héctor Abad Gómez, an activist for human rights, who was murdered in Medellin in 1987. It was released in 2020.

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specifically in the case of Twitter (currently known as X), the right corner information explicitly gives us some suggestions for “Who to follow” and the profile picture of the suggested user is accompanied by their profile information, according to which we can decide whether to follow them or not. A similar structure is employed by LinkedIn, where the suggestions of potential accounts to follow are renamed as “Add to your feed”, but the pattern is exactly the same: profile picture, bio information and the meta-button to click if we want to follow them, as illustrated by Fig. 1.3, with Twitter on the top and LinkedIn on the bottom: Profile information, even if the user is not certain that other users will read it, becomes crucial in apps such as Tinder, where presenting ourselves in a catchy way may indeed trigger a desired “swipe right” response and a potential match and relationship (Cantos-Delgado & Maíz-Arévalo, 2023). The importance of the profile information has also been underlined by scholars in the marketing field. For example, in his study on reviewers’ perceptions of Airbnb based on the profile photo and information, Jang (2022: 372) found that “how hosts describe themselves and how detailed profile descriptions are influence guest decisions to book a property or to leave a review”. The importance of the profile information in customers’ decision-taking and/or reviewing practices has also been pointed out by other studies (Liang et al., 2020; Tussyadiah & Park, 2018), as I will further develop in the coming chapters. Some social media apps, hence, seem to give more weight to the profile information as a guarantee for future interaction with other users (e.g., Tinder, Airbnb, Twitter, LinkedIn) while others seem to include this affordance just for the sake of it (e.g., Facebook, WhatsApp). However, the interest displayed by users in curating their profile information is far from negligible. In fact, we only need to remember what happened on 24th February 2017 when, coinciding with WhatsApp 8th anniversary, its creators launched a new version of its “status” (what is now known as the temporary statuses). Although this feature or affordance of the app has been kept, users’ response was massively negative when the textual, more permanent status disappeared and the web was flooded with complaints and queries about how to get back to the textual status. In the end, the developers had to reinstate the textual status just one month later (on 24th March 2017).

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Fig. 1.3 “Who to follow” on X and LinkedIn

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The question this raises is: why are users so interested in editing their profile information even if they are not certain that others will read it? A parallel argument has been put forward by other researchers such as Beatrix Busse (2023), whose urban study of Brooklyn includes a subcorpus of the wifi SSIDs (service set identifiers) in its neighbourhoods, showing that, even if users think nobody else will read their messages, they take advantage of this space to express themselves, as a general practice of cultural positioning. In other words, if users are given a space to speak up, most of them will take advantage of it. All this demonstrates that, far from being a frivolous matter, most users dearly value the opportunity these statuses provide for them as a self-presentation strategy. Profile information (not only the photograph but also the accompanying text) becomes, hence, a sort of digital visiting card where users decide what information to reveal and how to do so, often with a clear intention in mind (e.g., get a job, get a date, get more followers and so on).

1.6

Ethics

The study of digital communication—and hence of digital selfpresentation—involves a series of ethical issues, even if “compared with other fields, linguistics and pragmatics may present seemingly negligible ethical risks (i.e. there is never a risk of causing physical harm)” (Landone, 2022: 257). The aim of this section is to outline how these have been approached in the present volume (see Sect. 1.6). According to the Ethics Statement of the Linguistic Society of America (2009), researchers should focus on responsibility as the basis for ethical choices. This might be interpreted as the need to preserve the privacy of the participants, for example, by anonymizing the data and making sure they provide their informed consent to have their data used for research purposes. In the case of digital communication, however, this becomes slightly more complex, especially as it is not always possible to ask for the users’ consent when scraping data from different platforms such as the previously known Twitter (currently renamed as X). In his pioneer work

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on digital communication, Paccagnella (1997), quoted in Mannes & Stewart (2000: 46), argued that messages posted on the Internet are public acts, concluding thus that even if researchers must act cautiously, there is no need to take more than “normal precautions”. A similar line of advice is also given by Kozinets (2010: 142) in his netnographic approach to digital communication and virtual communities (see also Kozinets, 2015). Thus, he points out that “analyzing online community or culture communications or their archives is not human subjects’ research if the researcher does not record the identity of the communicators” (emphasis in original). It would seem, hence, that simply anonymizing the data might be enough to protect the privacy of the users. This is far from the case, however, especially in multimodal discourses where communication also rests on personal images, or links that are easily traced back. Privacy should ensure that the information quoted in the research is thus not easily traced back to the original poster (or, if so, that they have given their informed consent). In this regard, it is useful to check the Recommendations from the AoIR ethics working committee (2002–2012) when dealing with Internet research, summarized as follows: • Researchers should check the site’s policy regarding privacy. For example, when registering on the app, Instagram users agree that their bios are wholly public and can be read by any other app user. A different matter is that users simply agree to the policy without reading it first and are hence unaware of this fact, but this would not impede research as it would fall under the user’s own responsibility. • Researchers may consider the initial ethical expectations of the participants being studied . This aspect is closely connected to the previous assertion, as many users may be fully aware that the information that they are posting is public. This is not always the case, however, as “not all those who publish online are really conscious of the level of public access the information can get” (Landone, 2022: 259). In this case, however, researchers may argue that this is also the users’ responsibility. • Researchers should be careful with dealing with sensitive topics (e.g., mental illness) or vulnerable users (e.g., minors). For example, there are a plethora of forums where users publicly expose their intimate

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experiences in relation to sensitive topics such as domestic violence or depression. These forums, however, tend to be publicly accessible, and most users should be aware that their messages are “out there in the open”. In cases such as this, researchers might only partially quote messages so as to impede retrievability and anonymize the user’s name (if this is not already anonymized by users themselves, as is often the case) (see Sánchez-Moya, 2018). • Whenever possible, informed consent should be obtained . For example, when studying a virtual community from a netnographic approach (e.g., a group of WhatsApp), researchers might ask for the informed consent of the participants beforehand. Previous studies also considered a posteriori consent acceptable; however, this approach has currently been questioned as unethical (Landone, 2022). Taking the above into consideration, all the examples given in the present volume have been anonymized, and data are only quoted if they are publicly accessible (e.g., Instagram or Twitter bios) or if the users have provided their consent beforehand. I firmly believe that following these guidelines ensures an appropriate and ethical approach to the data under scrutiny.

1.7

Chapter Summary

This chapter has defined the notion of self-presentation from a Goffmanian approach, problematizing the distinction between front and backstage, with special attention to digital communication. It has also briefly introduced the five dimensions of self-presentation: breadth, depth, positivity, authenticity and intentionality, as well as the distinction between textual, hybrid (or multimodal) and visual presentations of the self, with special attention to profile information as what could be termed a “digital visiting card”. Finally, ethical issues have been presented and possible solutions to tackle them have been offered.

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Structure of the Volume

As already mentioned, the objective of the present volume is to deal with self-presentation on digital environments, with a specific focus on Peninsular Spanish users. Given the complexity of the issue at hand, a multidisciplinary approach has been adopted, even if linguistics—and more specifically, pragmatics—lie at the very basis of the volume. The book consists of seven chapters, which have been conceived as independent, self-contained readings, even if they are closely intertwined. Readers may hence choose to read the volume as it is presented or select chapters as they see fit. Likewise, all the chapters follow a parallel structure to ease the reading. Besides a revision of prior literature, they all include a case study at the end involving different social media apps and sites, with the objective of illustrating the theoretical points raised through the chapter in a practical way, hopefully providing other researchers with future research avenues. After this introductory chapter, Chapter 2 focuses on the notion of self-disclosure. More specifically, it analyses the two dimensions of breadth and depth—i.e. the amount of personal information a user displays and the intimacy level of such information. Taking this as a point of departure, specific strategies such as the use of emotional statuses or family references will be discussed and illustrated with examples from different social media apps and sites. The chapter closes with a case study of how Spanish members of parliament (male and middle-aged) perform breadth and depth in the Twitter (now renamed as X) bios. Chapter 3 deals with the dimensions of positivity and authenticity— i.e. presenting positive and authentic information about the self— including reflections from other disciplines such as psychology and how this may affect how others perceive the user. More specifically, this chapter will deal with self-presentation strategies such as the use of inspirational or eudaimonic statuses, illustrating them with a case study on Spanish female Instagram users. Although closely related to positivity, humour is considered to deserve a chapter of its own. Hence, Chapter 4 will focus on the use of humour as a self-presentation strategy, providing readers with a review of the different dimensions of humour before illustrating it with a final case study from Tinder statuses.

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Given the importance of profile images as a self-presentation strategy in itself, Chapter 5 will explore the types of images users select for the profile picture of different platforms and how this is carefully and intentionally done, also depending on the main objectives attached to each platform (e.g., LinkedIn versus Tinder). Using Kress and Van Leeuwen’s visual grammar to analyse photographs, users’ profile pictures show how users try to depict an authentic, albeit enhanced, image of the self. The chapter closes with a case study on profile images on WhatsApp. As seen in the Introduction, users may employ a purely textual (language-based) presentation of the self, use an image, or, more commonly, use a multimodal combination of both textual and visual modes (emoji or stickers included). Chapter 6 will deal with the use of multimodal statuses on different platforms as a way to present the self. Finally, Chapter 7 will provide readers with the main conclusions from the previous chapters, and hopefully present some avenues for future research in the field.

References AlRabiah, S., Marder, B., Marshall, D., & Angell, R. (2022). Too much information: An examination of the effects of social self-disclosure embedded within influencer eWOM campaigns. Journal of Business Research, 152, 93–105. Attrill, A. (2012). Sharing only parts of me: Selective categorical self-disclosure across Internet arenas. International Journal of Internet Science, 7 (1), 55–77. Austin, J. L. (1975). How to do things with words. Oxford University Press. Ayar, D., Gerçeker, G. Ö., Özdemir, E. Z., & Bektas, M. (2018). The effect of problematic internet use, social appearance anxiety, and social media use on nursing students’ nomophobia levels. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 36 (12), 589–595. Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117 (3), 497–529.

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Boulianne, S., & Larsson, A. O. (2021). Engagement with candidate posts on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook during the 2019 election. New Media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448211009504 Bowman, T. D. (2004). Backstage or Front Stage with YouTube. Paper presented at 2010 iConference, University of Illinois. https://www.ideals. illinois.edu/items/14911 (Last accessed January 2023). Busse, B. (2023). “Creating urban places through discourse and other semiotic sign-making: What do Brooklyn, NY, and narratives of Queen Elizabeth II have in common?” Keynote talk, International Conference on Corpus Linguistics, University of Oviedo, 10–12 May 2023. Cantos-Delgado, C., & Maíz-Arévalo, C. (2023). “I hear you like bad girls? I’m bad at everything” A cross-cultural analysis (British-Spanish) of humour as a self-presentation strategy in Tinder profiles. European Journal of Humour Research, 11(3), 31–53. Dainas, A. R., & Herring, S. C. (2021). Interpreting emoji pragmatics. Approaches to Internet Pragmatics, 107–144. Davey, C. G., Allen, N. B., Harrison, B., Dwyer, D. B., & Yücel, M. (2010). Being liked activates primary reward and midline self-related brain regions. Human Brain Mapping, 31(4), 660–668. Dayter, D. (2018). Self-praise online and offline: The hallmark speech act of social media? Internet Pragmatics, 1(1), 184–203. Ellemers, N., Doosje, B., & Spears, R. (2004). Sources of respect: The effects of being liked by ingroups and outgroups. European Journal of Social Psychology, 34 (2), 155–172. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City. Goleman, D. (1995/2006). Emotional Intelligence. Bantam Dell. Grieve, R., Lang, C. P., & March, E. (2021). More than a preference for online social interaction: Vulnerable narcissism and phubbing. Personality and Individual Differences, 175, 110715. Guo, Y., & Ren, W. (2020). Managing image: The self-praise of celebrities on social media. Discourse, Context & Media, 38, 100433. Hogan, B. (2010). The presentation of self in the age of social media: Distinguishing performances and exhibitions online. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 30 (6), 377–386. Jang, H. (2022). Judging an Airbnb booking by its cover: How profile photos affect guest ratings. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 39 (4), 371–382. Kilvington, D. (2021). The virtual stages of hate: Using Goffman’s work to conceptualise the motivations for online hate. Media, Culture & Society, 43(2), 256–272.

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Kim, J., & Dindia, K. (2011). Online self-disclosure: A review of research. In K. B. Wright & L. M. Webb (Eds.), Computer-mediated Communication in Personal Relationships (pp. 156–180). Peter Lang. Kim, J., & Song, H. (2016). Celebrity’s self-disclosure on Twitter and parasocial relationships: A mediating role of social presence. Computers in Human Behavior, 62, 570–577. Kozinets, R. V. (2010). Netnography. Doing Ethnographic Research Online. Sage. Kozinets, R. V. (2015). Netnography: Redefined . Sage. Kress, G. R., & Van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading images: The grammar of visual design. Routledge. Landone, E. (2022). Methodology in Politeness Research. Springer. Leary, M. R., & Allen, A. B. (2011). Self-presentational persona: Simultaneous management of multiple impressions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10 1(5), 1033–1049. Leary, M. R., & Baumeister, R. F. (2000). The nature and function of selfesteem: Sociometer theory. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 57 , 1–62. Lee-Won, R. J., Shim, M., Joo, Y. K., & Park, S. G. (2014). Who puts the best “face” forward on Facebook?: Positive self-presentation in online social networking and the role of self-consciousness, actual-to-total Friends ratio, and culture. Computers in Human Behavior, 39, 413–423. Liang, S., Schuckert, M., Law, R., & Chen, C. C. (2020). The importance of marketer-generated content to peer-to-peer property rental platforms: Evidence from Airbnb. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 84, 102329. Licoppe, C. (2004). “Connected” presence: The emergence of a new repertoire for managing social relationships in a changing communication technoscape. Environment and Planning D, 22(1), 135–156. Lin, R., & Utz, S. (2017). Self-disclosure on SNS: Do disclosure intimacy and narrativity influence interpersonal closeness and social attraction? Computers in Human Behavior, 70, 426–436. Lin, R., Levordashka, A., & Utz, S. (2016). Ambient intimacy on Twitter. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychological Research on Cyberspace, 10 (1). https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2016-1-6 Maddox, J. (2017). “Guns Don’t Kill People… Selfies Do”: Rethinking narcissism as exhibitionism in selfie-related deaths. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 34 (3), 193–205. Maíz-Arévalo, C. (2013). “Just click ‘Like”’: Computer-mediated responses to Spanish compliments. Journal of Pragmatics, 51, 47–67.

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Maíz-Arévalo, C. (2015). Jocular mockery in computer-mediated communication: A contrastive study of a Spanish and English Facebook community. Journal of Politeness Research, 11(2), 289–327. Maíz-Arévalo, C. (2017). Getting liked. In C. R. Hoffmann, & W. Bublitz (Eds.), Pragmatics of social media (pp. 575–606). De Gruyter. Maíz-Arévalo, C. (2018). Emotional self-presentation on WhatsApp: Analysis of the profile status. Russian Journal of Linguistics, 22(1), 144–160. Maíz-Arevalo, C. (2021). “Blowing our own trumpet”: Self-praise in Peninsular Spanish face-to-face communication. Journal of Pragmatics, 183, 107–120. Malatji, W. R., VanEck, R. & Zuva, T. (2022). The role of gender, age and cultural differences in online information disclosure and privacy: A systematic review. Software Engineering Perspectives in Systems: Proceedings of 11th Computer Science On-line Conference 2022, Vol. 1. Springer International Publishing. Mannes, C., & Stewart, F. (2000). Internet Communication and Qualitative Research. A Handbook for Researching Online. Sage. Martin, R. A., Puhlik-Doris, P., Larsen, G., Gray, J., & Weir, K. (2003). Individual differences in uses of humor and their relation to psychological well-being: Development of the Humor Styles Questionnaire. Journal of Research in Personality, 37 (1), 48–75. Marwick, A. E., & Boyd, D. (2011). I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media & Society, 13(1), 114–133. Matley, D. (2018). “This is NOT a# humblebrag, this is just a# brag”: The pragmatics of self-praise, hashtags and politeness in Instagram posts. Discourse, Context & Media, 22, 30–38. Merunková, L., & Šlerka, J. (2019). Goffman’s theory as a framework for analysis of self presentation on online social networks. Masaryk University Journal of Law and Technology, 13(2), 243–276. Moon, J. H., Lee, E., Lee, J. A., Choi, T. R., & Sung, Y. (2016). The role of narcissism in self-promotion on Instagram. Personality and Individual Differences, 101, 22–25. Paccagnella, L. (1997). Getting the seat of your pants dirty: Strategies for ethnographic research on virtual communities. Journal of ComputerMediated Communication, 3(1). http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol3/issue1/pac cagnella.html Papacharissi, Z. (2015). Affective publics: Sentiment, technology, and politics. Oxford University Press. Persson, A. (2010). Front- and backstage in “social media”. Paper presented at XVII World Congress of Sociology, arranged by the International Sociological Association (ISA). Gothenburg July 11–17, 2010.

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Przybylski, A. K., Murayama, K., DeHaan, C. R., & Gladwell, V. (2013). Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out. Computers in Human Behavior, 29 (4), 1841–1848. Punset, E. (2007). El Viaje a la Felicidad [The Trip to Happiness]. Destino libro. Ren, W., Guo, Y., & Wei, L. (2022). Chinese young people’s attitudes towards translanguaging in self-praise on social media. Journal of Pragmatics, 198, 93–103. Sampietro, A. (2019). Emoji and rapport management in Spanish WhatsApp chats. Journal of Pragmatics, 143, 109–120. Sánchez Moya, A. (2018). Exploring digital discourses on intimate partner violence: a socio-cognitive approach. PhD dissertation, University Complutense of Madrid. Sánchez-Moya, A., & Cruz-Moya, O. (2015). “Hey there! I am using WhatsApp”: A preliminary study of recurrent discursive realisations in a corpus of WhatsApp statuses. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 212, 52–60. Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language (Vol. 626). Cambridge university press. Srivastava, S., & Beer, J. S. (2005). How self-evaluations relate to being liked by others: Integrating sociometer and attachment perspectives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89 (6), 966–977. Tanhan, F., Özok, H. ˙I, & Tayiz, V. (2022). Fear of missing out (FoMO): A current review. Psikiyatride Guncel Yaklasimlar, 14 (1), 74–85. Tussyadiah, I. P., & Park, S. (2018). Consumer evaluation of hotel service robots. In Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2018: Proceedings of the International Conference in Jönköping, Sweden, January 24–26 (pp. 308–320). Springer International Publishing. Utz, S. (2015). The function of self-disclosure on social network sites: Not only intimate, but also positive and entertaining self-disclosures increase the feeling of connection. Computers in Human Behavior, 45, 1–10. Van Dijck, J. (2013). ‘You have one identity’: Performing the self on Facebook and LinkedIn. Media, Culture & Society, 35 (2), 199–215. Weir, K. (2012). The pain of social rejection. American Psychological Association, 43(4), 50. Available at https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/04/rejection (last accessed December 2023). West, P. (2009). “Turn off that phone! The real scourge of public transport”, in WAtoday.com.au, 2009–02–05. Wong, D., Amon, K. L., & Keep, M. (2019). Desire to belong affects Instagram behavior and perceived social support. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 22(7), 465–471.

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Yang, C., & Brown, B. B. (2016). Online self-presentation on Facebook and self-development during the college transition. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 45 (2), 402–416. Yau, J. C., & Reich, S. (2019). “It’s just a lot of work”: Adolescents’ selfpresentation norms and practices on Facebook and Instagram. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 29 (1), 196–209. Yus, F. (2022). Smartphone Communication. Interactions in the App Ecosystem. Routledge. Zhao, S., Grasmuck, S., & Martin, J. (2008). Identity construction on Facebook: Digital empowerment in anchored relationships. Computers in Human Behavior, 24 (5), 1816–1836. Zuo, B. (2023). ‘Versailles literature’ on WeChat Moments–humblebragging with digital technologies. Discourse & Communication. https://doi.org/10. 1177/17504813231164854

2 Self-Disclosure or Disclosing Personal Information

2.1

Introduction

Many of us report that the characters of the series we have been watching for months have become “like family members”. Something similar is reported after reading gripping books, where the connection with the characters feels as close as if they were people we actually know. This phenomenon is explained by the Social Penetration Theory (SPT henceforth), initially developed by Altman and Taylor in 1973, who metaphorically described individuals as onions consisting of different layers, progressively revealed to others throughout the process of building relationships. More specifically, SPT has been defined as the “process of bonding that moves a relationship from superficial to more intimate” (Carpenter & Greene, 2016: n.p.). This intentional exchange of information plays a crucial role in the process of building relationships; the individual chooses what, when and to whom to disclose information about themselves, with an often reciprocal reaction on the interlocutor’s part. In other words, there is a mutual process of self-disclosure with someone, which is how the relationship develops, with each part self-disclosing progressively to the other. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Maíz-Arévalo, The Power of Self-Presentation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52931-3_2

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The central concept within SPT is self-disclosure, traditionally defined as “verbal behaviour through which individuals truthfully, sincerely and intentionally communicate novel, ordinary private information about themselves to one or more addressees” (Fisher, 1984: 277). To this, we could also add non-verbal behaviour like images (see Chapter 5 on profile images). Self-disclosure consists of two dimensions: breadth and depth. Breadth is related to the amount of personal information an individual chooses to disclose. In other words, how many personal topics are revealed. For example, breadth encompasses the number of various topics discussed such as family, hobbies, professional or educational background, and favourite foods, series and books, among others. On the other hand, depth relates to the intimacy level or degree of sensitivity of such information, for example, discussing health issues (especially if they may be considered taboo topics such as bowel movements), sexual tendencies, etc. Self-disclosure (both breadth and depth, but probably more so the latter) is often related to the elusive notion of appropriateness, quite dependent both on sociocultural norms, on what individuals perceive others to do, and on their own beliefs as to what might be appropriate. For example, discussing weight or age might be considered a taboo topic in some cultures while not in others. Appropriateness is thus dependent on a myriad of factors that not only involve the topic but also age, religion or social and cultural values, all of them forming part of what Hall (1966) termed the invisible and the deep layers of culture. Establishing what is or is not appropriate may be especially hard in online communication, where each platform may even have its own tacit (or explicit) rules as to what can be posted or shared. As AlRabiah et al. (2022: 95) point out “while most people can usually judge whether behaviour is socially appropriate or not in familiar contexts, it is usually hard to explicitly spell out the criteria determining appropriateness” (my emphasis) (see also Colliander & Marder, 2018). Closely related to this aspect of appropriateness is the notion of context collapse, which is defined as a process by which technologies of social media “collapse diverse social contexts into one” (Marwick & Boyd, 2011: 10).

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Self-disclosure has long been studied in face-to-face interaction, often from a psychological perspective (Collins & Miller, 1994; Derlega et al., 1993; Dindia, 2000; Dindia & Allen, 1992; Hill & Knox, 2001; among many others) in detriment of other approaches such as the linguistic one (and more specifically the pragmatic one). However, a pragmatic approach might be quite revealing, as much of this private information might be disclosed implicitly. In other words, individuals’ locutionary acts (i.e. what they say or write) might implicate very intimate information (i.e. illocutionary force) if correctly interpreted (i.e. perlocutionary effect). As an example, let’s take the following fictional exchange belonging to a “coming out” speech from the well-known series Stranger Things, where Robin comes out to her friend Steve: Steve: *confused* But Tammy Thompson’s a girl. Robin: Steve... Steve: Yeah? Oh. Robin: Oh. Steve: Holy shit.

As the exchange shows, Robin never utters the words “I am gay” but her locutionary act (“Steve”) helps her friend correctly infer the full meaning or illocutionary force behind her words, as his interjection of recognition shows (“yeah? Oh”). In face-to-face conversation, the use of paralinguistic cues such as intonation or kinesics (e.g., the way Robin looks at Steve during this scene) helps hearers to infer the correct illocutionary force. In the case of digital communication, however, implicitness is also possible through different mechanisms such as the use of typographic alteration or graphic elements such as emoji, among others. In fact, disclosing personal, intimate information has become common online, especially in anonymous settings where individuals may feel freer to reveal their true selves.

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2.1.1 Self-Disclosure Online Indeed, with the advancement of the Internet, self-disclosure has experienced renewed scholarly attention, especially as individuals seem especially prone to reveal personal (sometimes very intimate and highly sensitive) information about themselves, oftentimes directly in the profile information of social media, a finding that has been extensively and consistently reported by scholars from different fields (Berlant, 2000; Garde-Hansen & Gorton, 2013; Miguel, 2016; among many others), hence blurring the line between private and public information, between Goffman’s front and backstage (see Chapter 1). As pointed out by Miguel (2016: 1) “the use of social media has become an everyday activity that opens space for intimacy practices, especially intimacy at a distance ” (emphasis in the original). If anything, this tendency to self-disclose online has increased. As Masur et al. (2023: 1) argue, Social network sites (SNS) such as Facebook, Instagram, or Tiktok have become lively online environments where intimate storytelling and selfpresentation is practiced as a natural extension of daily life. (Emphasis mine)

Prior to the advent of social networking sites like Facebook or TikTok, the first studies of self-disclosure online focused on other channels such as instant messaging (Bruss & Hill, 2010), forums, especially in connection with support groups in vulnerable contexts like domestic violence, sexual assault or (mental) health issues (Balani & De Choudhury, 2015; Barak & Gluck-Ofri, 2007; Moors & Webber, 2013; Yang et al., 2019; among many others), or blogs (Hollenbaugh & Everett, 2013; Ko & Kuo, 2009; Tang & Wang, 2012, inter alia). The results of this initial wave of studies consistently pointed to two main differences with faceto-face interaction. On the one hand, the mutual correlation that seems to hold for face-to-face interaction—i.e. the more one interlocutor selfdiscloses, the more the other interlocutor will self-disclose, leading to a progressive and mutual self-disclosure—does not seem to hold for online interaction. As argued by Utz (2015: 1) regarding her study on German Facebook users, “interaction partners’ responsiveness did not play a significant role, indicating that results from dyadic face-to-face

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interactions do not hold for public communication on social media”. In other words, one user may disclose personal information and not be reciprocated by other users while still retaining a feeling of closeness.1 Something similar has been reported in relation to influencers, whose sharing of personal information is not reciprocated by their followers, which still makes the latter think they are close to the former in a parasocial friendship (Daniels, 2021; Harff, 2022). On the other, as already pointed out, there seems to be a higher degree of disclosure online than face-to-face, as a result of different factors such as anonymity, the “safety” of the screen versus a more intimidating faceto-face interaction, or the lack of knowledge of possible risks like identity theft or sexting, as recent research has revealed (Büchi et al., 2017; Masur & Trepte, 2021). For example, Ko and Kuo (2009) found out that bloggers self-disclosed frequently and extensively, and this significantly led to intimate relationships and to high degrees of satisfaction with their overall quality of life, even if these relationships did not leave the online sphere. Similar results were found by Tang and Wang (2012), who analysed a total of 1,207 surveys by Taiwanese bloggers, who admitted disclosing, among others, highly sensitive and personal topics such as their attitude to life, feelings, and personal experiences in their blogs. Neither of these studies found significant gender differences between male and female bloggers. However, the variable of age does play a key role in self-disclosure. Thus, these authors discovered that younger bloggers tended to disclose a wider range of topics (breadth) albeit did not differ in terms of intimacy (depth). In fact, other studies have also reported a correlation between selfdisclosure and age, although results are far from conclusive and often contradictory. For example, while there are studies revealing that younger users tend to reveal more (breadth) and more intimate (depth) information about themselves, others point in a different direction. Thus, in his studies on teenage blogs, García-Gómez (2009, 2010) provided examples of hyper-sexualized accounts by teenagers, who seemed to have no problem offering fully-fledged descriptions of their love and sexual 1 Current research in pragmatics, however, explicitly focuses on the analysis of intentional acts of communication, hence dismissing this type of unintended derivation of effects (Francisco Yus, personal communication).

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encounters in a public arena. Similar results, i.e. displaying highly intimate information, were also reported by Valkenburg and Peter (2009) in IM anonymous encounters. The dangers of deep self-disclosure have been much warned against, especially with regard to teenagers and younger users who might be placing themselves at great risk by revealing intimate personal information (Nosko et al., 2010). More recent studies have also pointed out the “unprecedented level” of online self-disclosure by young users (Hodkinson, 2017), which may also have a direct effect on the increase of cyber-bullying (Aizenkot, 2020). However, there are also other studies that show slightly different results. For example, Bronstein (2014) analysed the responses of one hundred Hebrew Facebook users. While finding that young Facebook users disclosed personal information (and personal photos) more frequently than their older counterparts, Bronstein (2014) also found out that the information they disclosed was rarely highly personal (almost 70% of the informants) and that they avoided disclosing embarrassing information (e.g., being drunk) due to concerns about damaging the self they wanted to portrait. Interestingly enough, 63.2% of the participants reported that when they did disclose highly personal information, e.g., deep-seated feelings, it was consciously done. In a similar line, in a contrastive study between adolescents and adults (288 and 285 participants respectively), Christofides et al. (2009) revealed that adolescents displayed more information on Facebook (breadth) simply because they spent more time using the platform, but both age groups were more similar than different when protecting their privacy (depth). Hence, it is important to avoid the stereotypical assumption that youngsters disclose personal information less controllably than adults, although given the contradictory results, more research in this field is urgently needed, especially as some of these younger users may also be vulnerable targets for serious risks like sexual grooming (see Lorenzo-Dus, 2022). Apart from users’ age, self-disclosure may also differ depending on the kind of social media or platform used, as rightly argued by Attrill (2012). For example, Facebook is one of the social networking sites that provides users with an interface to edit their profile information where they can semi-automatically display personal details about their

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work and education, places they have lived in, contact and basic information, family and relationships, and other personal details, including a cline with eleven “possible” relationship statuses, from single to widowed, passing by the implicit “it’s complicated” (see Chapter 6). In contrast, other social media such as Twitter do not offer this possibility, leaving it for users to choose what level of self-disclosure they wish to perform. In other contexts, like online shopping, individuals may reveal intimate information such as their address out of necessity whilst other personal details like deep-seated feelings would be seen as highly irrelevant (Attrill, 2012). In contrast, revealing highly intimate information like personal feelings or sexual preferences might be seen as an asset by some users of e-dating apps like Tinder or Grindr (García-Gómez, 2020). For example, in their study on Grindr, Boonchutima et al. (2016) found that users whose intention was to find a relationship also tended to disclose more personal information in contrast to those who were merely seeking casual sex (see also Sharma, 2020). Anonymity has also been consistently reported as a major factor determining the breadth and depth of self-disclosure. In other words, in platforms where users display their “real” identity instead of a “fake” one, these users may minimize depth by displaying little intimate information that might even be perceived as taboo such as sexual tendencies, especially if they are non-mainstream, religious or political beliefs. However, as reported by Zhao et al. (2008) in their seminal study, this was especially the case in what they termed “nonymous” contexts, while in anonymous ones, users often take advantage of such anonymity to talk about their “hidden selves”, in what Suler (2004) named the “online disinhibition effect” (see also Rosenmann & Safir, 2006), their worries and personal concerns, difficult personal situations, health problems, etc. In fact, depth seems to be pervasive in anonymous settings like forums or blogs, where users may vent away their own life situations in search of advice and support in difficult and traumatic situations like domestic violence, transgender contexts, serious health issues like cancer, chronic disease or mental health, together with less traumatic others like recent maternity (Cipolletta et al., 2017; Gleeson et al., 2022; Pan et al., 2018; Pedersen & Lupton, 2018; Prescott et al., 2017; Sánchez Moya, 2018; Suzuki & Calzo, 2004; Tuckey et al., 2022; among many others). For

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instance, in their study on how Reddit users disclosed mental health issues, De Choudhury and De (2014) found that these users gave greater details on their mental state (e.g., discussing their depression openly) when using anonymous (or “throw-away”) accounts than “nonymous” ones, making it easier to talk about their intimate issues in front of strangers and with the possibility of being recognized being extremely low as they were acting as anonymous participants. Still, self-disclosure may also trigger negative consequences, not only in terms of the already mentioned risks like sexting or identity theft, among others, but also in terms of social attraction (Altman & Taylor, 1973). Indeed, too much disclosure might be as counterproductive online as it is in face-to-face encounters (e.g., Collins & Miller, 1994), especially if it is not mutually reciprocated. As argued by Weisbuch et al. (2009: 574) “too much or uneven disclosure can also produce disliking”. In this respect, Maíz-Arévalo (2017: 582–583) reports the following real example on a Facebook group interaction, where one of the users (User 7) takes the joke too far, self-disclosing his intimate sexual preferences, something explicitly rejected by User 2 as “too much information”, which eventually leads to the end of the exchange altogether: [Context: several British Facebook users are commenting on their team having lost the World Cup already. They need to find another team to support and start humorous comments on absurd reasons for supporting one team or another. Due to the length of the exchange, only a few extracts have been reproduced] User 1: I was living in Brussels for a week. Go Belgium! User 2: That’s nothing, my hoover is German and I love it. Go Germany!!! […] User 7: I’m a fervent supporter of Brazil, blame it on my grooming preferences, hehe User 2: TMI [Name of User 7], TMI. [End of exchange]

As pointed out by Lin and Utz (2017: 427), “it is a debatable question whether disclosing intimate information promotes or undermines

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interpersonal attraction and closeness on SNS”. To date, this question still seems unanswered and in need of further research. In my view, most studies to date have often focused on the “production” (i.e. the locutionary act) of users while there is a dearth of research on their intentions and on the perlocutionary effect revealing intimate information may have on others. A necessary (and logical) next step in research would be to carry out interviews and/or focus groups with representative samples of users to find out the motivation for sharing such kind of information, the reaction this triggers, the influence of age and anonymity, and so on. Finally, the rest of this chapter is structured as follows. First, I will focus on the possible reasons why users share private information publicly (Sect. 2.2), and how this is perceived by other users in different contexts and platforms (Sect. 2.3). Section 2.4 will then provide a review of previous research delving into the extent to which culture, age and gender may affect breadth and depth. The chapter will close with a case study of male Spanish politicians’ self-disclosure on Twitter profiles (Sect. 2.5) and a summary of the chapter (Sect. 2.6).

2.2

Why Do We Share Personal Information Online?

Prior research has steadily revealed that, both offline and online, “selfdisclosure is inherently functional, motivated by the needs for expression, self-clarification, relationship development, and social validation” (Chu et al., 2023: 578). Interestingly, it has also been shown that disclosing personal information is not only an inherent need in humans, but it can even become addictive given the increased levels of dopamine talking about the self produces in our brain (see Tamir & Mitchell, 2012). In the case of digital communication, however, self-disclosure seems to be even more frequent than in face-to-face interaction (Bazarova & Choi, 2014), even if users are not always sure about who the recipients of such personal information will be, as online interaction may range from one-to-one interactions (e.g., in private messages such as emails or private channels) to one-to-many and many-to-many, and even many-toone (Jensen & Helles, 2017). More recently, users have also started to be

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aware of the potential risks involved in disclosing private information online, the consensus being that “self-disclosure is based on a cost– benefit tradeoff, or a privacy calculus” (Zhang & Fu, 2020: 237), leading to what has been termed the “privacy paradox”—i.e. the individual’s desire to protect her/his privacy and her/his actual online behaviour (Gerber et al., 2018; Kokolakis, 2015; Seo et al., 2022). As has been pointed out, with the first outburst of social networking sites, many users tended to disclose a great deal of personal information, as the risks of doing so were still relatively unknown. Afterwards, these risks became not only known but personally experienced by many users,2 which informed this privacy paradox. Hence, the “privacy calculus” is often dependent on the perceived risks and the potential benefits of self-disclosing—e.g., rapport construction, psychological well-being, informational benefits, etc. (see Trepte & Masur, 2020). However, research has also shown that, while the privacy paradox seems to play an important role in self-disclosure online, it can be “minimized” in specific circumstances, such as stress or trauma. In other words, individuals who might be under a great deal of stress (e.g., living a traumatic situation such as a serious illness or a divorce) might feel more inclined to share this sensitive information online (either nonymously or anonymously) even if they are aware that it might be “too personal” to be aired online (see also Andalibi et al., 2018; Bazarova et al., 2017; Petronio, 2002; Zhang, 2017; among others) as they might consider that the benefits of connectedness and social support outweigh the risks. For example, in their recent study on self-disclosure, Zhang and Fu (2020) found that highly stressed individuals were more likely to self-disclose frequently (breadth) and intimately (depth) than less stressed individuals, even if all of them equally reported a high level of privacy concerns. As a result of the privacy paradox, findings on digital self-disclosure are also rather mixed (Luo & Hancock, 2020), with positive but also negative effects (see Chu et al., 2023 for a comprehensive meta-analysis). On the positive side, one of the most important outcomes of self-disclosure 2 In March 2018, the incident known as the “Cambridge Analytic data scandal” was uncovered. Approximately 87 million Facebook users’ personal information was being gathered without authorization. This was followed by several data breach incidents later on (September 2018), which raised users’ awareness of privacy aspects and potential risks.

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(both offline and online) is psychological well-being, often as a result of personal gratification and the feeling of bonding with others (Liu et al., 2019; Valkenburg & Peter, 2009), especially during difficult times such as the Covid-19 global pandemic, when offline relationships became extremely limited in some countries and individuals often resorted to social media to relate with others (see Rahardjo & Mardianti, 2022). Positive effects, on the whole, seem to outweigh the negative ones, which may explain why users keep on self-disclosing intimate information about themselves online even though they are more aware of the risks. In a similar vein, Yus (2022: 102) argues that sharing personal information online may lead to a feeling of connectedness and group membership, as self-disclosing personal information helps to build and maintain social relationships, increasing trust between members of the group and perceived social capital. Furthermore, when self-disclosure is acknowledged by other members of the group by responding to it, this helps increase not only these feelings of connectedness but also social support, which has been reported by users as being especially gratifying (see also Carr et al., 2016). Other reported positive effects that contribute to users’ psychological well-being are the feeling of higher self-esteem (Chen, 2017; Ellison et al., 2007; Gonzales, 2014; Hossain et al., 2023; Yus, 2022; among others), positive emotions and emotional involvement (Choi & Toma, 2014; Ho et al., 2018; Yus, 2022). Although previous research has shown that sharing personal (oftentimes private) information online boosts psychological well-being, it can also have a dark counterpart in psychological terms. For example, previous research has shown that self-disclosure is often linked to high levels of stress (see above) but also to feelings of loneliness, social anxiety, and low self-esteem, which may prompt individuals to share personal information online in order to feel some kind of connectedness with others, something they might be unable to do (especially in the cases of social anxiety) in offline relationships (e.g., Al-Saggaf & Nielsen, 2014). As scholars in the field of (social) psychology have revealed, this may be especially negative in the case of teenage development, which may be hindered if self-disclosure is limited to digital communication (see Lee et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2011). A further concern is that, while

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positive disclosure tends to attract positive social support according to the “positive norms” expected on social media, the disclosure of negative traits (e.g., mental illness, loneliness, sadness, etc.) may be less effective at attracting such social support (Burrow & Rainone, 2017), which may increase the users’ negativity and low-esteem even more. More recent research, however, has shown that even if “online selfdisclosure appears to be less fulfilling and beneficial for relationship quality than face-to-face self-disclosure” (Towner et al., 2022: n.a.), in the case of adolescents who suffer from social anxiety, it may have positive effects as it may help to pave the way for better offline social relationships. In other cases, however, it has been reported to seriously endanger offline relationships, as individuals may exclusively prefer to relate online, a phenomenon that is known in psychology as POSI (preference for online social interactions) (see Gioia & Boursier, 2022). This inconsistency in results has recently sparked the debate on the psychological benefits and drawbacks of online self-disclosure (see also Deutz et al., 2022 on the dangers of online self-disclosure for youth with borderline personality disorder (BPD) symptoms). These questions remain unanswered and in need of further research. Moreover, as the brief review above has shown, the approach has mostly been psychological, while a linguistic approach might shed some light on the issue. For instance, a sentiment analysis3 using corpus linguistic tools like Lingmotif might show whether self-disclosure is mostly related to positive or negative feelings.

2.3

How Do Others Respond to Self-Disclosure Online?

As the previous section has shown, the rationale behind self-disclosure has often been a key issue in its research. However, other users’ response to self-disclosure is also of paramount importance, even if it still remains relatively under-researched, especially from a pragmatics approach. This 3 Sentiment analysis and opinion mining are text analysis methods that identify and extract people’s opinions, attitudes and sentiments within a text (Zhang & Liu, 2017: 1153).

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section will briefly review some key studies in this area to find out how others react to public self-disclosure online and provide avenues for future research. Thus, it is possible to distinguish three major areas where responses to others’ self-disclosure have been looked into: e-commerce and the related context of sharing economy, online support groups and educational contexts. In the context of e-commerce (e.g., product reviews) and sharing economy (e.g., Airbnb), self-disclosure seems to trigger a positive response from other users as it leads to increased trust (Huang, 2015). For instance, Tussyadiah and Park (2018) found that customers on Airbnb were more likely to trust those “hosts” that self-disclosed personal information on their profile (such as their job), hence boosting the possibility of booking accommodation with them rather than with hosts that did not disclose any personal information, as they were regarded as less “trustworthy”. Similar results have been found by Nieto García et al. (2020), which show that self-disclosing “properly” may be strategically beneficial in the sharing economy, as guests are more willing to purchase when they can trust their host—an effect often derived from the right self-presentation strategy. Self-disclosure is also positively valued in contexts such as support groups. For example, in a recent empirical study on Facebook cancer support groups, Zhang et al. (2022) found that their over 300 participants perceived users that performed positive self-disclosure—i.e. revealing positive personal information- are more socially attractive than those that disclosed negative information about themselves. In other words, positivity was rewarded over authenticity (see Chapter 3). Interestingly, however, participants were also willing to respond privately to those users disclosing negative information as an indicator of their will to help, even if they found them socially unappealing. Finally, reactions to self-disclosure have also been studied in the field of education, with the main focus on how students (often in college) respond to their instructors’ self-disclosure of personal information online, an area that remains highly under-researched despite its acknowledged pedagogical implications (Hosek & Thompson, 2009; Mazer et al., 2007; McBride & Wahl, 2005), such as affective learning

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and increased students’ participation as they might feel closer to their teachers when they choose to disclose details of their personal lives. This area is particularly interesting as online self-disclosure by teachers seems to be very differently perceived by students when contrasted with offline self-disclosure in class. Thus, in past studies of offline instructorstudent relations, it was found that students tend to dislike instructors who disclose too much private information in class (Sorensen, 1989), especially if it is related to personal problems and personal opinions on politics and religion, which was regarded by students as highly inappropriate and even egocentric (Nunziata, 2007). Given the radical shift that teaching has experienced in the last years (especially as a result of online classes during and after Covid times), the study of online versus offline self-disclosure by teachers needs to be further investigated. Furthermore, even if teachers’ online self-disclosure is not “necessarily meant for students’ eyes” (DiVerniero & Hosek, 2011: 428), the fact is that this information is often on public display and, if so, it is hence accessible for students too. This research gap was addressed by different studies at the beginning of the 2010s when social networking sites like Facebook started blooming. One of the pioneer studies in this regard was Mazer et al. (2007), who investigated the relationship between teacher self-disclosure on Facebook and college student motivation, affective learning and classroom environment (e.g., anxiety filter). Following an empirical approach, the researchers created three different profiles with different levels of self-disclosure for the same instructor and asked students to rank them. Their participants invariably reported higher levels of motivation and affective learning in the case of high selfdisclosure, which seems to contradict offline results (see above). In a later study (Mazer et al., 2009), however, their participants also reported that high levels of self-disclosure on Facebook may render an image of the instructor as unprofessional, albeit relatable. In view of such results, the authors recommended instructors should be aware of how their online profiles on SNSs might play a role in how students—who admitted to checking these profiles— perceived them. In a similar vein, DiVerniero and Hosek (2011) carried out 21 semistructured interviews with US college students who had come across their instructors’ profile on Facebook (either intentionally or by chance)

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and asked them to what extent and how this may affect their further interaction with their instructors. Interestingly, students reported positive effects such as the fact that they felt their instructors had become more humanized, with personal life “outside the class”, which helped them to relate and boost their affective learning in class, lowering the anxiety filter—i.e. teachers were no longer perceived as distant figures but as accessible and someone “they could talk to”. There were, however, other negative feelings reported such as a feeling of awkwardness (especially when instructors were older), as they also became too “friendly”, which was a feeling they found odd as they were still their teachers, which seemed to reduce their perceived (and often idealized) professionality. More recent studies still report the same conflicting views, especially when contrasting online and face-to-face classes. Thus, Song et al. (2016) found that the positive effect of teacher self-disclosure was significantly stronger in online classes than in face-to-face ones, hence also improving the student’s overall learning experience (see also Song et al., 2019). Remarkably, self-disclosure in face-to-face classes was often perceived negatively by students when the information disclosed was unrelated to course materials. This makes it a fascinating avenue for future research, as it is still an under-explored area, especially in the Spanish context.

2.4

Demographic Variables and Their Effect on Self-Disclosure

Besides psychological aspects, variables such as gender, age or cultural background have also been extensively researched in connection to selfdisclosure online. As regards gender, it has been regularly reported that female users tend to disclose more than males independently of their age and culture (e.g., Dindia & Allen, 1992; Jaradat, 2020; Li et al., 2020; Zhang & Fu, 2020). The main argument these studies put forward is that females are socially expected to be more interpersonal and boost social relationships with others, while males are often taught to be more unemotional and transactional rather than interactional. Thus, “they [males] engage in less self-disclosure to fulfil such expectations” (Chu et al., 2023). These

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patterns thus seem to perpetuate long-established gender stereotypes. For example, in their study on athletes’ self-disclosure on Instagram, GeurinEagleman and Burch (2016) concluded that female athletes revealed more intimate information than their male counterparts. However, their study was rather limited, as it only studied eight Olympic athletes. These gender stereotypes seem, however, to persist over time. Similar results were obtained by Maíz-Arévalo (2018) on her study of WhatsApp profile statuses, where female users outnumbered male users in the display of emotions on their WhatsApp profile (83% and 17%, respectively)— especially younger users in their 20s and 30s. It was argued that “age seems to influence users when expressing more deep-seated emotions, with younger users opting to reveal them as a self-presentation strategy more often than older users” (Maíz-Arévalo, 2018: 155). Interestingly, the most commonly displayed emotion tends to be love for others— either a significant other or family members, which is often emphasised by means of emoji such as red hearts or kisses, as in the following examples from the same study, where users refer to their children or their couple (in both examples, the profile image presents the user together with her daughter (example 1) or with her husband in example 2): (1) Siempre juntitas [Translation: Always together] (2) Te quiero ♥ [Translation: I love you] In a similar vein, in a recent study on online self-disclosure in professional settings, Rothbard et al. (2022: n.a.) have shown that, when employees are “befriended” by their employers on social media, the former are more likely to connect with female bosses who disclose more, compared to those who disclose less, and compared to male bosses, regardless of self-disclosure. In other words, employees in their study seemed more comfortable connecting online with female bosses, as they

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expected females to promote rapport and interpersonal bonding more than their male bosses. However, other studies also show that these gender differences between female and male users may also vary according to the individual’s personality traits. For example, it has been argued that females with high self-esteem tend to disclose more than women with lower self-esteem (Sivagurunathan et al., 2019), and that shy female college students tend to disclose less than shy male college students (Li et al., 2020). Results, as can be seen, tend to vary given the methodological contexts of the different studies and the different motivations of each individual to self-disclose (e.g., stress, trauma, narcissism, need to connect, etc.). In my opinion, another major drawback shared by all these studies is that the notion of gender is often oversimplified by the dyadic contrast between males and females, which fails to acknowledge the complexity and fluidity of gender. In fact, some studies have suggested that some individuals may resort to social media precisely to experiment with different gender identities or to “come out” online as a safer means. For example, in their study on Malaysian LGTBQ youths, Tuah and Mazlan (2020) concluded that, for their 10 participants, Twitter played an important role as it helped them to reveal their true selves safely and find a sense of belonging to a community (especially for the transgender informants), something they felt they could not do offline without incurring a social backlash in their country. Similar results have been obtained by other studies, especially when the informants come from conservative countries that reject and stigmatize the LGTBQ community, and who thus find social media like Instagram, YouTube or Facebook a safe place to disclose their true sexual identity (see Jerome & Hadzmy, 2022; Wardana, 2022; among others). In summary, while gender seems to play a role in the amount and depth of self-disclosure, studies are still too limited to the dual contrast between females and males. With the current expansion of corpus linguistics, an interesting (and necessary) approach could be to scrutinize large corpora so as to get more consistent results in this regard. Besides gender, another demographic variable that has often been explored is age, regarding which most studies have focused on how

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adolescents perform self-disclosure online. Although results are far from consistent, it is widely assumed that youngsters tend to disclose more and more private information than older users, although there are studies contradicting such an assumption (see above). It is agreed, however, that different age groups have widely adopted social media, even if younger generations tend to abandon SNSs platforms when they become the “territory” of older generations. For example, among Spanish users, Facebook has become the SNS of “older users”. Thus, according to Statista, Facebook starts feeling “outdated” and is no longer used by the younger Z Generation,4 who prefer other SNS like TikTok or Instagram, maybe as a reaction against the older generations. Some studies have claimed that adolescents’ self-disclosure on social media was age-related and was shaped by development goals and life stages (Arpaci, 2020; Schouten et al., 2007). In an analysis of online job seekers’ self-disclosure, El Ouirdi et al. (2015) found that age moderated the relationship between professional online image concerns and inappropriate self-disclosure. Prior studies often concluded that youngsters felt quite comfortable revealing very personal and intimate information online in contrast to older users (e.g., Bronstein, 2013). Furthermore, more recent studies have revealed that adolescents (aged 12–13) seem to prefer online self-disclosure to face-to-face (Towner et al., 2022), even when disclosing very private information such as health-related issues (Lin et al., 2016), independently of their cultural backgrounds. In fact, Lin et al. (2016) contrasted self-disclosure by youngsters from very different cultural backgrounds (Hong Kong, South Korea and the USA). With regard to culture and how it affects self-disclosure, it is clear that socialization is largely influenced by culture and self-disclosure on social media is mostly about socialization (Wang et al., 2015). Hence, it can be expected that individuals from different cultures have different patterns of self-disclosure online as they have offline. The following paragraphs will provide an overview of the influence of culture on online selfdisclosure. As the review will show, the Spanish culture has been largely 4

Available at https://www.statista.com/topics/7455/facebook-in-spain/#topicOverview retrieved August 2023).

(last

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neglected in the literature, which has mostly focused on the so-called Eastern-Western divide. For example, in one of the pioneer studies contrasting self-disclosure culturally, Chen (1995) showed that, in face-to-face exchanges, American people tended to self-disclose significantly more over a variety of conversation topics and regardless of the target person than Chinese people, mostly as a result of the cultural dimension of individualism/ collectivism (see also Chen & Nakazawa, 2009), which has traditionally (and over-simplistically) been linked to Western and Eastern societies at large. According to Hofstede (1984, 2019), the dimension of individualismcollectivism relates to the degree to which individuals in a society see themselves as having more of an individual identity or as belonging to a group identity. This dimension has often been taken as a point of departure for cross-cultural comparisons, given that self-construal may largely be influenced by our perceived identity as individuals or as part of a group together with different privacy perceptions and concerns (see Oghazi et al., 2020). Hence, many studies concluded that people from individualist societies tended to self-disclose larger amounts of personal information (breadth) while those from collectivist societies were associated with higher disclosure depth (Bazarova & Masur, 2020). An interesting sub-dimension between individualism and collectivism is what is known as “gossiping culture”. For example, collectivist cultures tend to favour gossiping as a way to reinforce group bonding. Thus, Wenninger et al. (2019), in their study of Facebook users in Germany and Hong Kong, found that gossiping behaviour online was markedly different in both cultures. Similar results were obtained in a more recent study by Seo et al. (2022), where they contrasted SNS users in South Korea and Germany, without specifying any particular social networking site. Their results, which report the survey answered by 139 German and 127 South Korean users, show that South Korean users were significantly affected by the gossiping culture variable in contrast to the German ones. Furthermore, they valued self-disclosure as a way to connect with the group—i.e. perceived social benefit—while the German participants valued it as an informational benefit and preferred self-disclosing in anonymous settings.

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Apart from the dimension of collectivism/individualism, other cultural dimensions have also been taken into account given their close connection to self-disclosure and privacy concerns, such as the dimension of uncertainty avoidance—i.e. the degree to which individuals tolerate the unknown. Thus, for individuals belonging to high uncertainty avoidance cultures (as the Spanish one is supposed to be), disclosing too much information online may be perceived as a high risk, which may reduce their willingness to do so (albeit specific circumstances like a traumatic situation may increase the above-mentioned privacy paradox). For example, Krasnova et al. (2012) contrasted selfdisclosure in connection to the two cultural dimensions of individualism and uncertainty avoidance by surveying USA and German Facebook users. As expected, German users, who belong to a higher uncertainty avoidance culture than their US counterparts were more concerned about revealing personal information on Facebook, as they perceived it as riskier in terms of privacy concerns. To the best of my knowledge, there is a dearth of studies in the Spanish context, which might open interesting avenues for future research. I would advise, however, to pay attention to intra-cultural differences rather than applying the more simplistic and reductionist notion of “national culture”. The third cultural dimension at play in self-disclosure seems to be the masculinity-femininity dimension. According to Hofstede (2019), masculine societies promote performance, competitiveness, success, recognition, and ambition while feminine societies foster taking care of others, a good quality of life and equality, without standing out of the crowd. Different studies have contrasted self-disclosure online according to this dimension, albeit results are far from consistent. Thus, some studies report that masculine cultures, because of their users’ need for social recognition, often disclose personal information—often related to personal achievements—more frequently (Al Omoush et al., 2012). In a similar vein, in their contrastive study between the USA (a masculine society) and Morocco (a feminine one), it was shown that North Americans disclosed more information on SNSs (Veltri et al., 2011). Similar results were obtained by Robinson (2017), who also compared self-disclosure online between North American users and Estonian ones (the latter being considered a feminine culture).

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In contrast, other studies claim that it is feminine societies that tend to disclose as a way to boost reciprocity with others and social rapport. For example, in a more recent study, Oghazi et al (2020) also contrasted two European national cultures: Germany (a masculine society) and Norway (a highly feminine society). Norwegian users reported self-disclosing more and more often than their German counterparts, which may not only be due to the masculinity dimension but also to other sociocultural aspects such as the fact that German users, given their history, are more aware of privacy issues and feel more unwilling to self-disclose online. Despite the undeniable interest and insights provided by these studies, the lack of consistent results might derive from a reductionist approach to culture, which is often tackled in these analyses as “national culture”.5 A more nuanced approach might consider intra-cultural differences (e.g., different regions or educational backgrounds) in the study of online self-disclosure and supplement such analysis of data with other methodologies such as focus groups, interviews, etc. Furthermore, to my knowledge, other cultural dimensions like power distance, short-term versus long-term orientation or the more recent indulgence versus constraint, have not been taken into consideration when contrasting self-disclosure practices across different cultures. In addition, as the previous paragraphs have shown, most studies have focused on national cultures like the USA or Eastern cultures (China, South Korea). European cultures have received less attention, with the Spanish culture having practically been ignored despite some exceptions (see Maíz-Arévalo, 2018). The following section will partially redress this imbalance by presenting a case study focusing on Spanish Members of Parliament’s self-disclosure on their Twitter bios.

5 National culture is defined as the norms, behaviors, beliefs, customs, and values shared by the population of a sovereign nation (e.g., a Chinese or Canadian national culture) (Berrell, 2021).

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Case Study: Spanish Members of Parliament (MPs) Self-Disclosure on Twitter6 Bios

An interesting population to study in relation to self-disclosure is politicians, given that their being public figures entails the challenge of balancing their professional persona and their private one as a means to create rapport with their (potential) voters (Kruikemeier, 2014; Van Aelst et al., 2012). In other words, while they might be willing to disclose personal information to appear more friendly and humanized (what could be termed as the “s/he is one of us” strategy), revealing too much might also reduce their perceived professionality, especially if they “colour” self-disclosure with elements like emoji (Glikson et al., 2018). Although some studies have focused on politicians’ self-presentation on Twitter (e.g., Coesemans & De Cock, 2017; Fountaine, 2017; Mattan & Small, 2021), or Instagram (Brands et al., 2021; Grusell & Nord, 2020), this area is still under-researched, especially when considering politicians’ profile information on widely used platforms like Twitter, where previous studies have focused on tweets rather than on the bios, even if this is the first information users see on Twitter’s “who to follow” recommendations. In other words, the bio or profile can be regarded as a strategic “visiting card” and users need to carefully choose what and how to display about themselves in the 160 characters allowed by the SNS. As argued by Maíz-Arévalo and Carvajal-Martín (forthcoming), “choosing what and how to display is as important as what users choose to be left unsaid, especially when there is a limitation in the number of characters we can use for that purpose”. Another important focus of the study related to politicians’ selfdisclosure online has been gender differences (Beltrán et al., 2021; Coesemans & De Cock, 2017; Guerrero-Solé & Perales-García, 2021) while other variables such as political ascription—i.e. left versus rightwing—have been widely neglected. This case study aims to redress 6 Although Twitter has been renamed as X after its acquisition by magnate Elon Musk, users still find it hard to refer to it as X, which is the motivation why it will be quoted as Twitter in the present volume, to ease the reading process.

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this imbalance by focusing on self-disclosure by Spanish members of parliament (MPs henceforth) belonging to the two major political ascriptions—left and right.7 In addition, it attempts to illustrate a possible methodological approach to the study of online self-disclosure, which could prove useful to other researchers.

2.5.1 Methodological Considerations The Spanish parliament is integrated by 350 members. In the latest term (2019–2023), the number of MPs belonging to the left wing was slightly superior to that of the right-wing (190 and 160, respectively). The majority of MPs are on Twitter. In the case of the left-wing, 170 out of 190 have a Twitter account (89.5%) and 137 out of the 160 in the case of the right-wing (85.6%). All the profiles were manually gathered from the official parliament web page and copied without any editing on an Excel file (i.e. including typos, emoji, etc.). To avoid the effect of the variable of gender, which has been shown to play a statistically significant role in the self-presentation strategies (Maíz-Arévalo, 2023), only the male MPs from both ascriptions have been selected. Additionally, to keep the variable of age at bay, only the MPs belonging to the same age range (40–55) were considered. This rendered a dataset of 43 profiles belonging to the left-wing and 52 to the right-wing. Furthermore, since this chapter discusses self-disclosure, I will exclusively focus on both breadth and depth (see Sect. 2.1). Hence, breadth will be operationalized by counting the number of items that include personal information—i.e. family, civil status, place of birth, in line with previous investigations (see Sect. 2.1). Following this criterion, public positions such as “member of parliament” will not be quantified, as it is public information belonging to the politicians’ frontstage, and which can even be considered redundant. 7

There is a myriad of political parties with representation in the Spanish parliament. The distinction between right and left has been made with the help of Mr. Carvajal Martín, a sociologist and expert in politics. The division has been done according to the main political measures adopted by the different MPs and their parties, with special attention being paid to their approach to liberalism. I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. Carvajal Martín for his aid. All errors in this case study remain exclusively mine.

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On the other hand, depth will concentrate on how intimate this information is—i.e. family information is considered as socially acceptable in the Spanish culture while revealing religious beliefs or sexual orientation in this context might be regarded as socially inappropriate, despite the obvious limitations this distinction may pose (see discussion above on the evasiveness of “appropriateness”). Hence, and to operationalize this variable, I will consider as less intimate (and more socially accepted by the Spanish culture) the following thematic information, which has been data-driven and based on prior studies (see Maíz-Arévalo & Carvajal-Martín, forthcoming): family, educational background, occupation, hobbies, civil status, and place of birth. Likewise, private information such as sexual tendencies, or religious beliefs will be regarded as “deep” information, not likely to be publicly displayed on Twitter bios. To be able to quantify these results, no private information will be considered as 0, while “socially appropriate” information will be given a value of 1 and deep, intimate information will be given a value of 2. As an example of codification, let us consider these two different profiles, from a left-wing and right-wing MP, respectively: (1) Diputado socialista en el Congreso. Portavoz deporte. Abogado experto en derecho deportivo. (Translation: Socialist MP at the Congress. Spokesperson for sport. Lawyer expert in sport law) (2) Hijo adoptivo de Sevilla. Diputado XIV Legislatura del Congreso de los Diputados. Policía Nacional. Papix2. Semper Fidelis… (Translation: Adoptive son of Seville. MP 14th Term at the Congress. National policeman. Daddyx2. Semper Fidelis…) In terms of breadth, example (1) would be quantified as including one item of personal information, namely, educational background/ occupation (lawyer), which would also be quantified as 1 in terms of depth, as it is socially accepted information. Regarding example (2), it would include four items of personal information, along the themes of

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origin (Seville), occupation (national policeman), family (dad of 2 kids) and beliefs (semper fidelis is a Latin expression meaning “Always loyal” and commonly employed as the US Marines’ motto). In terms of depth, I have given it a valence of 2 given that the user includes his personal beliefs. It is also important to mention that Twitter profiles are typically multimodal, as MPs include their profile image and may also include other graphicons such as emoji. In this chapter, however, I will leave aside the profile picture (see Chapter 4) and exclusively concentrate on the written information provided in the “about me” bio. Finally, and given that right-wing politicians are often more conservative and focus on social values such as the family, it is hypothesized that they will include information about their family while left-wing politicians might be more “adventurous” and include more private information such as their sexual orientation—which, for example, might arguably attract potential voters from the LGTBIQ+ community. Therefore, breadth will present more quantitative results while depth will follow a qualitative thematic analysis, even if the main tendencies will be ratioed to allow for comparison between both groups.

2.5.2 Results In terms of the amount of personal information (breadth) given by the participants of the dataset, left-wing politicians seem to be less prone to offering personal information, as they use an average of 1.34 items per profile, whereas right-wing politicians are rather keen on providing personal information, with an average of 1.88 items per bio. In fact, some of the latter include a myriad of personal details, as in example (3), which includes the user’s civil status (“married”), his family (“four kids”), his academic background (“odontologist”), and the fact that he is also a reservist soldier in the Spanish Army (“sub-lieutenant”), apart from two public (frontstage) items (“major” and “MP”):

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(3) Estoy casado y tengo cuatro hijos. Soy Odontólogo, Alcalde de Villamayor de Calatrava, Diputado nacional del PP por CR y Alférez (RV) Fuerzas Armadas. (Translation: I’m married and have four children. I am an odontologist, Major of Villamayor of Calatrava, national MP of the PP for CR and Sub-Lieutenant (Volunteer reservist) of the Army). A thematic analysis of the profiles shows that socially appropriate categories such as educational background, occupation, or hobbies, are more commonly employed than more intimate personal information such as sexual tendencies, religion, feelings or beliefs, and even if the latter are quite recurrent in both groups. In terms of depth, there is a slight difference between left- and right-wing MPs, the mean in the left-wing being 1.04 and that of the right 1.07, which shows right-wing MPs tend to slightly disclose more intimate information than the other group. Table 2.1 summarizes both the number of tokens per theme and the equivalent ratio for ease of comparison. Differences, however, are not statistically significant as revealed by the X 2 test (p value = 0.474). As shown in Table 2.1, the most remarkable differences between both groups regard the themes of educational background and feelings (front and backstage information, respectively). Right-wing MPs are thus more prone to including information about their educational background and Table 2.1 Themes and depth according to political ascription Themes Educational background Occupation Family Origin Civil status Beliefs Hobbies Feelings Other SNS Religion Total

LEFT-WING

RIGHT-WING

Tokens

Ratio (%)

Tokens

Ratio (%)

10 15 3 5 0 13 5 3 1 0 55

18.18 27.27 5.45 9.09 0 23.63 9.09 5.45 1.81 0 100

20 19 7 8 3 17 5 0 4 1 84

23.80 22.61 8.33 9.52 3.57 20.23 5.95 0 4.76 1.19 100

Diff. 5.62% 4.65% 2.87% 0.43% 3.57% 3.39% 3.13% 5.45% 2.94% 1.19% 0

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occupation as part of their Twitter profile, maybe as an attempt to appear as well-prepared for their public position as MP, as illustrated by examples (4) and (5), in bold for the sake of clarity: (4) Diputado de @vox_es en el Congreso de los Diputados por #León. Vicepresidente de @Vox_Leon. Licenciado en Derecho y Procurador de los Tribunales. #VOX (Translation: Vox MP at the Congress for Leon County. Vicepresident of Vox Leon. Graduate in Law and Court barrister) (5) Licenciado en Historia. Presidente de @pplavall. Diputado por @popularescs en el Congreso de los Diputados. Portavoz de Educación del @gppopular. (Translation: Graduate in History. President of @pplavall. MP for @popularescs in the Congress. Spokesperson of Education of @gppopular. On the other hand, left-wing MPs refer just to their occupation, leaving their academic background implicit, as in examples (6) and (7), where the users do not explicitly state they have a degree (or even a PhD), but this is implied by the fact that they are university professors, the user in example (7) even indicating that he is on unpaid leave while working as an MP, to explicitly state that he is not receiving a double salary: (6) Profesor Derecho Constitucional. Diputado por Barcelona @EnComu_Podem Secretario 1ero de la Mesa del Congreso en Madrid. (Translation: Professor of Constitutional Law. MP for Barcelona @EnComu_Podem 1st Secretary of the Congress Board in Madrid. (7) Profesor de sociología de @unizar (en excedencia). Diputado del PSOE por Zaragoza. Presidente de la Comisión de Asuntos Exteriores. Razonar y convencer.

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(Translation: Professor of Sociology at the University of Zaragoza (unpaid leave). MP for PSOE for Zaragoza. President of the Foreign Affairs Commission. To reason and convince.) Regarding the expression of feelings and personal emotions, it can arguably be considered as deep self-disclosure, as it belongs to the users’ backstage self-presentation. Albeit not too frequent (there are only 3 occurrences among left-wing MPs and none among their right-wing counterparts), it is interesting that it is left-wing politicians who choose to include this information in their Twitter profile, which involves their concerns and preoccupations, maybe as an attempt to appear as more humane, sensitive, but also to boost other users’ empathy, as in example (8): (8) Diputado por el @psealava. Hacia la #TransiciónEcológica de la economía. Preocupado por el #MedioAmbiente. Aquí también en #equipo. Opiniones personales. (Translation: MP for @psealava. Towards the #EcologicalTransition of economy. Worried about the #Environment. Here also as a #team. Personal opinions. Closely related to the expression of feelings as deep self-disclosure is the expression of personal beliefs. Although there are not remarkable quantitative differences between both groups (23.63% and 20.23% among the left- and the right-wings, respectively), their beliefs are unsurprisingly different and connected to their political ideologies. Thus, while left-wing MPs often refer to their belief in social equality and equity (example 9) whilst right-wing politicians express their belief in liberalism as an economic force and the nation (in a populist echo of politicians like Trump and his motto “Make America great again”) as in examples (10) and (11): (9) Alcalde de Mezquita de Jarque, Diputado de las Cortes Generales en Madrid del PSOE por Teruel Luchando por la igualdad, equidad el equilibrio territorial.

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(Translation: Major of Mezquita de Jarque, MP of the Congress in Madrid, of PSOE for Teruel. Fighting for equality, equity in the territorial balance). (10) Valenciano. Secret Electoral de @Populares. Portvoz (sic) política territorial en el @GPPopular y Diputado. Mejorar España para nuestros hijos es un reto necesario. (Translation: Valencian. Electoral secretary of @Populares. Spokesperson of territorial policy in @GPPopular and MP. To improve Spain for our children is a necessary challenge). (11) Sí, lo reconozco, soy liberal. Secretario General del @GPPopular en @Congreso_ES. Diputado por Las Palmas. Quiero que España mire al futuro #GranCanaria (Translation: Yes, I admit it, I am a liberal. General Secretary of @GPPopular in the Spanish Congress. MP for Las Palmas. I want Spain to look at the future. #GranCanaria) Finally, another interesting (albeit not statistically significant difference) is the fact that none of the left-wing MPs make any reference to their civil status, while this information is included by three of the rightwing MPs, together with their family information. Family information (the number of children they have, for example) is often favoured by the right-wing, probably in an attempt to present a balanced image of themselves as professional but also “family guys’, which is often positively valued in the case of male politicians but negatively regarded in the case of female politicians (see McGregor et al., 2017 on US politicians). As Ekman and Widholm (2017: 25) also point out in their study on Swedish politicians’ self-disclosure on Instagram, “showcasing a high family connectivity could be an assumed strategic choice for politicians in a conservative and ‘family value’ oriented party” (my emphasis). This seems to explain why, among the right-wing MPs, it is more frequent to refer to families than among the left-wing ones, even if they also do so to

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a lesser extent (8.33% versus 5.35% respectively), as illustrated by examples (12) to (15), the first two by right-wing MPs and the other two by left-wing ones, with right-wing MPs often indicating the number of children they also have (as their families are often numerous) while left-wing MPs just refer to their role as fathers: (12) MBA • Diputado en @Congreso_Es: Portavoz de Economía y Empresa de @populares • Padre de Familia Numerosa • de Almería (Translation: MBA • MP at @Congress_ES: Spokesperson of Economy and Entreprise of @populares • Father of a large family • from Almeria) (13) Profesor Sociología @esiczaragoza Casado y padre de tres niños. Liberal, en el PP desde 1995. Diputado en @congreso_Es (Translation: Professor of Sociology at @esiczaragoza Married and father to three children. Liberal, in the PP since 1995. MP at the Spanish Congress @congreso_Es) (14) Papá. Diputado por Barcelona en el @congreso_es. Portavoz de Justicia del @gpscongreso. Sabadellenc nascut i criat a L’Hospitalet. Bético. (Translation: Dad. MP for Barcelona at the @congreso_es. Spokesperson of Justice at @gpscongreso. Born in Sabadell and raised in L’Hospitalet. Supporter of the Betis football team.) (15) Presidente del Gobierno de #España. Padre. Secretario Gral del @PSOE. Trabajamos por instituciones dignas, la igualdad y la justicia. (Translation: President of the Government of #Spain. Father. General Secretary of the @PSOE. We work for worthy institutions, equality and justice.)

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The results presented above partially support the initial hypotheses. As expected, more conservative politicians—i.e. those pertaining to the right-wing—seem more prone to disclose personal information related to their civil status and their family. However, left-wing politicians do not disclose too deep information, although they include beliefs and feelings in their Twitter profiles slightly more often than their right-wing counterparts, which might indicate a desire to boost other users’ own beliefs and their empathy, especially when expressing their own concerns and preoccupations (see example 8).

2.6

Chapter Summary

This chapter has focused on the two dimensions of breadth and depth— i.e. the amount of personal information presented and the intimacy level of such information. Taking this as a point of departure, Sect. 2.2. discussed the main reasons why users choose to disclose personal information online, despite the so-called privacy paradox. Besides the feelings of connectedness, it was also shown that specific individual circumstances may also affect self-disclosure. For example, highly stressed individuals have been shown to self-disclose more frequently (breadth) and intimately (depth) than less stressed individuals, in spite of similar levels of privacy concerns. Next, we discussed to what extent demographic variables such as age, gender or cultural background may affect self-disclosure. The review of different studies reveals mixed results, often as a consequence of methodological characteristics such as the number of participants or the way the data was gathered (e.g., surveys where participants self-report their own self-disclosure habits may not coincide with what they actually do on social media). A less explored area is how users react to others’ selfdisclosure, for example, in the educational context, where students have been surveyed regarding their professors’ self-disclosure on social media. As in the previous case, results are often mixed, being on the whole a rather under-researched area. Finally, Sect. 2.5 has presented a case study to explore the notions of breadth and depth in the specific context of male Spanish MPs

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of different political ascriptions but the same age and gender, with results showing a preference among right-wing politicians to disclose personal information regarding their civil status and family, maybe as an attempt to attract more conservative voters for whom family values are of importance.

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3 Positivity and Authenticity

3.1

Introduction

One of the dimensions of self-presentation is positivity, also known as positive self-presentation (PSP henceforth). Positivity involves users strategically presenting themselves in a positive light by enhancing their positive qualities, e.g., physical, social, psychological, etc. and denying or avoiding the bad ones. PSP can be regarded as “the behavioural manifestation of self-enhancement” (Lee-Won et al., 2014: 414), as it involves the motivation to enhance the positivity of self-views but also social approval by others. This is why many scholars have interchangeably used the terms self-enhancing presentation and positive self-presentation (Tice et al., 1995; Ungar, 1980). In the present chapter, however, I shall exclusively refer to positive self-presentation. As with other dimensions (see Chapter 2), positive self-presentation has also attracted scholarly attention mostly in the area of (social) psychology, as PSP may contribute to the individual’s psychological wellbeing and self-esteem (Michikyan et al., 2015; Toma, 2016), especially among individuals who are still in the process of developing a sense of self such as adolescents (Metzler & Scheithauer, 2017). © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Maíz-Arévalo, The Power of Self-Presentation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52931-3_3

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In the pioneering works on self-presentation in face-to-face interaction, PSP was divided into two different styles: protective and acquisitive. Protective self-presentation involves the avoidance of social disapproval (e.g., by avoiding performing a cultural taboo in public such as farting in some cultures, or denying it if it happens). Acquisitive self-presentation, on the other hand, refers to the pursuit of social approval and positive impression formation, for example, by following the appropriate dress code for a specific event (Arkin, 1981; Hermann & Arkin, 2013; Leary & Allen, 2011; Wolfe et al., 1986). If positive self-presentation is frequent in face-to-face interactions, it seems to have become pervasive in digital communication and social media use from its early days (Rosenberg & Egbert, 2011) to the present time. As rightly pointed out by Schlosser (2020: 5), “those posting on social media have become performers who present an edited version of themselves that they believe will be best received by others” (Emphasis mine). According to Lee-Won et al. (2014: 414), “in the context of social media use, these two strategic self-presentation styles could be translated into two forms of communication behaviors: (1) controlling negative other-provided information about the self and (2) disclosing or sharing positive self-provided information”. In other words, users can deny or, when possible, “untag” or remove unwanted other-provided information concerning the self. In fact, and in contrast to face-to-face self-presentation, which may be slightly more spontaneous; digital selfpresentation provides users with the affordances to “curate” and more strategically display a positive image of the self, as users may carefully edit and select what aspects of the self to display (Gioia et al., 2021; Human et al., 2012; Throuvala et al., 2019; Walther et al., 2015). Hence, pictures can be edited, retaken as many times as necessary, cut where users consider it best, filters may be applied, messages can be deleted and re-written and so on, which cannot be easily done in face-to-face interaction. This enhanced positivity has given rise to what scholars have termed the “positivity bias”. The positivity bias has been defined as “the extent to which social media users strategically post self-related content which is typically highly selective, curated and unspontaneous as the goal of a

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positive self-presentation prevails over other goals of social media usage” (Schreurs & Vandenbosch, 2021: 329). In other words, presenting a pessimistic, apprehensive, sad or negative persona is extremely rare in nonymous1 settings as opposed to disclosing happy or fun moments. Arguably, the positivity bias also seems closely connected to what has been termed the Pollyanna principle or effect, according to which human beings have a tendency to remember pleasant items more accurately than unpleasant ones (Boucher & Osgood, 1969), hence wanting to share such pleasantness with others on social media rather than the opposite, as the former experiences might be more “memorable” also to others. However, Maíz-Arévalo (2017: 586) argues that “some ‘negative’ comments may occasionally make the user appear as a socially desirable, feeling and committed person, as in the case of indignation or anger at social injustice or when publicly expressing their condolences”. She illustrates this with an example by celebrity David Ghetta, who publicly expressed his sadness that his friend had passed away, receiving many positive reactions from other users (e.g., hearts and hugs emojis): Alan, I just can’t believe you’ve gone, my friend. Thank you for all you did for me. I lost my production manager and the house community lost a true music lover. I’m hurting and sending love to Lainie, family and friends.

The positivity bias often clashes against another dimension of selfpresentation: authenticity. Authenticity is defined as the degree to which the displayed information reflects reality accurately (Yang & Brown, 2016). Too much positivity may thus alter authenticity to the extent that there is a discrepancy between the “real” and the “displayed” individual, which can also lead not only to social negative effects but also to a psychologically distorted perception of the “true self ”, often in favour of the enhanced self displayed in the media. In the case of adolescents, the population that has been more thoroughly studied in the field of social psychology, such identity shift has been shown to boost positive 1 In contrast to “anonymous” settings, which “can be defined as those where it may be hard for users to trace back to their interlocutors offline”, nonymous settings, on the other hand, “reflect self-presentations easily traceable to offline contexts” (Maíz-Arévalo, 2017: 577).

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psychological aspects such as self-esteem but also extremely negative and destructive psychological effects such as anxiety, dissatisfaction with the “real” persona, depression and even the fear to relate to others offline, as they might perceive their true, unenhanced self (Gonzales & Hancock, 2011; Luo & Hancock, 2020; Michikyan, 2022; Reinecke & Trepte, 2014; Schreurs & Vandenbosh, 2021, 2022; Throuvala et al., 2019; Valkenburg, 2017; among many others). In other words, while projecting a positive image of the self might be desirable, it is advisable not to “stretch the truth” (Yurchisin et al., 2005: 742). In fact, Toma and Hancock (2010) highlight the importance, especially in “nonymous” mediums like Facebook, to strike a balance between the desire to enhance the self and the need to present an accurate view of the self since doing the opposite, i.e. posting an unfaithful photograph, may easily attract the other users’ mockery (jocular or not) and even develop feelings of distress, anxiety or lower self-esteem when there is a high degree of inconsistency between the displayed self-presentation and the “true self ” (Grieve & Watkison, 2016; Grieve et al., 2020; Kim & Lee, 2011; among others). This chapter will deal with the dimensions of positivity and authenticity, by focusing on the rationale behind individuals’ enhancement of the self, often in detriment of authenticity and despite the potential negative social consequences of how others may perceive them (Sect. 3.2). Cultural differences regarding these two dimensions will be explored in Sect. 3.3. The chapter will also discuss a specific strategy closely connected to positivity such as the use of eudaimonic or inspirational self-presentations (Sect. 3.4). By way of illustration, the chapter closes with a case study of inspirational self-presentations by Peninsular Spanish women on Instagram (Sect. 3.5), before presenting a summary of the chapter in Sect. 3.6.

3.2

Why Do Users Tend to Enhance the Self?

The question that the discussion above raises is why users tend to enhance the self if this might imply negative social consequences. For example, users of e-dating services have often reported feeling “disappointed” or even outraged when meeting offline the person they had

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liked online, as they looked very different from the pictures that they had posted not only physically but also personality terms (Ellison et al., 2012; Guadagno et al., 2012; Toma & Hancock, 2010; Whitty, 2008; among others). Yet, users of e-dating services have consistently been shown to keep on misrepresenting themselves (Lim, 2022; Pirrello, 2022). This human need to “enhance the self ” usually depends upon the users’ interactional intentions, not only in the case of e-dating but also in other objectives such as, for example, increasing the number of “friends” on Facebook, followers on Twitter, TikTok or Instagram; or augmenting the possibility of attracting “contacts, contracts, customers, or employers” on platforms like LinkedIn (van Dijck, 2013: 203). While admitting that anonymity may indeed play a role in users’ choosing positivity in detriment of authenticity, as revealed by many pioneer studies on online selfpresentation (Papacharissi, 2002; Qian & Scott, 2007; Rosenmann & Safir, 2006; Suler, 2002; just to mention a few); more recent research has also shown that users may also tend towards self-enhancement even in “nonymous” environments, especially as they attempt to appeal to their “imagined” audiences (Marwich & Boyd, 2011; see also Schlosser, 2020). For example, Maíz-Arévalo (2017: 578) argues that users still prefer to project an enhanced image of the self also in nonymous settings, although they might stick closer to authenticity in such contexts. As an example, she mentions different “nonymous” Twitter profiles (including her own, quoted here as example 3), where there is a combination of professional characteristics and positive personal features (her emphasis): (1) Teacher, teacher trainer, writer, raconteur and general bon viveur. (2) English trainer 30 + yrs, coach 4 IELTS 7/8 and English 4 work. Gapfillers elearning, total immersion courses UK, committed 2 helping people B the best they can B! (3) Lecturer in English and Linguistics at Complutense University of Madrid. Love my job, reading, learning and languages, among many other things! As already pointed out, presenting a positive image requires striking a careful balance. In Yang and Brown’s words (2016: 4): “to make themselves appear as an attractive social partner, people need to strike a

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balance between desirability (positivity) and accuracy”. In the same line, West and Trester (2013: 137) argue that “doing positive facework in posts is a bit of a balancing act; it can easily tip into a threat to a member’s positive face—painting them as a braggart—if done incorrectly”. Users in different cultures consistently perceive positive self-presentation and self-praise in a negative light due to its clash against the politeness maxim of modesty2 (see Ren & Guo, 2020). However, there are also some online communities of practice where self-praise may be approved of and desirable (see Dayter, 2014), highlighting the fine line between the two phenomena. In general terms, however, providing too positive a personal description can have the undesirable effect of getting disliked, as in the following Facebook joke by West and Trester (2013: 142), where a highly positive self-presentation on a fake Facebook post provokes the following disapproving (and highly humorous) reaction by other users: (Fig. 3.1).

Fig. 3.1 Facebook joke (quoted in West and Trester, 2013: 142)

2

The maxim of modesty is one of the six maxims that constitute the principle of politeness, developed by Leech (1983). The maxim of modesty is paired with approbation. The rest of the maxims are tact (paired with generosity), agreement and sympathy.

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Fig. 3.2 Instagram versus reality memes3

Indeed, the profusion of memes laughing at how online depiction fails to meet reality shows that this is an aspect that ordinary users are well aware of. For example, the following memes reflect how Instagram pictures often enhance reality to the extent that they no longer reflect it authentically: (Fig. 3.2). These humorous examples emphasize how positive self-disclosure may be risky if not mitigated and eventually become counterproductive, causing a negative impression on other users. This can clearly be seen in the following extract from Maíz-Arévalo (2015: 304) where a user posts the news of his best employee prize-winning but carefully mitigates the whole message by saying he does not really deserve such a prize and thankfully complimenting all his colleagues: A real honour, I don’t think I deserve it, because all my colleagues are fantastic, but it’s made me really happy. Thanks, thanks everyone!

However, in the same study, a highly positive comment that is left unmitigated is met with a great deal of jocular mockery by his Facebook friends, as shown in the following extract (Maíz-Arévalo, 2015: 305):

3

Accessible at https://cheezburger.com/8352773/instagram-vs-reality-memes-show-how-damnfake-people-are-on-social-media (Last accessed August 2023).

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(Context: User 1 has posted a photograph of himself practicing what looks like a yoga position). User User User User

1: 2: 3: 1:

I didn’t know I was that flexible Impressive :-0 I won’t be impressed till you levitate, man haha, very funny

As shown by the previous references, Facebook has received a great deal of scholarly attention with respect to how it fosters strategic and selective self-presentation behaviours “showcasing” the self in an exclusively positive manner. More recently, however, other platforms such as Instagram have become the focus of scholarly interest. In contrast to Facebook, Instagram has been argued “to promote their [users’] self-concept rather than connecting with others” (Jackson & Luchner, 2017: 2). This might explain why self-enhancement is actively searched for on Instagram often to the detriment of authenticity (see Fig. 3.2). Indeed, this “positivity” trend has become so pervasive on platforms such as Facebook or Instagram that other users may develop negative feelings of anxiety and even depression as they perceive that other people “are happier and having better lives” than themselves (Chou & Edge, 2012: 117; see also De Vries & Kühne, 2015; Hwnag, 2019; Pera, 2018; Tandoc et al., 2015; inter alia). Similarly, many users have been reported to get anxious when their enhanced self-presentation—e.g., in the form of a curated, filtered image of the self—does not obtain the desirable amount of positive reactions from other users (see Jackson & Luchner, 2017). Interestingly, however, more recent studies point to the emergence of authenticity over positivity among younger users in what appears to be a shift in favour of depicting an authentic self. For example, in their study on Spanish adolescent self-presentation on Instagram and TikTok, Hernández-Serrano et al. (2022: 54) show that their participants “share the most realistic versions of themselves with real photos” and they increasingly avoid using filters to enhance their visual image hence aiming for “authenticity” rather than “self-enhancement” (see also Calvin, 2020; Dilon, 2020).

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This shift towards authenticity and spontaneity in contrast to the “fake perfectionism” exhibited in most social media might also explain the increasing popularity of social networking sites like BeReal, or less known ones like Dispo or Poporazzi. In the case of Spain, BeReal is indeed the most popular platform. It is a photo-sharing application that currently has over 700,000 users only in Spain and that allows users to post one photo per day to show their followers what they are doing in real-time, without any kind of filter or editing time. In fact, the app only gives its users 2 minutes to upload their photos. Remarkably, BeReal is mostly employed by youngsters between the ages of 18 and 24 years old,4 what is commonly known as the Zen Gen. Furthermore, Hernández-Serrano et al. (2022) found no differences between Instagram and TikTok in terms of gender, which also may be indicating a fluctuation in the latter social variable towards more egalitarian practices. Similar results regarding authenticity over positivity have been reported by Kondakciu et al. (2022) in their study of selfpresentation on Facebook and Instagram by North American Millenials. Future research should zero in on exploring this increasing shift from self-enhancement to authenticity in different cultural backgrounds and platforms, and the users’ underlying rationale for such a change. Furthermore, other age spans, rather than adolescents and young adults, might be explored, to see whether they also accommodate what seems to be a new tendency to authenticity in self-presentation practices, as previous research has often focused on the first two age spans in detriment of others (see Sect. 3.5).

3.3

Positivity, Authenticity and Culture

Research has consistently shown that cultural identity influences online self-presentation (Kim & Papacharissi, 2003; Rui & Stefanone, 2013). Cultural dimensions such as collectivism-individualism have long been researched in connection with self-presentation, leading to different 4

Available at https://www-statista-com.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/statistics/1311156/cumulativedownloads-bereal-app-by-country/ (Last accessed October 2023).

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studies where national cultures such as the USA are contrasted with Eastern collectivist cultures such as the Chinese or the Korean ones. The different studies that will be reviewed in the coming paragraphs depart from the same hypothesis: being a high individualist culture where individual-oriented achievement is highly valued (Baumeister et al., 1989), US subjects are generally expected to favour positive selfpresentation. In contrast, East Asians, with a tradition deeply rooted in collectivism, Confucianism and social harmony, are more likely to pay close attention to negative information about the self (Heine et al., 2000; Kurman & Sriram, 1997), admit their own shortcomings and exhibit self-criticism (Heine et al., 1999; Kitayama et al., 1997), and value modesty while refraining from boastful selfpresentation. (Kurman & Sriram, 1997; Lee & Park, 2011) (Lee-Won et al., 2014: 416)

Following these hypotheses, there are different studies contrasting Western (mostly the USA) and Eastern cultures, often adopting what could be regarded as an oversimplistic approach to culture, commonly perceived as “national culture”, something authors tend to admit as a limitation, being aware that it is difficult to picture a solid and stable “Chinese” or “US culture”, where all the individuals behave in a certain (and somehow deterministic) way (see also Chapter 2). For example, Rui and Stefanone (2013) compared the online behaviour of Facebook users in the USA and Singapore when managing other users’ comments (especially negative ones), which might affect their own self-presentation. Although not specifically centred on positive self-presentation, the authors found that North American users were more likely to engage in protective self-presentation by untagging or asking to untag unwanted photos of themselves than Singaporean users. The main reason behind such behaviour being that North American users were more individualistic and hence more willing to make a positive impression of the self than their Singaporean counterparts. Specifically focusing on the dimension of positivity in self-presentation is the study by Mazur and Li (2016). This is another of the pioneer studies that contrasted an individualist and a collectivist culture. The

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authors compared Chinese and US young adults’ self-presentations on different social media such as blogs or platforms popular at the time such as MySpace. The authors departed from the hypothesis that US users would favour a more positive self-presentation as an effect of their belonging to a more individualist culture while the Chinese users, being part of a collectivist culture where modesty is highly favoured socially, would tend to mitigate positive self-presentation. Their results showed that positive self-presentation was highly common among the US subjects (in 89.1% of the cases) whereas the Chinese ones favoured more self-deprecating, self-effacing, and even negative presentations of the self (also in contrast to the positivity bias), resorting to positive selfpresentations only in 16.3% of the cases. Quite significantly, the authors contrast the following two examples by a US participant and a Chinese one (Mazur & Li, 2016: 107): Pretty laid back and don’t care for other people’s drama. (by a male US participant). I’m now lonely and desperate. I can finally understand what ‘you don’t know what u have until it’s gone’ means. (by a male Chinese participant)

Another interesting difference reported by the authors was the fact that, even if both groups tended to describe themselves physically, US participants did so to a greater extent, often including positive evaluations about the self (“young, smart, gorgeous”) in contrast to the Chinese subjects, who might even describe themselves as “unattractive” or “plain”. A similar contrastive study was carried out by Lee-won et al. (2014), who compared self-presentation between South Korean and US university students using Facebook. The authors also reported that the US participants engaged in positive self-presentation to a significantly greater extent than the South Korean participants, mostly as a result of their differences in the individualistic-collectivistic continuum (see also Cho (2010); Kim and Papacharissi (2003) on USA and Korean social media). Although it does not contrast cultures but methodologies, it is worth mentioning Shim et al.’s (2016) study on positive self-presentation on Facebook by South Korean college students. Adopting both a survey and an empirical approach based on an experiment, the authors found

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that self-construal—i.e. how we understand ourselves in relation to other people—played a crucial role in positive self-presentation. Selfconstrual may be independent, where the individual perceives the self as distinct from others (hence similar to some extent to the cultural dimension of individualism) or interdependent, in which case the individual perceives him/herself in connection with others (hence closer to the cultural dimension of collectivism) (Levine et al., 2003; Oyserman et al., 2002). The authors found that participants favouring interdependent self-construal tended to avoid positive self-presentation as it was perceived to go against social harmony, also typical of collectivist societies (Lee & Park, 2011). An interesting aspect of this study is that the authors admit that reducing individuals to their national culture is oversimplifying the complexity of culture itself, as individuals may not necessarily conform to the typical values of the culture to which they are supposed to belong (see also Triandis, 2001). As the brief review above has shown, most of these studies were interested in what traditionally was known as the Eastern-Western divide, which seemed to become a popular subject of research in different fields during the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Oversimplifications based on “cultural differences” should, however, be carefully avoided as they may contribute to boosting cultural stereotypes (Jiang et al., 2009). As the study by Shim et al. (2016), already revised, shows, the way individuals choose to perform self-presentation cannot be reduced to their national culture but may be influenced by personal and psychological characteristics unique to each of them. Nevertheless, and as already mentioned in Sect. 3.2. it might be interesting to explore this apparent shift towards authenticity from a cross-cultural perspective and include a more linguistic approach. For example, the study of the adjectives employed by users when describing the self in combination with the type of speech act used (e.g., representatives versus expressives) might shed light on whether self-presentation favours authenticity or positivity.

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Eudaimonic Self-Presentation

Within the dimension of positivity, the use of eudaimonic or inspirational quotes (e.g., “Carpe diem”) stands out also as an example of the Pollyanna effect, as users employing them are presenting a positive view on human connection, endurance and the notion of life as fleeting and precious, even when circumstances may be hard and adverse (Oliver & Bartsch, 2011), all in all displaying an optimistic approach to life. Rieger and Klimmt (2019) expand these three themes of eudaimonic quotes by including others that connect more directly to users’ “practical life” such as finding inspiration to hit the gym (what is increasingly becoming known currently as “fitspiration”). Indeed, inspirational quotes have become so pervasive online that they may be considered a genre of its own, with previous studies reporting that online users showed a high level of sharing intentions when receiving inspirational messages (Clayton et al., 2021; Dale et al., 2020; Mayshak et al., 2017; Rieger & Klimmt, 2019; Veszelszki, 2018; among others). For example, in their study of Malaysian WhatsApp users, Yu and Kamarulzama (2016), found that inspirational messages were (together with jokes, information-related messages and funny advertisements) among the most popular and shared messages. Inspirational messages have also been researched on other social media such as Facebook, Tumblr or YouTube. Thus, Rieger and Klimmt (2019) analysed inspirational messages on Tumblr. Their study reveals that users often consume inspirational messages as a motivating “daily dose”, which they find to be triggering positive effects on them. The exchange of inspirational messages on YouTube has also led to interesting research. For instance, the analysis of Dale et al. (2017) of 100 “inspirational” YouTube videos shows that the actual response by participants is positive, with a great majority reporting positive emotions when receiving this type of message. In a further study, Dale et al. (2020) carried out a national survey of over 2,200 US Facebook users and found that 76.5% of the informants found these inspirational posts truly inspiring. The popularity of such inspirational messages might also explain why there are whole Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram pages devoted

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to inspirational content, often following a multimodal pattern easily recognizable by other users, as illustrated by Fig. 3.3., with a myriad of webpages providing free quote generators in this line. The profusion of this kind of image has, in turn, triggered a humoristic sub-genre of mock inspiration or unspirational quotes (see Chapter 4). In a previous study (Maíz-Arévalo, 2021), I argued that inspirational quotes play a crucial role in self-presentation strategies, as individuals choose to appear as optimistic, wise and with a positive attitude to life, willing to share this optimistic stance with others. This kind of message has often been referred to as a typical tactic among micro-celebrities (e.g., Dunn & Falkof, 2021), especially frequent among female ones (see Arrosa & Gandelman, 2016; Meisenberg & Woodley, 2015; Zweig, 2014, among others). Despite the importance of eudaimonic messages, they are still relatively under-researched in social media, as pointed out by Rieger and Klimmt (2019: 98), “little is known so far about the prevalence, topics, and contexts of eudaimonic message content in social media”. To which we might add the need to understand how users employ this kind of message to perform self-presentation and what the most common and recurrent linguistic patterns are that have turned inspirational quotes into a genre of its own. To the best of my knowledge, the only study that has focused on eudaimonic messages in Spanish is Maíz-Arévalo (2021),

Fig. 3.3 Examples of inspirational quotes online

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where I carried out a study of eudaimonic messages as self-presentation strategies on WhatsApp status profiles. The study of a representative sample of WhatsApp statuses revealed that, albeit not being the most frequent strategy, inspirational statuses still accounted for more than 10% of the dataset, with statuses either taken from well-known quotes (example 1) or popular culture such as inspiring song lyrics5 (examples 2 and 3) (Maíz-Arévalo, 2021: 74–75). Apart from using ready-made inspirational quotes, users could also selfedit and recreate their own inspirational quotes, as in the fourth example, where the user reinforces the positivity of her status by adding a smiling emoji: (1) (2) (3) (4)

“Carpe diem” (Seize the moment) “I believe I can fly” (original in English) “Hoy puede ser un gran día” (Today can be a great day) “Sonríele a la vida y disfruta cada instante ” (Smile at life and enjoy every moment)

Interestingly, through the use of WordSmith, the study also revealed that the most commonly employed lexical word was vida (“life”) (and its translations into other languages), closely followed by tiempo (time) and sonreír (smile). This seems to point to the common theme in eudaimonic messages of the need to enjoy life given its futility (Oliver & Bartsch, 2011). A second common theme that emerged was the need to show a positive attitude in life despite its occasional harshness, as in examples 5 and 6 (the former was originally written in English). Example (6) has been taken from the title of a self-help book written by a well-known Spanish female singer who survived breast cancer and wrote about her own experience to inspire other patients to fight against the disease. (5) A shower of colours for cloudy days (6) Enamorá de la vida aunque a veces duela (In love with life even if it sometimes hurts) 5 Example 2 is the title of the popular song by American Singer R. Kelly while example 3 is the title of a song by the well-known Spanish song-writer Joan Manuel Serrat.

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In terms of pragmatics, inspirational statuses are often presented either as representative speech acts—i.e. acts where users state a fact; expressives—i.e. acts where users express their feelings and emotions (as in example 6) and, finally, as directive speech acts—i.e. acts where users demand some kind of response or action from other users, such as advice (as in example 4). Directives are especially interesting as they are highly face-threatening speech acts, which endanger other interlocutors’ freedom of action, for example, by telling them what they should do (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Other users, thus, could feel imposed upon by this kind of self-presentation strategy, which might henceforth be counterproductive against the user’s initial intentions. This rejection could also explain why inspirational quotes have triggered their own anti-genre in the form of mock inspirational quotes (see above and Chapter 4). As expected, the use of eudaimonic messages as a self-presentation strategy was more frequently found among female users, especially middle-aged women (in their 40s or 50), with younger users and male users rarely employing them, although the sample was too limited to allow for generalizations. To expand on the previous study, this chapter closes with a case study of Instagram bios by Spanish middle-aged women.

3.5

Case Study6 : Self-Presentation on Instagram Bios by Middle-Aged Spanish Women

As already mentioned, the study of Spanish users’ self-presentation on Instagram has been overlooked in favour of other cultures such as the US, China or Korea (although see Gras-Velázquez and MaestreBrotons, 2023 on Spanish gay men self-presentation on Instagram or Hernández-Serrano et al., 2022 on Spanish adolescents’ self-presentation 6 I would like to thank Mr. Carlos Carvajal Martín, a sociologist, for his valuable contribution to this case study, not only for his help in the compilation of the dataset but also for his insightful remarks. Needless to say, all remaining errors are exclusively my own.

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on Instagram and TikTok). Furthermore, within these cultures, the population that has received the most attention has been adolescents and young adults (often university studies) in detriment of other age spans, probably because they were the most accessible population to researchers. This case study intends to fill this gap, even if partially, by focusing on a group of middle-aged Spanish women to analyse how they perform self-presentation in their Instagram bios. Besides the already mentioned lack of research on Spanish users of Instagram, there are two main reasons for the choice of this social networking site. On the one hand, Instagram is used by almost 24 million people in Spain (half its population), with a higher popularity among women (54% of the total). Contrary to popular belief that assumes that all youngsters are on Instagram, the app is used by 23% of younger users (between 16 and 24 years old), with the highest percentage of users corresponding to women between 25 and 55 years old (55% of the total).7 This makes middle-aged women a particularly appealing group to be studied, as well as to corroborate whether the self-presentation practices popular in other media (e.g., reference to emotions, inspirational messages, etc.) are also employed on this platform. On the other, according to its policy, Instagram bios are wholly public and can be consulted by anybody accessing the platform, which follows one of the main recommendations by the AoIR ethics working committee (2002–2012) (see Chapter 1, Ethics). It is important to mention that Instagram bios, as in the case of other social media, have a limited number of characters. In this case, users are provided with a 150-character space, with numerous web pages giving “tips” as to how to make the most of such a “limited” space to make a good impression.8 In other words, users who decide to write their Instagram bios tend to be very strategic about what to include and how to do so.

7

Information available at Statista: https://es.statista.com/estadisticas/878407/numero-de-usu arios-de-instagram-en-espana/ (Last retrieved August 2023). 8 Some examples in Spanish are: https://www.pathsocial.com/es/resources/all-about-instagramscharacter-limits/, https://www.josesanjuan.es/cuantos-caracteres-en-un-instagram-bio/, https:// www.lasexta.com/tecnologia-tecnoxplora/redes-sociales/como-escribir-varias-lineas-en-la-biogra fia-de-instagram_20210201602a58ce1373f60001acc20e.html, among many others.

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To this purpose, a dataset of 50 Instagram bios by middle-aged Spanish women (in their 40s and 50s) was gathered following the snowball sampling technique. In other words, the first bio was randomly selected from the followers of the researcher. This, in turn, led to other accounts being followed by the first participant, showing no coincident interests (e.g., food accounts, etc.) to avoid biasing the data. This process was repeatedly applied until the dataset was gathered. Furthermore, all the bios belonging to public figures (e.g., actors, politicians, etc.), celebrities or brands that were verified as such by Instagram were discarded, so that the dataset only reflected ordinary users. Fake accounts and professional accounts were also discarded for the same reason. The dataset thus compiled, although relatively limited, controls the sociological variable of gender (all the users are women) and age (all the users are middle-aged women in their 40s and 50s, as indicated either by the users themselves or by subsidiary information such as their profile photograph). Although the bios are public information, personal names and other personal identifications were anonymized to preserve the privacy of the participants. For this case study, profile pictures were not included (see Chapter 5 on profile pictures). The dataset was then transferred to an Excel file, which was thematically analysed with the aid of NVivo12, taking as a point of departure the taxonomy presented in previous studies on self-presentation (see MaízArévalo, 2018). More specifically, I zeroed in on inspirational statuses, defined as “those where the user is trying to transmit a positive, motivational message, often in the form of quotes” (Maíz-Arévalo, 2021: 72). The analysis of the data partially reflects patterns observed in other social media, such as the use of emotional messages commonly related to family members as in example (7): (7) Eres mi vida entera por la cual estoy luchando whole life, for which I am fighting) TE QUIERO

(I LOVE YOU)

(You are my

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For many users, however, the Instagram bio is simply the space where to spell out their full, official name (often with their family name). Interestingly, this is the case of 15 users (30% of the dataset), who may either choose to include their full name to identify themselves, for example, when their “real” name does not coincide with the account name or simply opt for not including any other personal information in their bio. Regarding the use of inspirational messages, it is employed by 9 of the users (18%) of the dataset. This relatively low percentage might be a result of the limited sample, but still shows similar patterns to those of other platforms such as WhatsApp, as users choose mostly quotes, often marking this part of the bio with the use of inverted commas and even occasionally including the quotes’ author, as in example (8), where the user quotes ancient Greek physician Hippocrates: (8) “Que la comida sea tu alimento y el alimento tu medicina” (Hipócrates) (May food be your nourishment and nourishment your medicine” (Hippocrates) Other inspirational messages may simply mirror the pattern of quotes, as in examples (9) (10) and (11). In the case of example (9), the author accompanies the quote, which she frames as such by the use of inverted commas, with a long set of emoji, most probably with the intention to show her own passions (yoga, dancing, jogging, etc.) in a visual way: (9) “Nunca

es

tarde

para

hacer

lo

que

te

apasiona”

(“It is never too late to do whatever you are passionate about”) No hay nada imposible. Nunca es tarde. (“Nothing is impossible. It is never too late”). (11) Solo habrá paz cuando respetar al vulnerable, cueste tan poco como respetar al fuerte; Es incoherente luchar contra el opresor siendo opresor de otro. (There will only be peace when respecting the vulnerable costs as little as respecting the strong; It is incoherent to fight against the oppressor being the oppressor of others.)

(10)

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Together with quotes, users may also resort to popular culture by using song lyrics to display a positive, inspiring attitude to life, as in example (12), where another user refers to a song by Spanish singer Iván Ferreiro, by using italics hence marking the second part of the message: me río para no explotar (“I sew, (12) coso, canto y aguanto los palos sing and put up with the blows, and I laugh not to explode”) Finally, users also resort to directives, by providing “inspirational” advice to others by means of imperative verbs such as examples (13) and (14), where the user chooses to write her message in English but also in a special kind of script and employing small caps, which might be regarded by other users as pretentious and impositive: (13) (13) Donde quiera que vayas, sin importar el clima, siempre lleva tu propio sol (“wherever you go, no matter the weather, always carry your own sun ”) (14) take nothing but pictures , leave nothing but footprints Although the dataset under study is admittedly limited, it can be concluded that the present users seem to mirror patterns of selfpresentation existent in other social media such as the use of emotional messages, the profusion of emojis or the use of inspirational messages to display an optimistic and positive attitude to life. This case study could provide an initial step for other researchers to contrast the use of eudaimonic messages by other sectors of the population such as male users or other age spans. Another possible avenue for future research might be comparing how the same users display self-presentation strategies on different social media. Although methodologically more challenging, this might render qualitative insights into how users “alter” their selfpresentation strategies depending on the social media objectives and on their potential audience.

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Chapter Summary

This chapter has explored the dimensions of positivity and authenticity, by first focusing on the reasons for favouring self-enhancement, often in detriment of authenticity and despite the potential negative social consequences of how others may perceive them (Sect. 3.2). More recent research, however, has proved that there seems to be a shift towards authenticity, especially among younger users of social media. Section 3.3. explored previous research on cultural differences regarding these two dimensions, together with exposing the often oversimplistic approach to culture adopted and the need to include cultures and languages different from those of the traditional Western-Eastern divide. Section 3.4. focused on a specific strategy of self-presentation: the use of eudaimonic or inspirational self-presentations, where users resort to micro-celebrities’ strategies such as the use of quotes to display an inspiring image of the self. The chapter closed with a case study where Instagram bios by Peninsular Spanish women in their middle age were analysed. As shown by the results, the women under study replicate some of the patterns observed in other social media such as WhatsApp by expressing their emotions, and including what they consider inspiring quotes or advice, often “coloured” by the use of emojis. A different pattern, probably due to the Instagram interface, also emerges in which users employ the 150-character bio simply to spell out their full “official” names, especially (but not exclusively) when their Instagram nickname may make their identification by other users difficult. Future avenues for research have also been suggested, especially regarding age spans that have been overlooked like middle-aged or senior users. Further exploration of this potential shift towards authenticity might also be an interesting path to pursue.

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4 Humour as a Self-Presentation Strategy

4.1

Introduction

A cursory look at social media shows the ubiquity of humour (Yus, 2023), which users relish sharing with others (e.g., the massive exchange of memes on WhatsApp groups). Paradoxically, digital communication (or computer-mediated communication in a more traditional sense) was initially regarded as a “medium inhospitable to humour” (Baym, 1995: para. 1). In her pioneering study of humour online, however, Baym counter argues that digital communication can also be used for humour and that this humour is worth investigating: Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is often seen as a means of distributing information, of increasing organizational efficiency, of creating electronic democracy, or of challenging traditional hierarchies. It is rarely seen as a means of making people laugh. Yet CMC can be, and is, used as a forum for humorous performances […] Analysis of humor is important because CMC research has been slow to address the formation of group identity and solidarity, though such phenomena occur in on-line groups and are negotiated, in part, through humor. (Baym, 1995: para. 2)

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Nowadays, it is undeniable that digital communication is pervasive with humour, which can adopt a myriad of forms and genres such as gifs, memes, collages, remixes of videos, YouTube videos, humorous power points, etc. The appeal humour exerts on everyday users and scholars is reflected in the growing body of research devoted to digital humour and its different functions (Dynel, 2016; Hübler & Bell, 2003; Kuipers, 2002; Maíz-Arévalo, 2021a; Marone, 2016; Piata, 2018; Shifman, 2007, 2014; Wen et al., 2015; Yus, 2017, 2018, 2023; among many others). From a sociopragmatic perspective, humour has long been considered a positive politeness strategy (Brown & Levinson, 1987; Lakoff, 1973) as it is often “an invitation to demonstrate membership and solidarity” (Norrick, 1989: 118). The creation and boosting of social rapport by means of humour was initially limited to face-to-face interaction but it was soon revealed that it was also employed online for similar purposes (Baym, 1995; Norrick, 1993). For example, in another pioneering study, Holcomb (1997) showed how spontaneous joke making by students synchronously interacting via their classroom chat contributed to enhancing the group’s rapport. Thus, humour has consistently been shown to “pervade the rhetorical process of forming and maintaining online groups” (Hübler & Bell, 2003: 278), hence boosting social identity and community bonding, the feeling of connectivity, of peer validation and acknowledgement (Norrick, 1993; Yus, 2018). In pragmatic terms, humour can be regarded as a combination of representative and expressive speech acts, in the sense that interlocutors may be representing some kind of reality (e.g., when telling a joke) but with an emotional component intended to trigger a positive perlocutionary effect or reaction in the addressee (e.g., laughter). Interestingly, laughter has been shown to activate pleasant reactions in the nucleus accumbens, the ventral tegmentum or the amygdala (Goleman, 2006). In turn, the “joker” also gets a neuronal reward for having their joke liked (Davey et al., 2010), which explains the positive effect humour may play in social interactions if successful (see Sect. 4.3 on the negative consequences of humour). Furthermore, humour also plays a crucial role in establishing personal identity and individualization, e.g., when “creating something beyond the norms imposed by the group” and showing “command of today’s

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discourses exchanged on the Net” or web-literacy (Yus, 2018, 2023). In other words, humour can become a powerful (albeit risky) selfpresentation strategy and play a crucial role in identity formation and impression management. As commented some decades back by Wyer and Collins (1992: 663) when dealing with face-to-face communication, Humor is a fundamental ingredient of social communication. It is a rare conversation in which at least one participant does not try to elicit laughter at some point or does not respond with amusement to something another has said or done. Jokes, witticisms, and other humorous verbal and nonverbal behaviors are commonplace in social interaction situations and can have a major impact on the quality of the interactions. For example, one’s interpretation of a stranger’s remarks as humorous can influence the impression one forms of that person. (my emphasis)

Needless to say, this also applies to digital communication, where users may resort to humour as a self-presentation strategy, either textually, visually or in a multimodal way. For example, Maíz-Arévalo (2017: 578) mentions the use of puns as a way to create humour by a Twitter user,1 whose bio information includes a fake name (Alberto Caperas) and the English message “Just for fun”. This user’s profile photograph depicts two pears, in clear allusion to the Spanish colloquialism for female breasts (“peras”). As the user himself has explained, the name and surname are expected to be read as “Albert touches pears”. Together with wordplay, misspellings (either intentional or by mistake) also seem to trigger a humoristic effect on users, as in this example given by Holcomb (1997: 8), where one student has written Boccaccio’s name inappropriately in the classroom chat and is met by others’ jokes about it. Here, however, while other users enjoy the joke, the target herself (Erin) seems not too happy about it, as she does not produce any further comments: (1) Erin – Tell me about this Coccacio guy! Erik – Coccaccio is Boccaccio’s evil twin brother. 1 I personally know the user and know that he is using this account anonymously. He consented to have this information published. The account is merely “for fun” as the user indicates and is pervasive with humorous content.

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On other occasions, users may join in the joke themselves, as in the following example by Maíz-Arévalo (2017: 594) from a Facebook group, where one of the users (LVL) has inadvertently misspelled the word “cantamos” (we sing) and has written “catamos” (we taste drinks) instead. Before nobody else laughs at his mistake, he resorts to the corrective facework strategy of laughing at himself (notice the repeated onomatopoeia of laughter), which is merrily joined by other users in the group, who replicate the onomatopoeia in different ways, helping to boost the groups’ rapport and LVL’s positive face: (2) LVL: he puesto “catamos”, cantamos, joperrrrr, cantamos, catar podemos catar también, pero me refería a cantar, jajajajajajajajaja LLR: Te entendemos igualmente … jjjjjjjjj LVL: ok, jajajajajjaajajajaja. LD: Jijiii..cataremos algún cubata mientras cantamos, LLR: A eso me apunto !!!!! VAB: Y yo también me apunto y más si tengo que cantar!! LLR: Con dos cantamos todo el repertorio !!!! LD: Yo con uno … […] [I’ve written “taste”, sing, darnnnnn, sing, taste we can taste too, but I meant to sing, hahahahahahahaha // We understand you the same …hahahaha // ok, hahahahahahahaha // hehehe..we’ll taste some cocktail while singing // count me in!!!! // Count me in too, especially if I have to sing!! // With two [cocktails], we’ll sing the whole repertoire!!!! // I need only one …] In cases such as this, it could be claimed that the conversation being asynchronous—i.e. this exchange took place on the Facebook wall, which some users may access at a different time from when it actually happened—did not affect the positive effect of humour. However, in contrast to face-to-face conversational humour, which is often clearly dialogical, online humour (especially if asynchronous and received by an

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uncontrolled number of recipients) may arguably become riskier, as the humorous content may not be immediately perceived as such, and other users may ignore it due to a myriad of reasons unknown to the “joker” (e.g., lack of signal), who however may feel their humour has not been appreciated as such. As Kotthoff argues (2006: 8), Humorous activities are thoroughly dialogical and very context-sensitive. The relationship of those present, along with their disposition and moods, play an important role. When I tell someone a joke, I watch for signs of amusement. If the listener is willing to cooperate, s/he will let me finish, and will then smile, laugh, or respond in some way to the humorous potential. If the listener did otherwise, she would be defining my joke as a dud. It is this dialogicity, which inhibits timid persons, strangers, or people of lower status from joking in many contexts. They fear the embarrassment of not eliciting the appropriate reaction.

However, what might seem as a limitation may also appear as an affordance, especially for people who might refrain from using humour in their face-to-face encounters but for whom online humour might become a “safer” opportunity to display wittiness without the embarrassment of waiting for an immediate reaction (see also Bronstein, 2012; McKenna & Bargh, 2000; Yus, 2023). Using humour as a self-presentation strategy may be a double-edged sword, however. If someone’s attempt at humour is positively perceived and well received by others, they may hence display a witty, original, fun to be with persona. On the other hand, this use of humour as a self-presentation strategy is also risky and can misfire, especially when other users fail to grasp the intended humour or do not find it to their taste (see Cantos-Delgado & Maíz-Arévalo, 2023; Maíz-Arévalo, 2021b). As argued by Maíz-Arévalo (2021b: 16) in her study on humour on WhatsApp profiles, “humour is often associated with personalities and individuals, being hence decontextualized for these other users, especially those users who do not really know the person who tried to be funny in their profile status in the first place”. In such cases, the use of humour as a self-presentation strategy may contribute to other users’ negative perceptions of their persona, and hence trigger a negative output (e.g., a mismatch or “swipe left” in the case of e-dating apps like Tinder).

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The present chapter focuses on the use of humour as a selfpresentation strategy from a sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic perspective, although it intersects it with insights from other fields such as (social) psychology. Section 4.2 revises the key theoretical approaches to humour and its dimensions, both positive and negative. This is followed by a review of previous studies on humour and self-presentation online (Sect. 4.3). As in previous chapters, the chapter closes with a case study of the use of humour as a self-presentation strategy on Tinder by Spanish users (Sect. 4.4) before providing a summary of the chapter in Sect. 4.5.

4.2

How Do We “Make” Humour?: Humour Theories and Dimensions

Indeed, as Palmer (2003) posits in his seminal work, humour should be taken seriously and it is a phenomenon clearly worthy of academic research, as proved by the extensive theoretical and empirical approaches. From the linguistic perspective, the first theoretical framework was the Semantic Script Theory of Humour (SSTH) (Raskin, 1985), which was later developed into the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH) (Attardo, 2001; Attardo & Raskin, 1991). In simple terms, both the SSTH and GTVH argue that verbal humour, which is the only type of humour they consider, follows certain patterns and scripts. These scripts are framed in such a way that they can be easily identified as humour by other interlocutors (cf. Attardo, 2001; Norrick, 1989, 1993). As already mentioned in Sect. 4.1 some of these linguistic resources are puns or plays on words (either intentional or unintentional), but there are others like repetitions (e.g., knock-knock jokes) or intertextuality, which “occurs any time one text suggests or requires reference to some other identifiable text or stretch of discourse, spoken or written” (Norrick, 1989: 117). Humour can also be identified by other individuals when it follows specific genre patterns (e.g., “what’s the difference between…?” jokes). Many of these patterns have extended to multimodal genres online such as memes, which often reproduce the same image but with different

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texts (macro memes) (see Yus, 2023), as in Fig. 4.1, where the same image from the film Captain America (intertextuality) helps to enhance the humorous content in the four jokes, which also follow the same linguistic pattern of question–answer (repetition), often based on a play on words as the punch line. The humour of the memes, however, does not only rest on the joke itself but on the fact that they are such bad jokes that the “teller” deserves physical punishment from the interlocutors. Furthermore, the incongruity between the serious faces of the depicted participants prepares the viewer for the punch line, which they already know could be considered a “dad joke”.2 Palmer (2003) argues that the key element of humour is the transgression of normalcy, either in content or linguistically. This approach is closely related to the incongruity-resolution pattern put forward by Suls (1972, 1977; see also Dynel, 2016; Yus, 2017, 2023). In other words, humour is triggered by the inconsistency between the initial prompt and the resolution, which is often unexpected for the addressee, as in the famous joke quoted by Wiseman (2002) as a result of his LaughLab experiment: Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator says, “Calm down. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence; then a gun shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says, “OK, now what?”

Incongruity has thus been regarded by many authors as the sine-quanon of humour (Forabosco, 1992; see also Forabosco, 1992; Koestler, 1964; Shultz, 1972; Suls, 1972, 1977, 1983; Yus, 2023; among many others). However, incongruity is not enough to trigger humour but needs to be accompanied by the resolution of that incongruity. Back in 1992, Forabosco (1992: 45) pointed out that “Incongruity and resolution is 2

The term “dad joke” first appeared in print in 1987, when journalist Jim Kalbaugh wrote a column on what has indeed become a genre on its own. Interestingly, the genre has consolidated and become a favourite in digital communication. In 2017 it become one of the most popular hashtags on Twitter (now X). Dad jokes may be defined as typically one-liner or question– answer jokes, often including a pun or play in words (see Fig. 4.1).

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Fig. 4.1 Macro-memes3

defined as cognitive mastery. Seen from this perspective, both the perception of the incongruity and its resolution are essential components for 3

Translation: Figure on the top left: “What’s the name of Bruce Lee’s vegan cousin?” / “no, what’s his name?” / “Broco Lee”. Figure on the top right: “Why don’t people cross the Red Sea?” / “Why?” / “Because they’re waiting for it to turn green”. Figure on the bottom left: “What do Buddhists drink?” / “What?” / Namaste (the pronunciation in Spanish sounds like “only tea”). Figure on the bottom right: “What do you think of the book I’ve written?” / “I don’t understand why you have drawn a finger on the first page” / “It is the index” (in Spanish Table of contents is called “índice”, just as the finger). For the joke to work in English, the first page should be translated as the last page.

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the humor process”. More recently, Dynel has argued in the same line, stating that Incongruity is considered the sine qua non for the emergence of humor, and it is also used as the acid test for it. Most contemporary linguists and psychologists (e.g., Attardo 1994; Dynel 2008, 2009, 2013, 2016; Forabosco 1992, 2008; Martin 2007) agree that the workings of jokes (and verbal humor in general) conform to the incongruity-resolution framework in the version put forward by Suls (1972, 1983) and Shultz (1972, 1976). (Dynel, 2016: 672)

As in all human interaction, humour rests therefore on both interlocutors: the speaker producing the illocutionary force and the addressee reaching the right inference, hence making humour “felicitous”. While I fully agree with the incongruity-resolution pattern, I also believe that intertextuality plays an equally central role in the generation of humour. According to Norrick (1989: 117), intertextuality “occurs any time one text suggests or requires reference to some other identifiable text or stretch of discourse, spoken or written”. In other words, users may resort to pop culture to trigger a humorous effect, which aims to appeal to other users’ background knowledge, hence boosting affiliation. As Maíz-Arévalo (2021a) shows in her study of humorous WhatsApp profile statuses, intertextuality may resort to different aspects of pop culture, which range from song lyrics to the re-enactment of everyday computer jargon, mobile phones or even the default WhatsApp status, with examples such as: (3) Reiniciando (resetting) (4) I’m not lazy! I’m just on my energy saving move original)

(English in the

An interesting (and fun) way to trigger humour is by mocking inspirational, eudaimonic quotes (see Chapter 3), but twisting the positive message into a ridiculous one, as in the following example (Maíz-Arévalo, 2021a: 194–195), where the first part of the status seems to point to a wisdom quote in the line of eudaimonic messages while the second part employs a pun, hence triggering the humorous effect.

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(5) Life is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind it doesn’t matter. Indeed, the mockery of inspirational quotes seems to have evolved into a sub-genre of its own, with a myriad of examples on the web, where users even reproduce the multimodal patterns of real inspirational quotes (e.g., the use of pastel colours, nature scenery, the kind of script, etc.), as illustrated by Fig. 4.2 where, as in the previous example, the first part of the part of the text seems to provide other users with an inspirational message, which is subsequently invalidated by the second proposition—hence also resorting to incongruity. In the case of Spanish, there is even a brand that mocks Mr. Wonderful with colourful and inspirational messages under the name of Mr. Puterful (a clear reference to the word “puto” in Spanish, which translates as “fucking”), as also illustrated by Fig. 4.2 (centre and right). Needless to say, this can easily combine with incongruity, as also happens in the examples provided in Fig. 4.1, where intertextuality (the references to the film Captain America and to the “dad jokes” genre) combines with the incongruity between the question and the final answer

Fig. 4.2 Mock inspirational quotes4

4

Translation of the central figure: “If you ever get up and do not see the sun, go back to bed, you asshole, it still night”. Translation of right figure: “Life is like a four-coloured ballpen, it always gets stuck”.

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or punch line. Maíz-Arévalo (2021a: 195) provides another example of this combination of intertextuality and incongruity: (6) Hey there! I’m NOT using WhatsApp Here, the user purposefully alters the default WhatsApp status (“Hey there! I’m using WhatsApp”) by adding the negative adverb, making his new creation easily understood by other WhatsApp users. Incongruity emerges from the fact that he is indeed using WhatsApp, as this is his profile status. In fact, the use of paradox seems a favourite way among these participants to reach incongruity and hence an attempt at triggering a humorous effect on other WhatsApp users (although see Maíz-Arévalo [2021b] on the countereffect of humour as a selfpresentation strategy and Tom Tong et al. [2020] on the discrepancies between user’s self-presentation intentions and other users’ rating of such presentations). Other examples of paradox among WhatsApp users are (ibid.): (7) No estoy (Translation: I’m not here) (8) Sin gafas (Translation: Without glasses

)

As already mentioned, humour may be a double-edged sword for several reasons. Other interlocutors may fail to see the humour or they might reach the right resolution if incongruity is at play, but find it inappropriate or not to their taste. Intertextuality may also be rather risky as those users who lack the necessary cultural knowledge are bound to fail to find the connection. For example, Maíz-Arévalo (2021b) reports negative reactions towards humorous WhatsApp statuses like (“El veloz murciélago hindú”), where the user allegedly mentioned his intention to play with the old Windows Spanish pangram,5 but his reference was 5 A pangram (also known as a holoalphabetic sentence) is a sentence or phrase that includes all the letters of a given alphabet at least once. This Spanish pangram translates as “the fast Hindu bat”, equivalent to the English “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”.

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found obscure and far from funny by other users. Even more negative in terms of self-presentation was the fact that those users who managed to find the connection thought the joke was too pedantic and nerd-like, which is probably not the effect the user initially intended when using it as his self-presentation profile status. Humour may thus affiliate interlocutors but may also alienate them, as the following paragraphs will show. Psychological approaches to humour have often argued that it works along two major dimensions, understood as a continuum from aggressive or malicious humour to affiliating or innocent, and not involving hostility against others. More specifically, Martin et al. (2003) develop two axes, which include affiliative, aggressive humour but also humour targeted at the self, in turn sub-divided into self-enhancing and selfdeprecating humour. Figure 4.3 visually represents Martin et al.’s (2003) four dimensions, adapted by Besser and Zeigler-Hill (2011: 198). Martin et al. (2003: 52) describe affiliative humour as “tolerant and accepting of both self and others”. Further, Damianakis and Marziali (2011: 111) argue that this kind of humour can be considered as social humour, as it is mainly aimed at “creating harmonious relationships with others and providing amusement”. In contrast, aggressive humour

Fig. 4.3 Humour dimensions

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(also known as disparaging humour) lies in alterity—i.e. the establishing of boundaries between the ingroup or “us” and the outgroup or “the others”. Aggressive humour is triggered by laughing and disparaging the outgroup, hence also affiliating the ingroup (e.g., in the case of racist or sexist jokes). Arguably, while the use of affiliative humour might trigger positive effects on other users when used as a self-presentation strategy, aggressive humour seems rather risky, and best to be avoided. This is not always the case, however, as some users may precisely resort to aggressive humour as a way to stand out from the crowd, show a provocative attitude and potentially attract other users who might like this kind of dark humour. In fact, users that risk themselves might be willing to go against the commonality of stereotypical profiles, which may be counter effective, especially in some online contexts like e-dating platforms, where the homogeneity of profiles may cause users’ weariness. As Masden and Edwards (2015: 542) report from one of the participants in their study, “Everyone’s always fun-loving, loves to laugh, loves to travel, um, loves to hang out with friends, loves to watch Netflix or go out to the bar, […] I wish there was some better way to get descriptions of people”. The following two examples from Twitter users show what could be regarded as an affiliative example based on incongruity, and what might be regarded as an aggressive one, not only due to the use of the content itself but also because of the swear words (“son of a bitch”) and the use of capital letters (long-established as impolite netspeak as it reproduces screaming) (see Crystal, 2001): (9) Me llamo Lili, como mi tía Carmen (Translation: My name is Lili, just like my aunt Carmen’s) (10) Tras mi faceta de hijo de puta sin corazón se esconde una persona formal y educad… ¡JAJA! ¡UN NIÑO EN SILLA DE RUEDAS! ¡QUÉ COSA MÁS FEA! (Translation: Behind my facet as a heartless son of a bitch, hides a formal and educat… person. HAHA! A CHILD IN A WHEELCHAIR! WHAT A GROSS THING!)

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As already mentioned, the butt of the joke can also be the speaker (or user) themselves. In this case, it is possible to distinguish two further dimensions: self-enhancing and self-deprecating humour. Self-enhancing humour occurs when the speaker shows an ability to form a positive, optimistic outlook on life despite the presence of enduring or immediate life stressors together with a positive and good-natured approach to the self (Ford et al., 2017; Martin et al., 2003; Olson et al., 2005). Self-enhancing humour can therefore be related to the positivity dimension of self-presentation (see Chapter 3). In ordinary terms, it could be said that self-enhancing humour stresses the “silver lining” in life and has been shown to have beneficial psychological effects such as alleviating anxiety (Ford et al., 2017). As with other dimensions of humour, I would argue that self-enhancing humour is particularly risky from a sociopragmatic perspective as other users might perceive the individual in a negative light, as a “show-off ”. Self-enhancement also clashes against the politeness maxim of modesty (Leech, 1983), which might be perceived rather negatively in some cultures (Uskul et al., 2010). The following two examples show how a Tinder user uses self-enhancing humour as a way to present himself in a creative and original way, which might attract “matches” from other users (but also rejection if regarded as boastful). In example (12), this Twitter user (a famous Spanish journalist and novelist), claims as follows in his bio: (11) Holy shit, I’d date me. (12) Periodista y escritor. Autor de La Leyenda del Ladrón (ya a la venta), y otras tres novelas traducidas a 40 idiomas. También canto en la ducha. (Translation: Journalist and writer. Author of The Legend of the Thief (already on sale) and other three novels translated into 40 languages. I also sing in the shower). On the other hand, self-deprecating humour, also known as selfdefeating humour,6 occurs when the self is the butt of the joke but rather 6 Some scholars (often in the field of psychology) establish a distinction between self-defeating and self-deprecating humour. Thus, self-defeating is considered highly negative and maladaptive

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than boosting their positive aspects, does the opposite together with showing a negative outlook towards life and life stressors (even neuroticism). Cantos-Delgado and Maíz-Arévalo (2023) provide the following examples from two other Tinder users, who choose to disparage themselves. In example (13), the user does not only disparage herself in front of others by indicating that she considers herself short but also funnylooking, as she compares herself to one of the minions in the Despicable Me film. In the case of (14), the user presents herself as a mess as she is “bad at everything”: (13) Minion de 1’58 (Translation: 1.58 cms. Minion) (14) I hear you like bad girls? I’m bad at everything In line with previous research (see Ruiz-Gurillo & Linares-Bernabéu, 2020), self-defeating humour seems slightly more favoured as a selfpresentation strategy by Spanish users, as they try to modestly represent their lacks to be empathetically liked by others, who might even feel identified with them, as in the following Twitter bios, example (16) being from Berto Romero, a widely famous Spanish comedian: (15) Años de experiencia en fracasar en proyectos tecnológicos me avalan. (Translation: Years of experience in failing at technological projects endorse me.) (16) Usando el mismo bañador desde 2009. (Translation: Using the same bathing suit since 2009.) These four dimensions, however, are not conceived as clearcut categories but rather as clines, where some cases may be prototypically socially, given that it produces a low-esteem perception of the self. Self-deprecating, however, is argued not to be so negative as it may serve to affiliate the self with others, hence leading to positive psychosocial outcomes (Brown, 2019; Cheng, 2021). It is beyond the scope and interest of the present volume to zero in on these psychological differences, however. Hence, self-deprecating and self-defeating will be considered as quasi-synonyms in this volume.

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aggressive and closer to the end of the continuum while others (e.g., droll and absurd humour) may be included at the other end of the same continuum. Furthermore, the dimensions may often combine. For example, affiliative humour may also become aggressive if the other interlocutors fail to feel identified or find the humour “in bad taste”. In summary, there are two major linguistic mechanisms to generate humour, which often combine: incongruity and intertextuality, with incongruity being considered as the key to humour as long as its resolution is provided by the addressee. The absence of resolution often leads to what has been termed “failed humour”. From a more psychological perspective, humour has been considered to work along four dimensions: affiliative, aggressive, self-defeating and self-enhancing, the last two targeted at the self. Humour is thus a social lubricant that may enhance social rapport and solidarity among interlocutors but also a risky interactive practice that may backfire. Using it as a self-presentation device may hence help to present the user in a positive light (e.g., as a witty, original and creative individual) but also in a negative light, especially when using highly aggressive or self-centred humour.

4.3

Previous Studies on Humour and Self-Presentation

Despite the importance of humour in interaction and self-presentation, it is still an under-researched area, especially in digital communication, in contrast to other fields such as psychology, where the relationship between types of humour (see Fig. 4.3), self-presentation and personality traits has been widely explored especially in face-to-face interaction (e.g., Radomska & Tomczak, 2010; Renner & Heydasch, 2010; Renner & Manthey, 2018; just to mention a few examples). The use of humour as a self-presentation strategy online has also been approached from the field of psychology, often tangentially, as in Yang and Ying (2021), whose analysis of over 200 surveys by Chinese sojourners in the USA shows the self-reported use of humour as one of the most commonly used self-presentation strategies.

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From a more linguistic perspective, Chu and Choi’s (2010) contrastive study between Chinese and American young users of social networking sites shows that humour is one of the self-presentation strategies deployed by both groups, albeit more frequently by the US participants. Their study, however, does not focus on humour and it is based on selfreported questionnaires, where one of the items is “I show humour on the social networking site”, but it does not delve into the types and dimensions of humour as seen above. More recently, Tom Tong et al. (2020) have adopted a lexical approach to examine how the written portions of the dating profile are used in both self-presentation and impression formation. Although their study does not focus explicitly on humour either, humour is reported as one of the seven traits that their 190 participants valued most highly (together with others like physical attractiveness, intelligence or friendliness, among others). Humour was positively valued both by the user uploading their bio information (as in “having a great sense of humour”) but also by the other users. Similar results are reported by Fadzil and Hamid (2020) in their interesting study of self-presentation by Malaysian gay men on Tinder from a critical discourse analysis perspective. Although they do not focus on humour and only analyse 30 bio profiles, humour (“Sense of humour”) is included among the features looked for in potential partners. The use of humour as a self-presentation strategy has been reported in other studies on e-dating platforms, where users both employ humour to present themselves as other users often value it positively (see Watson & Stelle, 2021). An important aspect to consider about these studies is that humour is often self-reported—i.e. “I have a great sense of humour” rather than “performed”—i.e. by using a pun or telling a joke. It could be argued that this is a less risky way to resort to humour as a selfpresentation strategy as the user does not run the interactional risk of “failed humour” (Bell, 2015). However, merely saying that one is humorous may also backfire as other users might consider it an unoriginal way to present the self. Furthermore, saying that one has a sense of humour does not ensure that this is the case. As already pointed out, humour may be interactionally risky but also worth employing in self-presentation as it may be an efficient way to “stand out from the crowd” and construct a fun to be with, witty, creative

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and original persona. In one of the few studies on humour and selfpresentation in Spanish, Maíz-Arévalo (2021a) showed that the risky side of humour still prevails, and her WhatsApp users only employed humour in 12.62% of the cases, although this strategy was still the third most commonly used in the case of self-generated statuses (in contrast to automatically generated or by default ones). Users resorted either to intertextuality or incongruity (or a combination of both), often framing their humorous status by laughing or smiling emojis, as a contextual cue for other users to interpret them humorously, as in the following example (Maíz-Arévalo, 2021a: 193), where a female user frames her pun (peroné “fibula” and pero no “but not”) by emoticons, while intertextuality referring to a joke made popular by a well-known Spanish TV presenter: (17) :-D Creí que se me rompió el peroné, pero no! :-D (Translation: :-D I thought that I had broken my fibula, but I had not! :-D) Although acknowledging that her sample is limited, the author also points out that humour is more frequently employed by male users than their female counterparts (80% versus 20%). She argues that this seems to reinforce the sexist stereotype that “it is not regarded as well-behaved for women to play the clown and fool around” (Kotthoff, 2006: 5). She also points to some age-based differences, such as the fact that humorous statuses are more frequently employed by users in their 20s (around 21%), with a preference for incongruous messages such as (18), where the user re-enacts a default status (“busy”) but includes an absurd punch line: (18) Ocupada, estoy peinando a mi tortuga (Translation: Busy, I’m combing my tortoise’s hair

)

Trying to project a funny, witty and original persona might, however, be counterproductive and lead not only to failed humour if the other interlocutors fail to understand or do not find the humour to their liking.

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In cases like these, rather than appearing as an original, creative individual, the user might be negatively regarded by others as impolite, rude, pedantic, and having other negative qualities initially unintended by the user. The discrepancy between the user’s intentions and the interlocutors’ reaction is the subject of a follow-up study by Maíz-Arévalo (2021b), who surveyed 142 WhatsApp users on the extent to which they found eight humorous statuses (reported by their creators to be humorously intended) funny. Although discrepancies were extremely frequent, it was revealed that the most successful statuses—i.e. those that were perceived as humorous by the informants—responded to mockery of inspirational statuses, as in example (19) (Maíz-Arévalo, 2021b: 12): (19) Si la mierda de WhatsApp sonríe, tú también puedes (Translation: If the WhatsApp poo smiles, you can do so too

)

Paradox was also reported to be relatively well valued as a humorous device (over 40% of the informants rated paradoxical statuses as “funny”), while puns were positively valued only if considered original and creative but triggered informants’ negative reaction when they regarded the pun as overused and trite, as in the case of example (20), where the user plays with the similar pronunciation in Spanish of the first person (“río”) of the verb “reírse” (“to laugh”) and the name of the Brazilian city (“Rio de Janeiro”): (20) Como me río de Janeiro (Translation: How I laugh at Janeiro) Besides WhatsApp, the study of humour in e-dating profiles from a more linguistic perspective has also been recently tackled. For example, Cantos-Delgado and Maíz-Arévalo (2023) have contrasted the use of humour in the profile bios by British and Spanish heterosexual users of Tinder of both genders. The authors conclude that British participants seem to favour humour more frequently than their Spanish counterparts, reporting statistically significant differences between female British and Spanish users, the former resorting to humour much more usually than

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the latter, who might hence be conforming to the gender stereotype (see Kotthoff, 2006). More specifically, the authors show that paradox and humorous quotations were especially popular among Spanish users while self-enhancing humour was more common in the profiles of Tinder users in the UK. In terms of interactional humour, it was found that teasing was a pervasive strategy in all the groups. As the authors argue, this is to be expected as teasing has long been reported to be characteristic of dating language as a way to create and foster affiliation among users. For example, del-Teso-Craviotto (2006: 473) points out that “teasing can create intimacy or the illusion of intimacy, and foster feelings of solidarity and closeness”. Mir and Cots (2019) also show that teasing is often employed to strengthen familiarity and closeness ties between interlocutors, in line with the positive politeness nature of Spanish culture (see also Iglesias Recuero, 2017). As this brief review has shown, the use of humour as a self-presentation strategy is still very under-researched, especially from the linguistic and pragmatic perspective. This section attempts to encourage researchers to zero in on this fascinating subject by including other platforms (e.g., TikTok), different age spans (e.g., Spanish younger users seem to increasingly favour self-deprecating over other types) or even regional variations within the same national culture. Another worth researching topic might be how other users perceive humorous self-presentations to ascertain whether humour (specifically different types of humour) might be more felicitous than others.

4.4

Case Study: Using Humour as a Self-Presentation Strategy by Spanish Male Tinder Users

This case study aims to explore the mechanisms and humour dimensions employed by a sample of 100 Spanish male users of Tinder. There are different reasons behind choosing this app and this population sample. First, self-presentation, albeit important in all social media,

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becomes especially strategic in e-dating services, as users’ intention is to attract as many matches as possible, as this increases the possibilities of finding a partner. However, most previous research has studied selfpresentation on Tinder (and other e-dating services like Grindr, Bumble or OkCupid) from a psychological perspective (Ellison et al., 2012; Kim et al., 2009; Ranzini & Lutz, 2016; van de Wiele & Tong, 2014; Zerach, 2016; among many others). Secondly, most studies (even if adopting a linguistic approach) have focused on English while other languages like Spanish have been under-researched. Third, male heterosexual users have been chosen as previous research has often focused on homosexual men’s self-presentation on apps like Grindr, which has attracted much attention since its appearance in 2009 (see Birnholtz et al., 2014; Fadzil & Hamid, 2020; Hammer, 2022; among others). However, it has also been shown that this population—i.e. heterosexual men—needs to be especially strategic in their self-presentation as there are usually many more men in these apps than women, hence making it a highly competitive “market”. In fact, in Spain, over 3 million users employ Tinder, over 75% of whom were men according to Netquest. The use of humour may thus be a powerful (albeit risky) way to attract partners, especially those for whom “having a sense of humour” is a highly valued trait. The present case study attempts to redress this balance by adopting a linguistic approach to the study of heterosexual male humour in this app. Regarding the dataset, it is part of a larger corpus7 including heterosexual men and women from the UK and Spain. The data was gathered by means of a scraping bot created by Frederik Mees and available on Github,8 which was instructed to scrape a maximum of 125 profiles from each of the mentioned groups on March 14, 2022. For this case study, the first 100 profiles from Spanish heterosexual men were chosen. To control the age variable, all the users are aged between 18 and 29 (¯x = 23.4). This also matched another objective as this case study aims to explore whether this particular age group, who also showed a 7 I would like to sincerely thank my PhD student, Ms. Clara Cantos Delgado, for sharing her corpus on Tinder to carry out this case study and helping in the interrater agreement when tagging humorous profiles. Needless to say, all remaining errors are exclusively my own. 8 Available at https://github.com/frederikme/TinderBotz.

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higher preference for humorous self-presentations on WhatsApp, replicates this behaviour when using a different app (Tinder) with very different purposes. Ethical issues followed the guidelines presented in Chapter 1. The profiles were initially tagged as humorous or non-humorous, following the theoretical considerations seen in Sect. 4.2. For example, incongruity such as the one triggered by the use of puns or wordplays was considered as an attempt at humour (example 21), the reaction of other users being beyond the scope of the present case study, the same as the use of paradox, as in example (22), which could also be argued to mock inspirational messages: (21) Oposit-ando9 (Translation: Preparing an official exam) (22) La vida son dos días así que perdamos tiempo en Tinder (Translation: Life is just two days so let’s waste time on Tinder) Other incongruous messages were not based on paradox or wordplay but on the contrast between the first part of the message and the second one, which became an unexpected punchline, as in (23), where the user builds up the reader’s attention after enumerating a list which closes most unexpectedly, as framed by the previous use of the suspension points together with capitals and emojis at the end of the message: (23) Tendrás todo el dinero del mundo, pero hay algo que jamás podrás comprar… UN DINOSAURIO! (24) (Translation: You may have all the money in the world, but there is something that you’ll never be able to buy… A DINOSAUR! ) Intertextuality was also regarded as a key mechanism in humour creation, as in example (25) where the user pretends that he has made 9

The pun or wordplay here consists of including the gerund suffix -ando (-ing) as hyphenated, which can be reinterpreted as the first-person singular of the verb “andar” (walk), colloquially used to mean “going on” or “surviving”.

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a mistake and started his Tinder profile bio as he would on LinkedIn, but also includes an onomatopoeic laughter to frame his next comment as humorously intended: (25) Dinámico y proact…Ah no, espera, que esto no es linkedin.; ; Ok,pues a ver.Vivo en Las Rozas10 y por eso todo el mundo dice que estoy forrado (ajajajajajaja) y que tengo un yate.También me gradué en física,lo cual está lo cual esta guay pa fardar.Me mola ir a la montaña,el cine,y las conversaciones de madrugada contando batallitas que no ocurrirán jamás. Fan total de los viajes express.Para más info pulse like.) (Translation: Dynamic and proact… Aw no, wait, this is not LinkedIn; Ok, let’s see. I live in Las Rozas and that’s why everybody says I am loaded (ahahahahaha) and have a yatch. I also graduated in Physics, which is very cool to show off. I like going to the mountains, cinema and conversations in the early hours about stories that will never happen. Total fan of express travelling. For more info click like). In terms of humorous dimensions, most humour is self-based, with a clear prevalence of the same discursive pattern of self-deprecating humour, followed (and balanced) by a positive comment about the self, as in examples (26) to (28). From the pragmatics point of view, it is worth noticing that the positive comment is always presented at the end of the text, hence lingering in the recipient’s mind due to the principle of end focus, according to which the new information (and most important one) should be placed at the end (Leech, 2016). (26) Hola :); No soy el más guapo pero soy buena gente :/ (Hello :); I’m not the handsomest but I’m a nice guy :/) (27) Un poco friki pero buena gente.; Mido 1,80 que parece importante ponerlo por aquí 10 Las Rozas is a neighbourhood in the north of Madrid, well-known for its expensive houses. There are also more ordinary buildings such as blocks of flats.

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(A bit of a freak but a nice guy.; I am 1.80 tall which seems to be important here) (28) Nunca sé que [sic] ver en Netflix; menos voy a saber que [sic] quiero con tinder. Mi abuela dice que soy más guapo en persona. (I never know what to watch on Netflix; much less will I know what I want on Tinder. My grandmother says I am handsomer in person) Interestingly, there seems to exist a sub-type of self-deprecating humour where users report to have a special skill, which tends to be something absurd intended to strike a smile on others, as in example (29), where the user decides to include as a special ability his “skill” to play a specific song on the ukulele: (29) Educador.; Podríamos ir al campito y/o hacer planes guays.; Sé tocar la Pantera Rosa en el ukelele.; Ca’ uno es ca’ uno (Translation: Educator.; We could to the countryside and/or make cool plans.; I can play Pink Panther on the ukelele. Every one is every one) As expected, fully aggressive humour is avoided as it might trigger a negative reaction from other users (and hence a “swipe left” or unmatch). However, some users may include direct questions to potential partners, which might be regarded as aggressive insofar as they intend a response and hence a direct face-threat to the addressee. It is also, on the other hand, a way to strike up a conversation by engaging the other, as in example (30), which may also be regarded as a mild way of teasing or “daring”, with the smirky face emoji adding to the sexual innuendo of the message: (30) Jugamos? ; Me gusta llevar la iniciativa, y si se puede repetir mucho mejor.; Hago unas pizzas caseras ; ; 1.85 (Translation: Shall we play? I like taking the initiative and if it’s possible to repeat, so much better; I make homemade pizzas ; ; 1.85

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Needless to say, longer profiles tend to combine different humorous strategies, as in example (31), where the user not only combines English and Spanish (probably to reach a higher number of potential partners but also as a way to show he can speak both languages) but also includes a dare (“points for you if you know…”), teasing (“probably taller than you”), what might be regarded as “absurd” hobbies (“liking the Oxford comma”), a word play as a self-deprecating comment (“más vago11 que un recuerdo”) and a final self-enhancing reference (see also example 25): (31) Mexicano que buscando especias encontró España…; ; Puntos si sabes de dónde es la foto de la playera roja / Bonus points if you figure out where the picture with the red shirt is from.; ; Probably taller than you. I like film, books, travel, languages, people, and the Oxford comma. What’s your Kintsugi? I take pictures and sometimes bad and rushed decisions.; ; Más vago que un recuerdo. Quizás no soy el amor de tu vida, pero me parezco muchísimo; ; [French flag emoji] [Great Britain flag emoji] [Mexican flag emoji] [German flag emoji] [Italian flag emoji] [Canadian flag emoji] ; ; Choose your language! (Translation: Mexican that found Spain when looking for spices… Points for you if you know where the photo of the red shirt was taken / Bonus points if you figure out where the picture with the red shirt is from.; ; Probably taller than you. I like film, books, travel, languages, people, and the Oxford comma. What’s your Kintsugi? I take pictures and sometimes bad and rushed decisions.; ; Vaguer than a memory. Perhaps I am not the love of your life, but I look a lot like him; [French flag emoji] [Great Britain flag emoji] [Mexican flag emoji] [German flag emoji] [Italian flag emoji] [Canadian flag emoji] ; ; Choose your language!) Finally, it is important to mention that self-references to humour as a personal trait were not included as it was considered part of a prototypical profile. In fact, this is a very different strategy as it may be less 11 The user is playing with the double meaning of the word “vago”, which can translate as “lazy” or “vague”.

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risky but also more homogeneous and similar to other profiles and hence likely to be “discarded” by other users as unoriginal and anodyne (see Masden & Edwards, 2015). For example, some users include “having a sense of humour” among their traits, as in (32): (32) Estudiante de Física. Me gusta viajar (aunque no lo hago mucho ) y conducir. Me encanta ver series, películas y anime Me considero divertido y me encanta salir a tomar algo (una buena cerveza se toma siempre) (Translation: Student of Physics. I like travelling (although I don’t do it often ) and driving. I love watching series, films and anime I consider myself fun and love going out for a drink (a good beer is always welcome) In quantitative terms, however, the use of humour is rather limited, as it is only employed by less than 25% of the sample (17 out of the 100 users, 17%). Users may be fully aware that the use of this selfpresentation strategy can be too risky and choose to either be more conventional and include prototypical information (e.g., hobbies, height, age, region, etc.). This option is in fact chosen by 46% of the users while 37% rely exclusively on their profile photograph(s) without even including a textual profile. In sum, this case study has explored a sample of 100 Spanish heterosexual male Tinder users to find out to what extent they employ humour as a self-presentation strategy. Results show that users may perceive the use of humour as a hazardous plan in case it backfires. Those few that decide to use humour tend to resort to self-deprecating humour counterbalanced by a positive or enhancing comment about themselves at the end of the message, thus appealing to the end focus principle. Future research might empirically explore how other users perceive this kind of profile in contrast to others (e.g., conventional text) and whether this strategy is worth pursuing. Other e-dating platforms such as Grindr, Bumble or OkCupid might also be explored to check whether their users

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follow different trends regarding the use of humour. Finally, the variables of age, gender and sexual orientation might also produce interesting results.

4.5

Chapter Summary

This chapter has focused on the use of humour as a self-presentation strategy from a sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic perspective, although it has intersected it with insights from other fields such as psychology. Taking as a point of departure the two major linguistic theories of humour, the second section revised key notions such as incongruity or intertextuality and their importance in the generation of humorous effects. The linguistic approach was complemented with the psychological perspective, which argues that humour works along four dimensions: affiliative, aggressive, self-defeating and self-enhancing. Although there is some research, the chapter has shown that the study of humour as an online self-presentation strategy is still in its infancy, especially from the linguistic and pragmatic perspective. The case study presented in Sect. 4.4 has illustrated a potential approach to the study of humour as a way to construct a specific persona in social media, but there are still many avenues for future research. For example, other platforms such as TikTok might be an interesting ground of study, as well as other social variables such as age, or regional variation (e.g., to what extent users from different regions employ humour when presenting themselves online). A fascinating topic might indeed be how other users perceive humorous self-presentations to ascertain whether humour (specifically different types of humour) might be more felicitous than others, always depending on the ultimate aim of the user. For example, users on edating platforms might be more willing to depict a witty persona while users on platforms such as LinkedIn might be less prone to do so.

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5 The Profile Picture

5.1

Introduction

As argued by Yus (2022: 157), “the social networking profile photo stands out in importance”. In a similar vein, Hum et al. (2011: 1828) point out that profile photographs are “a central component of online self-presentation, and one that is critical for relational success” since they “identify themselves [i.e. users] within the entire network” (my emphasis). Profile pictures are usually the first viewed on an individual’s profile page, being “the most prominent part of a user’s online profile” (Zheng et al., 2016: 891). In fact, research has consistently found that most users tend to carefully select what picture to display as their profile photograph. For example, in their study on Facebook, Hudson and Gore (2017: 172) also point to the central importance of profile photographs. In their own words, When people choose a profile picture, it is assumed that it is an announcement of who they are, whether that is a picture of themselves, of other people, or even of a physical object such as a guitar. Facebook profile pictures can therefore be considered a “photo-biography,” which is a method for measuring the self-concept. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Maíz-Arévalo, The Power of Self-Presentation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52931-3_5

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Profile photos may also powerfully contribute to shaping our online identity by showing us “doing” different activities. For example, when users choose to depict themselves hiking, this also contributes to the creation of an active, sportive, nature-loving persona, which may loyally (or not) reflect an aspect of their identity given the importance in online communication of “showing” rather than “telling” (Zhao et al., 2008) and a great deal of information (e.g., location, friends, etc.) can be obtained from an image (Karakayali & Kilic, 2013). Another “affordance” of (profile) pictures is that users may “test” different facets of their identity by simply changing their picture (Hum et al., 2011). For example, if the user who depicted herself as a hiker and a fun-loving individual chooses to share a picture of herself giving a speech at a conference. Although profile photographs are still the most common choice in most social media, the need for more naturalistic presentations of the self seems to be leading to a new tendency, with some platforms such as TikTok already providing their users with the possibility to include a profile video, where users can offer their (potential) followers a live presentation of the self, not only including the image but also their voice. A similar option is offered by LiveMe. This tendency towards videos rather than images is also extending to more “traditional” media like Facebook or WhatsApp, where users can modify their static photographs by installing a plug-in like Capcut. This is a fascinating area that opens up new avenues for research, for example, by examining not only the visual grammar of the video but also the kind of language and paralanguage employed (e.g., speech acts, conversational cues, etc.) when presenting themselves. It may be instantly obvious that profile photographs and videos may perform a crucial role on certain social media like dating apps. Thus, when looking for a mate on e-dating apps like Tinder or Bumble, the profile picture may be the only clue to determine success or failure, and research has consistently shown that users are well aware of the importance of carefully choosing an ideal (albeit authentic) presentation of the self through their profile photograph (MacLeod & McArthur, 2019; Sedgewick et al., 2017; Rovino et al., 2020; Ward, 2017, among many others). Careful selection of the profile picture may also be crucial

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jobwise as (potential) employers increasingly seem to check their candidates’ online identity too. As far back as 2010, Microsoft reported that 70% of employers abstained from hiring job candidates based on information they had found online; for example, if employers or recruiters perceived an inappropriate visual self-presentation (see Beals, 2010). By the mid-2010s, this concern gave rise to legal issues as a result of the private–public sphere having become increasingly “blurry” (see Chapter 1). Many employees did not feel safe when posting some personal information on social media shared by their employers (see Landers & Schmidt, 2016; McDonald & Thompson, 2016). On a more humorous note, Spanish journalist Vázquez joked that “No one is as ugly as they look in their passport photograph or as attractive as they look in their profile photograph”.1 Although this may sound hyperbolic, it is undeniable that “users take their time when posting information about themselves, carefully selecting what aspects they would like to emphasise and enhancing them with filters and dedicated apps” (Yus, 2022: 258). Given their importance, profile photos have long caught the attention of scholars, who started studying them in the first decade of the twentyfirst century from different fields such as psychology (e.g., Hudson & Gore, 2017; Leary & Allen, 2011), communication (Bond, 2009; Gibbs et al., 2006; Hancock & Toma, 2009; Mesch & Beker, 2010, among many others), or marketing and consumer behaviour (Bente et al., 2012; Fagerstrøm et al., 2017; Jang, 2022; Tussyadiah & Park, 2018; Zhang et al., 2020). The remainder of this chapter is structured into two parts. The first part (Sect. 5.2) will summarize some of the most relevant findings in different fields, paying attention to how factors such as personality or gender may influence users’ choice of a profile photograph but also how other users may be influenced by such choices. More specifically, Sect. 5.2.1 will focus on the role of personality traits (with special attention to the Big Five) in the selection of profile photographs. In Sect. 5.2.2

1

The original Spanish is “Nadie es tan feo como en su DNI ni tan guapo como en su foto de perfil”. Available at http://elpais.com/diario/2012/02/05/eps/1328426821_850215.html. El País is one of the most prestigious newspapers in Spain.

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I will revise how profile photographs may influence customers’ choice— e.g., when booking an accommodation or writing a review. Section 5.2.3 will summarize previous studies dealing with the effect of gender on profile photo selection and the key concept of face-ism. Section 5.2.4 will focus on the effect of culture on the choice of profile photographs. The second part of the chapter (Sect. 5.3) will focus on the theory of visual grammar as one of the frameworks we can employ to analyse profile photos, illustrated with a case study of Spanish WhatsApp users in Sect. 5.4. The chapter finishes with a summary in Sect. 5.5.

5.2

Profile Photos: Influencing and Being Influenced

5.2.1 Profile Photographs and Personality Traits Psychologists have often focused on the relationship between the use of social media and personality traits2 (see Chapters 2 and 3). Personality traits are seen as one of the main factors determining the type of photograph an individual may choose to share on social media, not only as their profile picture, even if this is often the most relevant image. Additionally, another main focus of research in the field is to what extent it is possible to predict someone’s personality traits from their profile photograph, either by other humans or by means of automatic detection (see Celli et al., 2014; Segalin et al., 2017, among others). There is a myriad of studies that show that personality traits indeed influence users’ choice of a profile picture. In one of the first studies on personality traits and photos on social networking sites, Kramer and Winter (2008) examined the relationship between profile photographs 2 In the field of psychology, the most prevalent theory is the Five Factor Model of personality, also known as the Big Five. According to Muscanell and Guadagno (2012), the five personality factors are extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. Extraversion is connected to individuals’ level of sociability and outgoingness. Agreeableness is related to the extent to which individuals endorse interpersonal cooperation. Conscientiousness refers to those individuals with a strong sense of purpose and high aspiration levels. Neuroticism refers to individuals with low self-esteem, hopelessness, guilt, and pessimistic attitudes. Finally, openness characterizes individuals who need variety, novelty and change.

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and the extraversion trait. The authors found that users with high extraversion scores chose more experimental photos of themselves rather than the “conventional” style (e.g., looking and smiling at the camera). Other personality features like narcissism have also been shown to play a key role in (profile) picture selection (Kapidzic, 2013). As in other fields, Facebook’s initial popularity triggered a great number of studies in this direction (McKinney et al., 2012; Ross et al., 2009; Segalin et al., 2017; Whitty et al., 2018, among many others). For example, Hudson and Gore (2017) examined to what extent profile picture content related to Facebook users’ personality traits and whether personality relates to profile picture content differently for men and women on Facebook. Their results are based on a two-stage experimental design involving 158 participants (50% women and 50% men). In the first stage, the researchers asked the participants to access their profile pictures, then to complete a profile picture coding sheet consisting of 20 categories (e.g., “me alone”, “me with close others”). In the second stage, all the participants had to fill in a 44-item online survey to measure their personality trait(s). Among their results, it is interesting to see that women (who also ranked higher in neuroticism) tended to share more pictures of themselves with close others. The importance attached by their female participants to close relationships contrasted with that of the male participants. The latter preferred to share “self only” pictures, which correlated with the openness trait. Profile pictures are indeed carefully selected by users and may say a great deal about a person’s character and self-image. Profile photos can hence not only predict what personality factors may lead an individual to select one profile photograph over another but, interestingly, how other users may form an impression of that individual’s personality based on their profile photo. As pointed out by Hudson and Gore (2017: 186), “rather than searching through posts and information pages, people may consider that when a person has several pictures of themselves with close others in their profile picture folder, this is valuable social information and worth a thousand posts”. Besides social networking sites, other social media have also received scholarly attention from the field of psychology such as WhatsApp. For

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example, Fuadi and Wibawa (2022) carried out a study on Indonesian users of WhatsApp, also using a Big Five questionnaire with their 163 participants, who also shared their WhatsApp profile photos. These were automatically tagged by means of Google Cloud Vision (GCV). Although the authors acknowledge that their study might be culturally biased, they still put forward interesting results. For example, Fuadi and Wibawa found that users ranking high in agreeableness preferred to display photos that include the limbs, not only showing the face while those ranking high in conscientiousness tended to focus on objects or shared photos with more than one face or person. Those users that scored high in extraversion seemed to favour photos highlighting objects but tended not to show their faces directly.

5.2.2 Profile Photographs in E-commerce The effect of first impressions and sellers’ non-verbal behaviour on customers’ evaluation and spending has long been studied in face-toface service encounters. For example, prior research has long proven that smiles and the facial display of positive emotions positively influence customers’ behaviour together with other aspects such as hair colour or facial appearance, including facial hair (Guéguen, 2012; Jiang & Galm, 2014; Kim et al., 2018; Pugh, 2001, among others). This explains why many companies train their employees to smile at customers and express positive emotions (Barger & Grandey, 2006; Raz & Rafaeli, 2007) as this, far from being banal, leads to what is known as emotional contagion (Hatfield et al., 1993). According to the emotional contagion theory, human beings tend to mimic the emotional expressions of others. Thus, when faced with a shop assistant who is smiling at us, customers tend to smile back, deriving a positive impression of the whole encounter (Luong, 2005). In the case of e-commerce and platforms like Uber, TripAdvisor or Booking (to mention a few examples), there is often no face-to-face relationship with the service provider, and the decision on whether to book the service may depend on other factors such as other users’ reviews,

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photos of the accommodation, photos of the service providers themselves and so on. In fact, and as rightly argued by Jaeger et al. (2019: n.a.) “people might be reluctant to enter the home or car of a complete stranger”. Hence, the importance of the profile picture should not be underestimated, as emotional contagion theory seems to work also online (Jang, 2022). For example, in a study on the profile photos used by hosts on Airbnb, Zhang et al. (2020) showed that a profile picture displaying a smiling host led to an increase in bookings. Prior research has also demonstrated that the service provider’s profile photo also plays a key role in customers’ decision and evaluation. For example, customers may be more willing to book an accommodation if they believe the host looks “trustworthy” in the profile photo. These impressions have been proven to be rather fast and robust, often difficult to control and change (Todorov & Duchaine, 2008; Todorov et al., 2009; Willis & Todorov, 2006). These results are in line with one of the first studies on the importance of service providers’ profile pictures in customers’ decisions. Thus, Bente et al. (2012) carried out an empirical study where participants were shown three different types of profile pictures: trustworthy, untrustworthy and no profile picture at all and checked whether participants scored them as positive, negative or no seller reputation. Their hypothesis was that trustworthy photos would be ranked as positive and led to increased purchase decisions on the customers’ side. In contrast, untrustworthy profile pictures would lead to mistrust and hence lower purchase rates, with the absence of profile pictures ranking in the middle. However, after carrying out their experiment with 30 university students, their results proved that the lack of a profile photo on the seller’s part was as negatively evaluated as the use of an untrustworthy photo, hence also leading to lower purchase intentions. In their view, the lack of a profile photo may be interpreted by potential customers as uncertain sellers and thus untrustworthy, which also leads to a lower purchase intention. As argued by Hirsh and Inzlicht (2008: 962; quoted in Bente et al., 2012: 10), Whereas exposure to familiar negative stimuli produces a well-defined threat, exposure to the unknown can be even more threatening because

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the potential danger is not clearly specified. Consequently, uncontrollable and unexpected threats produce greater anticipatory anxiety and physiological responses than do controllable and predictable threats.

Even if, as the authors admit themselves, the number of participants is too low to admit generalizations (n = 36), the lack of sellers’ profile picture seems to have negative effects on customers. Thus, identical results were obtained by Fagerstrøm et al. (2017), who were the first to carry out a similar study on Airbnb. Also employing a game of trust, their empirical study involved 139 participants (also undergraduate students), who pretended to be looking for accommodations on Airbnb prior to a holiday in New York. Given this scenario, they were presented with 20 possible choices of accommodations. In contrast to previous studies, only providing informants with the sellers’ profile photo, in this study participants were not only given the hosts’ profile picture but also the price and customer ratings, to make their decision as realistic as possible. Results show that there is a statistically significant impact on booking (and hence paying) decisions derived from the seller’s profile photo, even if the price was the most determining aspect. Thus, negative facial expressions (angry faces as opposed to smiley ones) and absence of facial image (head silhouette) significantly decreased the likelihood of rent, even if other customers’ ratings were positive and the price was low. As the authors conclude, users of these platforms should not take their profile picture lightly as “the presence/absence of facial images and their inherent expressions have a significant impact in the peer-to-peer accommodation rental services” (Fagerstrøm et al., 2017: 128). Similar results regarding trust based on hosts’ profile photographs were reported by Ert et al. (2016), who found that Airbnb customers were willing to pay higher prices for a similar accommodation if they thought the host looked “trustworthy”. Their experiment was later replicated by Jaeger et al. (2019), who analysed over 1,000 Airbnb listings in New York City. Their results confirmed that hosts who are attractive-looking and smile more intensely in the profile photo (albeit not necessarily trustworthy looking) charged higher for their apartments, meaning that customers were willing to pay more in those cases. As in previous studies,

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the authors concluded that people rely indeed on profile photos in online markets to make spending decisions. Despite the undeniable positive bias in society towards physical attractiveness, Peng et al. (2020) found that it is not only attractive online sellers who were commercially more successful but also those who were particularly unattractive. The authors analysed two large data sets gathered empirically by means of online experiments with participants pretending to be consumers of e-commerce platforms. As argued by Peng et al. (2020), there is a U-shaped relationship between facial attractiveness and product sales, what they call both beauty and ugliness premiums. Plain sellers, however, get a “plainness penalty”. In other words, while attractive sellers were favoured by customers simply by the fact of being attractive, unattractive sellers were also favoured by being regarded as more believable and confident. The previous studies, however, are not without limitations. As most of the authors themselves acknowledge, the number of participants is often too limited and the studies are mostly experimental and without any consequences in the participants’ real lives, as they are simply playing a “game of trust”. In contrast, Jang (2022) has more recently analysed over 20,000 Airbnb hosts’ profile pictures in correlation with real guests’ ratings by means of artificial intelligence (i.e. Microsoft Azure and Machine Learning). The author wanted to find out to what extent the profile picture might play a role in customers’ satisfaction (rather than booking intention). Two aspects were taken into consideration: whether the photos included facial images or not (e.g., there is an object or an animal or the faces are too small to be seen) and if so, whether the kind of facial expression (e.g., happy or neutral) or position of the head (e.g., tilted backwards) correlated to guests’ ratings. Despite the study having a different methodological design from those referred to in the previous paragraphs of this section, results are nevertheless very much in line, which proves that profile pictures indeed play a key role in e-commerce. Thus, Jang (2022) found out that profile pictures with recognizable facial features received higher ratings than those whose hosts’ profile pictures did not include clear facial features or opted for other types of photos (e.g., an object or landscape). Unsurprisingly, profile pictures displaying

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a happy facial expression also triggered higher ratings in contrast to those where hosts appeared with their heads tilted back, which were negatively rated.

5.2.3 Profile Photographs and Gender In the previous section, it was shown how the right choice of the right profile photograph can boost customers’ purchase intention and even better service ratings, e.g., on platforms such as Airbnb. This, however, seems to vary depending on the customers’ gender. For example, Fagerstrøm et al. (2017) also found that, in the case of Airbnb, the hosts’ negative and positive facial expressions had more impact on the likelihood to rent for women than for men, being statistically significant in the case of negative facial expressions, which seemed to affect women more than their male counterparts. Indeed, gender seems to be a determining factor not only when deciding on purchasing or booking a service but also when it comes to choosing a profile picture (see Sect. 5.2). However, results seem contradictory, with studies reporting that gender indeed plays a key role in the kind of profile picture a user may display—e.g., female users have been said to have a higher tendency towards face-ism than male users, while other studies show that there is not such a difference between male and female users, and they follow similar patterns when composing their profile pictures. This section aims at providing readers with an overview of these two perspectives, by revising previous works on the issue. It is, however, important to acknowledge that the complexity of gender is not tackled by many of these studies, where the main division is binary—i.e. male versus female users. The study of how individuals chose to display themselves visually (not only in profile pictures but in photographs in general) has long been studied. As in other aspects, the massive popularity of Facebook in the decade of the 2010s led to different studies also of the kind of photographs users posted, with a special focus on the users’ genders. Most studies agreed that men and women displayed different types of profile photographs and behaviours. As already mentioned, however,

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results often lack consensus. For example, Strano (2008) found that women tended to change their profile image more often than their male counterparts (in line with other studies such as Nazir, 2012), and to emphasize friendship and social relationships by posting group photographs with their partners, family or friends more frequently than men (Bond, 2009). These results, however, are partially contradicted by other studies such as David-Barrett et al. (2015), who contrasted over 112,000 Facebook profile pictures from nine different world regions and found that male users also favoured presenting themselves as part of groups of friends. In their study, when women also chose to appear with friends, they favoured dyadic relations rather than large groups, which according to the authors shows a different construction of the notion of friendship depending on gender, and independently of the users’ cultural background. Besides the variable of appearing in profile pictures either on their own or with other people, another issue that has entered comparison is faceism. Face-ism has been defined as “the relative prominence of the face in a photograph, drawing, or other depiction of a person” (Archer et al., 1983: 726) and, more recently, as “the tendency to stereotype people based on their facial appearance” (Olivera-La Rosa et al., 2019: 3). More specifically, it can be measured by the face-ism index, which is “the ratio between the distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin and the distance from the top of the head to the lowest part of the body visible in the image. Thus, the ratio can range from 0 (no face visible in the image) to 1 (only the face is visible in the image)” (Read et al., 2017: 102). In general terms, human beings give prevalence to their face when representing themselves, as the most characteristic element of their identity and can render a great deal of social information. As argued by Olivera-La Rosa et al. (2019: 3), “the face is a central source of social information […] people draw multiple social inferences from minimal facial cues about a person”. Human faces are also what we often pay attention to first when seeing an image, even visualizing faces when they are not really present (e.g., people report “seeing faces” when they look at water stains or even toast).

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This effect is known as pareidolia and is arguably a result of our evolutionary load not only to survive potential predators but also for babies to attract their parents’ attention (e.g., when a smiling face is met by the baby’s own smile, the baby has more chances to be taken care of ). Indeed, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the human brain is “hard-wired for face detection”, with strangers’ faces (especially if they look untrustworthy) evoking a strong response from the amygdala as opposed to familiar faces, as a result of evolutionary needs to find out fast whether a new person might be a friend or a foe (Engell et al., 2007). While it has been consistently proven that the human brain is “hardwired for face detection”, there are also individual differences, not only as a result of individual characteristics but also influenced by acculturation (Zhou & Meng, 2020), with women in general showing more proneness to pareidolia than men (e.g., Pavlova et al., 2020). This prioritization of our visual system for faces over other elements (Caruana & Seymour, 2022) may explain why face-ism seems so crucial when choosing our profile picture. The initial studies on face-ism consistently showed that face-ism was connected to the representation of men (e.g., in adverts, news, political campaigns, etc.) while women’s bodies were given a prominence over their faces (Archer et al., 1983; Konrath & Schwarz, 2007, among others) hence contributing to the sexualization of women. Face-ism was hence criticized for objectifying the body of women while men were presented as intelligent beings merely by focusing on picturing their faces (Zuckerman, 1986). The study of face-ism on social media lacks consistency, and results are far from definite, as shown by the lack of consensus, although most studies point to a shift in face-ism and gender, with either little or no difference in face-ism in relation to gender, especially as social media users can choose the photographs they share with others and employ as their profile picture(s). Be it as it may, this issue is still being worth further exploration. The following paragraphs intend to briefly review some of the studies dealing with face-ism in online communication. One of the first studies on face-ism online was Hum et al. (2011), who analysed a sample of 140 college students’ Facebook profile pictures and concluded that all the participants, independently of their gender, tended to include a profile picture featuring their faces. Their study, however,

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does not allow for generalizations given the relatively low number of participants and the fact that they only focused on one social networking site. This contrasts with another pioneering study by Reichart Smith and Cooley (2012). The main assets of their study are that they included a dataset of more than 1,400 profile pictures by users of seven different nationalities (USA, Ghana, Australia, The Republic of Korea, France, Brazil and Russia) and focused not only on Facebook but on five different social networking sites (Facebook, Cyworld, Orkut, Netlog and VKontakte). Further, all their participants were 25 years old or younger, which allowed for control of the age variable and their sample was quite balanced in terms of gender, the variable under study (see also Sect. 5.2.4 for cultural differences). Their results showed that male users (especially French participants) gave significantly more prominence to their faces than female users. However, they also revealed that, in other nationalities except for the French users, the face-ism indexes between men and women did not present statistically significant differences, which may be indicative of “a distinctive shift in gender presentation as each nation moves into the digital world” (Smith & Cooley, 2012: 292). Similar results were found by Read et al. (2017), who argue that age also plays a key role in facial representation. Their study of 900 academic profiles by male and female professors shows that older men and women (especially high-status women like tenured university professors) tended to behave on an equal footing with their male counterparts in terms of face-ism, in line with previous studies (Szillis & Stahlberg, 2007). Younger academics and graduate students were observed to display different behaviours with regard to gender and the kind of profile picture chosen in the faculty webs, with lower levels of face-ism in contrast to older, high-status female professors, whose levels of face-ism were the same as those of their male counterparts. However interesting, their study fails to consider other factors that might not even be within the control of the participants such as the fact that universities may have their own policy when presenting their staff images. They might even encourage an only face profile picture to avoid sexualization of the participants and favour unambiguous identification of their professionals. Other factors

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such as image quality or resolution are acknowledged as limitations by the authors themselves. Besides face-ism, another frequent aspect that has been studied in connection with gender is the kind of “performance” users choose to display in their profile photographs (e.g., posing versus carrying out an action). Once again, however, results are far from conclusive and while a body of research has consistently shown gender differences, other studies have refuted such differences. For example, in their analysis of Facebook profile photos of male and female professional athletes, Emmons and Mocarski (2014) overwhelmingly found out that women mostly posed while men were carrying out some sportive action, which helped present them as more active and women as more passive, mere “decorative figures” to be watched. Based on prior categorizations of profile pictures (Nosko et al., 2010; Strano, 2008), Zhen et al. (2016: 894) established 11 different categories: socializing, romantic pictures, unique locations, supporting cause, face shot, special occasion, alone posing, playing sports, family, interests and hobbies and humorous shots. Their study included a gender balanced sample of 479 Taiwanese university students and 231 Chinese university students, who were required to assess their own profile pictures according to the 11 categories, with the aim of discovering both the way they perceived themselves and their motivations behind, being gender and nationality the two independent variables. Their results point to some statistically significant differences when it comes to gender. Thus, the authors found that even though the category of “user alone posing” had the highest percentage in both genders, it was more frequent among male participants than their female counterparts, with females more often opting to depict a close-up while males preferred a standing pose (hence including their whole body), a tendency that seems to derive from stereotypical gender representations on advertisements and which has also been reported in the study of selfies (Döring et al., 2016). All the participants, however, acknowledged that looking attractive was the main motivation to choose a photo as their profile one, even if the second most frequent motivation statistically differed between both genders, with the female students preferring to depict “special moments” and the male ones favouring to show themselves having fun.

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As already mentioned, however, there are also studies refuting the argument that users may perform different kinds of pictorial selfpresentations depending on their gender. Thus, in a study also on Facebook profile photographs, Hum et al. (2011) put forward a taxonomy of profile photographs into five categories, i.e. sex, level of physical activity, candidness, appropriateness and the number of subjects depicted in the photograph. Their results, after analysing a sample of 140 college students, showed that most profile photographs followed the same pattern, presenting the user as inactive, posed, appropriate and alone, regardless of gender. Finally, and closely related both to what individuals are doing in their profile photographs is the camera angle. In other words, the kind of shot the photograph presents; that is, whether it is a close-up, a medium or a long shot, and even the kind of orientation (from below or from an above perspective), have also revealed interesting differences in connection to gender. Most studies in this field have focused on e-dating apps like Tinder or Bumble and results consistently reveal significant differences in terms of gender. Thus, Sedgewick et al. (2017) studied the kind of orientation heterosexual users employed when taking a selfie as their Tinder profile photograph. They analysed a dataset of 665 selfies, (247 from men’s profiles and 457 were from women’s) and found out that men significantly opted for a “from-below angle” while women preferred to angle their selfies from above. These different angles contribute to respectively depicting users as taller and smaller. The authors interestingly argue that this dimorphism may be an attempt (maybe unconscious and purely intuitive) by users to adhere to ideal mating stereotypes and to the conceptual metaphor of power -i.e. height being connected to power and strength while a shorter stature may be perceived as a symbol of fertility but also of submission. Despite the profusion of studies on profile pictures and gender, most research has focused on “sexual normativity”. In my view, opening up this research to other genders such as non-binary or fluid users and how they choose to depict themselves in their profile photographs is not only necessary but likely to be the expected next step to take.

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5.2.4 Profile Pictures and Cultural Differences Self-presentation is also determined by the social and cultural influences on that individual (Peng et al., 2008). In other words, even if all individuals tend to present themselves in a manner that is deemed most acceptable or desirable, what is most acceptable and desirable may change from culture to culture. For example, Reichart Smith and Cooley (2012: 284) argue that, in the USA, a profile photo of a woman hunting may be regarded as acceptable in the South but unacceptable in the North. In their study on profile pictures by seven different nationalities (USA, Ghana, Australia, The Republic of Korea, France, Brazil and Russia), the authors found that cultural differences played a significant role in faceism. Taking Hofstede’s (1991) dimensions3 as a point of departure, the authors found that, contrary to their expectations, nations with high masculinity values (the USA, Australia and Russia) scored the lowest in face-ism. However, they argue that this could be explained by the fact that the values embodied by this dimension (recognition, ambition, status based on job position, etc.) could also be represented pictorially by other elements such as the individual’s clothes, or other material possessions that are best seen when the image is fully depicted rather than in a face close-up (e.g., depicting themselves next to an expensive car). Another interesting finding was that those countries that scored moderately in masculinity but shared high uncertainty avoidance (i.e. fear of change) also tended to score high in male face-ism. Another interesting study is Huang and Park (2013), who contrasted the type of profile photographs posted by Facebook users in North America and East Asia. One of their findings was that East Asian users were more likely to deemphasize their faces and tended to include context (and often others) in their profile photos in contrast to American users, who seemed to prioritize their face at the expense of the background. The authors explain these tendencies in the cultural values of collectivism versus individualism. An additional explanation, however, could be related to Hall’s distinction between low-context cultures 3

Initially, Hofstede (1991) put forward five cultural dimensions: individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, short-long term orientation. To these five dimensions, a sixth one was added in 2010: indulgence/restraint.

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(where context plays a lesser role) in contrast to high-context cultures (where silence and common contextual knowledge are highly valued). North American users, who belong to a low-context and individualist culture, would favour themselves in the photo in contrast to East Asian users, who belong to high-context and collectivistic cultures. This contrast between Eastern and Western cultures has been the focus of other studies on how social media users choose to depict themselves in their profile pictures. Thus, Zheng et al. (2016) also found out that Taiwanese students, Chinese students, and international students were drawn towards different types of profile pictures, given their different motivations behind their choice, which may derive from diverse cultural values. For example, the Chinese participants were more likely to choose a profile picture of themselves living a “special moment” rather than “having fun”, such as graduation, which might help them depict themselves as responsible and committed individuals. Indeed, contrastive studies on the influence of users’ different cultural backgrounds open what seems to be a highly fruitful avenue for future research.

5.3

The Grammar of Visual Design

In my view, probably the most comprehensive and systematic theoretical framework to analyse images is the grammar of visual design put forward by Gunther Kress and Theo Van Leeuwen back in 1996 and revised in 2006. Following a systemic functional approach to images based on socio-historical construction, the authors present a set of complex albeit “user-friendly” taxonomies to analyse images. Although it is beyond the scope of this section to fully revise their theory, I will focus on one of the dimensions that can be highly useful to analyse profile photographs in detail: interactive meanings. Interactive meanings refer to the kind of interaction established between the depicted participant(s) and the viewer and develop along three major dimensions: contact, social distance and attitude or perspective. The first crucial distinction established by Kress and van Leeuwen is contact. In other words, the authors distinguish photographs where the depicted participants look directly at the viewer’s eyes from those where

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this is not the case. The first set, where there is a visual contact between the depicted and the viewing participants is termed demand as opposed to offer (i.e. the depicted participant is there for us to look at them, but there is no kind of interaction between viewer and “viewed”). For example, Leonardo’s Gioconda is a demand image as if the Mona Lisa wants to ask something from her viewers. Besides contact, the second dimension in the system is social distance, which depends on the kind of shot the user chooses for their photograph. Thus, a photograph can be taken from a close, medium or long shot. For Kress and Van Leeuwen, a close shot—showing head and shoulders—promotes a high degree of intimacy; a medium shot—including up to the waist—implies a more social relationship while the long shot— where individuals are depicted complete and from afar—may indicate an impersonal, distant relationship between viewer and viewed. Finally, the authors include a third dimension: attitude, which refers to the perspective adopted in the image (e.g., angle) and which helps reflect socially determined values (e.g., involvement, detachment, power). They argue that, since the Renaissance, there are two kinds of images in Western cultures: subjective and objective. In their own words (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006: 130): In subjective images the viewer can see what there is to see only from a particular point of view. In objective images, the image reveals everything there is to know (or that the image produced has judged to be so) about the represented participants, even if, to do so, it is necessary to violate the laws of naturalistic depiction.

In the case of profile images, most users tend to employ subjective images, also because of the affordances provided by the smartphone camera. In subjective images, however, users may choose different angles. Thus, a frontal angle fosters the involvement between the depicted and the viewing participants while an oblique angle implies a detachment between both. Likewise, the depicted participant may be at eye-level with their observers, which shows equality in terms of power. However, a high or low angle respectively promotes the viewer’s or the represented

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participant’s power, as in the case of Tinder selfies already discussed in Sect. 5.2.3 by Sedgewick et al. (2017). Figure 5.1 sums up the three main dimensions of the system of interactive meanings. Then, what are we “implying” when, for example, we upload our profile photograph on WhatsApp? Let us compare the following two profile pictures (the photo on the left depicts the present author, and that on the right is her husband’s profile photo on WhatsApp, reproduced with the user’s permission) (Fig. 5.2). Following Kress and Van Leeuwen’s system of interactive meanings, it can be said that in terms of contact, the first image is an offer image (the depicted participant is there to be seen by others) while the second one illustrates demand (as the depicted participant is looking at the camera and hence, at the viewer). At the level of social distance, the first participant chooses to present a more intimate, closer approach as if she is inviting others to partake of an intimate moment she is having, while Demand Contact

Interactive meanings

Offer Intimate/personal Social distance

Social Impersonal Frontal angel

Involvement

Oblique angle

Detachment

Subjectivity

High angle

Viewer power

Objectivity

Eye-level angle

Equality

Low angle

Represented participant power

Attitude

Fig. 5.1 System of interactive meanings in visual grammar (adapted from Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006: 149)

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Fig. 5.2 Two WhatsApp profile photos

the second participant prefers to adopt a more impersonal stance by appearing in a long shot. Finally, both are subjective images, where the person taking the photo has chosen to reveal just part of the whole scene (although this can also be done by the depicted participants themselves, who are able to edit their photos before actually uploading them). Despite their subjectivity, the participant on the left has chosen to appear from an oblique and low angle, hence depicting herself both as detached and superior in power to the viewer, while the user on the right has opted for an eye-level angle, thus showing a higher level of involvement and equality with his viewers. The following section of this chapter intends to present a case study of Spanish users’ WhatsApp profile photographs following this taxonomy, to find out whether the variables of gender and age play any role in how users choose their profile picture on this app.

5.4

Case Study: Spanish Users’ Profile Photographs on WhatsApp

As pointed out in the previous sections, Facebook is probably the platform that has received the highest degree of scholarly attention, followed by others like Instagram or X (formerly Twitter). Despite being the most popular messaging application worldwide, WhatsApp

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profile photographs have been scarcely researched (although see Fuadi & Wibawa, 2022) even if they are particularly interesting as they seem to occupy an intermediate position in the front-back stage spheres. As rightly pointed out by Fuadi and Wibawa (2022: 156), WhatsApp is not limited to social communication but has also become a medium of communication for work and professional activities. Its private nature makes WhatsApp users only connect to their closest relatives based on their contact numbers. This compact and private circle of relationships may trigger the use of profile photos that are more intimate and personal than Facebook profile photos or photos uploaded on Instagram.

For this case study and given the difficulty to gather this kind of data, I resorted to my own community of WhatsApp users, from which underage users were excluded for ethical reasons. Users that are not Spanish were also excluded as the main focus was precisely on Spanish users. This rendered a dataset of 184 profile pictures. This ethnographic approach, however, implies two major limitations: on the one hand, some age spans tend to be underrepresented. Thus, out of the three main age spans that were considered, middle-aged users were overrepresented while younger and older users appeared in lower numbers. Because of this imbalance, it was decided that the variable of age would not be considered in this case study, even if being aware that it may play a key role in users’ choice of profile photographs. On the other, the number of female users doubles that of male users. Despite this limitation, I believe that the use of ratios could still help to show the main tendencies between different users, especially between female and male users. Furthermore, knowing all the users also allows for a higher knowledge of their personal context, which informs some of the profile photographs they upload. Finally, it is important to point out that, in order to preserve the users’ privacy, no personal data will be provided, and personal images of the users will not be reproduced. Figure 5.3 sums up the dataset employed in this case study. After gathering all the users’ data together with the profile photographs on an Excel file with the aim of finding out to what extent the users’

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Male (n= 67) Gender WhatsApp users

Female (n= 120)

Young users (n= 30)

Age span

Middle-age users (n= 117)

Older users (n=37)

Fig. 5.3 Dataset description

gender may influence the way they present themselves in their WhatsApp profile picture, the profile photographs were first classified into three major categories: (i) those depicting exclusively the user (and hence susceptible to be analysed according to the interactive meaning taxonomy described in Sect. 5.3 (see also Fig. 5.2) (ii) those where users appear with other individuals or animals (e.g., pets) (iii) those where users do not appear at all (e.g., family members, landscape photographs, etc.). Overall, the analysis of the dataset reveals a statistically significant difference between both groups (the χ2 test shows a global p value of 0.003), which means gender influences how users choose to present themselves in the profile photograph. When looking into the three specific categories, it can be observed that there is no significant difference in the first category (solo photos). In fact, almost half the users in both groups mostly prefer to appear solo (women 44.16% versus 43.23% for men, with a p value of 0.09). This may be explained since the profile

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photo seems to be regarded as an individual identifier in a similar way to that of an ID card. Below we will explore whether gender may also influence the interactive meaning (see Fig. 5.2) in these solo pictures. Interestingly, the second category—i.e. when users choose to appear with others in their profile photograph—shows a highly significant difference (p value = 0.001), with women choosing to appear with family members (their children, couple, etc.) on 18.33% of the occasions in contrast to 1.49% for the male users. Furthermore, the women in the dataset depict themselves not only posing with beloved family members but also “living” special moments with them, as a narrative. For example, a loving couple looking at each other, a granddaughter kissing her granny, etc. This concurs with previous studies on pictorial depictions of women (Bond, 2009), who seem more interested in revealing their family life as part of their self-presentation. Although less statistically significant (p value = 0.04), this tendency gets reversed when men depict themselves with friends, as they choose to do so more frequently than their female counterparts (7.46% versus 1.66%, respectively). In this case, however, there is no narrative as such, as users appear looking at the camera (and hence the viewer). Finally, the third category includes all those profile pictures where the user is not present. Instead, other elements or people may be depicted such as family members (e.g., kids, grandkids), pets, landscapes, objects, etc. This category is not statistically significant (p value 0.32), which means that both groups may choose not to appear in their profile picture themselves. However, when looking at specific sub-categories, we observe a clear preference by female users for nature pictures (especially landscapes and flowers) in contrast to their male counterparts. Thus, 19% of the women in the dataset resort to this kind of photograph while only 4.47% of the male participants do so. It is also interesting to point out that depicting other family members (especially children) also seems to be favoured by the female participants (10.83%) as opposed to their male counterparts (2.98%). Once again, this may be due to the female participants’ wish to show themselves as socially functional members of the society, with a family to account for, a tendency that has also been reported in previous studies such as Tifferet and Vilnai-Yavetz (2014:

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388), whose study of profile photographs on Facebook reported that “females’ photos accentuated familial relations”. Conversely, using the profile picture as a promotional strategy (e.g., to advertise their business or their work) seems to be more popular among the male users that choose not to appear on their profile photo. Thus, 7.46% of the male users employ this strategy in contrast to 0.83% of the female dataset. It goes without saying that this helps reinforce gender stereotypes, especially by middle-aged women, who consistently choose to present themselves either as nature lovers or family focused. Let us now zero in on the analysis of the solo photos in terms of interactive meanings—i.e. the kind of relationship established between the viewer and the “viewed”. As already mentioned, the first dimension is contact. In other words, whether the user depicts themselves as seeking an interaction with the viewer (“demand”) or as an image to be seen (“offer”). In terms of gender, contact does not render any statistical differences, with both groups expectedly preferring the demand option (slightly more so by female users), as summarized by Table 5.1. With regard to the second dimension (social distance), there is no statistical difference between both groups, as summarized in Table 5.2. As can be observed, there is preference for the close-up shot in both groups, hence creating a more personal relationship with the audience. Although not statistically significant, it is nevertheless interesting that Table 5.1 Contact dimension according to gender Contact dimension

Male users (n = 29)

Female users (n = 53)

P value

Offer Demand Total

8 (27.58%) 21 (72.41%) 29 (100%)

21 (39.62%) 32 (60.37%) 53 (100%)

0.38 0.51 1

Table 5.2 Social distance according to gender Social distance

Male users (n = 29)

Female users (n = 53)

P value

Intimate Social Impersonal Total

13 (44.82%) 7 (24.13%) 9 (31.03%) 29 (100%)

26 15 12 53

0.79 0.72 0.47 1

(49.05%) (28.30%) (22.64%) (100%)

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female users’ second preference is the social shot while favouring the long shot, hence creating a more impersonal relationship with their viewers. Finally, the attitude dimension shows two different sub-dimensions determined by the type of angle adopted in the photograph. Thus, a frontal angle aims at involving the viewer in the scene while an oblique angle detaches the viewer from the viewed. In terms of angle, users mostly opt for a frontal one, hence involving the viewers in the scene rather than displaying a detached attitude. Although differences are not statistically significant, as summarized in Table 5.3, female users opt slightly more often for a detached attitude, especially when taking more aesthetic pictures where they appear back to the viewer or looking aside while posing, as in Fig. 5.4 (reproduced with user’s permission). Finally, the type of angle can also be employed to show a power relationship between the viewer and the viewed. Thus, an eye-level angle shows a symmetrical, equal relationship between the viewer and the Table 5.3 Attitude according to gender Attitude (angle)

Male users (n = 29)

Female users (n = 53)

P value

Involvement Detachment Total

23 (79.31%) 6 (20.68%) 29 (100%)

41 (77.35%) 12 (22.64%) 53 (100%)

0.92 0.85

Fig. 5.4 Detachment

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Table 5.4 Angle and power according to gender Angle and power Equality Viewer power Represented participant’s power Total

Male users (n = 29)

Female users (n = 53)

P value

23 (13.79%) 4 (13.79%) 2 (6.89%)

38 (71.69%) 11 (20.75%) 4 (7.54%)

0.70 0.48 0.91

29 (100%)

53 (100%)

viewed while a high angle and low angle show, respectively, that the viewer is superior or inferior in power. In this case, and as expected, users mostly opt for an equality relationship (79.31% in the case of male users and 71.69% in that of females). The second option is a high angle, which helps depict the participant as seen from above and hence “inferior”, as this composition seems to add to a degree of attractiveness, especially among female users (see also Sedgewick et al., 2017). Table 5.4 sums up these results, where differences are not statistically significant.

5.5

Chapter Summary

This chapter has focused on profile photographs as a self-presentation strategy, given the importance users attach to them, especially on social media. This importance cannot be overrated since, as previous research in different fields has shown, profile photographs can determine success in a wide range of contexts, from an e-dating profile to getting a guest when offering accommodation. The first part of the chapter has also reviewed the prolific research on different fields such as face-ism, gender influences and cultural differences. The second part has briefly presented the theory of visual grammar, as a useful tool to analyse this kind of data, illustrated afterwards by a case study of the profile photographs by a group of 184 Spanish WhatsApp users.

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6 Multimodal Presentations of the Self

6.1

Introduction

As rightly pointed out by David Crystal (1997), pragmatics is mostly about choices. In other words, a speaker has a set of options out of which they can choose what they considers to be the most appropriate one given a specific context and their communicative intentions or illocutionary force. For example, when addressing someone, we can choose to use different honorifics (Mrs., Ms., Madam, etc.), a nickname (Juls), an endearing term (sweetie, honey, love, etc.) and so on. Likewise, when performing a request, there are also a set of options out of which we can choose depending on our relationship with the addressee, on the rank of imposition, etc. However, other aspects cannot be freely chosen. Thus, if we decide to make a polite request for salt, we can choose between “Can you please pass the salt?” or “Could I have the salt?” but uttering “Are you able to pass the salt?” might be perceived as odd if intended as a request. In very similar terms, most social media provide their users with a set of options from which they can choose when presenting themselves,

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for example, when setting up their profile page. For instance, WhatsApp provides users with a set of twelve default statuses from which they can choose (e.g., “busy”, “available”, “at work”, etc.) together with self-editing their own status, which they can opt to leave blank or to fill by exclusively using emoji rather than a text. Thus, WhatsApp users are certainly provided with a set of options to present themselves in their profile status but there are features they cannot choose such as the amount of characters, which is limited to 139. Facebook, for example, offers its users the possibility to add personal details following a list that progressively moves from what could be considered front stage information according to Goffman (1959) to more backstage information (see Chapter 1). Thus, Facebook users can decide to include information about their work and academic background, the place(s) where they have lived, contact information such as their phone number and email addresses, before adding personal information about their family and civil status. Indeed, it is well-known that Facebook provides its users with the possibility to add their relationship status from a list including different options such as single, divorced or even “it’s complicated”. In fact, the popularity of the Facebook relationship status has transferred to TV series such as The Big Bang Theory1 and often become the subject of humour, as the memes in Fig. 6.1 illustrate. Furthermore, users can choose whether to add the information or not and, if they include it, they can also choose whether to make it fully public or restrict it to specific groups of users. Recently, the social networking site has even allowed users the possibility to change their relationship status without the change appearing on their timeline. However, they cannot “alter” the order in which the different items in the list are arranged or placed for their profile photograph, which is always located on the left top and within a circle. Users cannot move their profile picture to a different position or frame it within a different geometric figure of their choice other than a circle.

1 More specifically, the famous TV series refers to Leonard’s Facebook relationship status in Season 2, episode 9.

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Fig. 6.1 Memes about Facebook relationship status

In contrast to Facebook, which “guides” its users when displaying their personal information and details by providing them with a set of options, other platforms simply limit the number of characters but arguably give more freedom to their users. For example, Twitter arranges for the information to follow a specific order (photo, name, bio, location, website and birth date), hence slightly guiding the user but to a lesser extent than Facebook. Users can also “freely” choose what they write in their biographical information provided it does not include over 160 characters. Instagram also follows a similar pattern, with a limit of 150 characters for the bio. Given these limitations in the number of characters, users often try to be strategic when writing their bio. It might be thought that this biographic information is only relevant when users are pursuing specific objectives like getting a (better) job (LinkedIn) or a partner (Tinder), and where standing out plays a key role in attaining their goal. Interestingly, however, this does not seem to be the case and, even though there is a myriad of webpages giving advice on how to write the “perfect bio” on Tinder or LinkedIn, there are also plenty of web pages2 giving tips and advice about how to do so on X 2

Here are a few examples for Spanish users: https://www.socialmediapymes.com/bio-en-instag ram-ejemplos/ (last retrieved September 2023); https://www.expertosnegociosonline.com/biogra fia-instagram/; https://blog.cool-tabs.com/como-crear-una-bio-en-twitter/.

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(formerly Twitter) or Instagram. In sum, SNSs users attach importance to how to write their bio in order to display a positive persona and hence attract followers, customers or friends, which shows the importance of the personal profile, not only in professionally oriented SNS such as LinkedIn, but also in other social media which may be entertainment oriented. Admittedly, there is a blurry line between some of these “entertainment oriented” SNSs, especially when they are used by companies to improve their brand name. In this case, the “short description” becomes a strategic way to brand themselves, as in Fig. 6.2. depicting Coca Cola’s Instagram in Spain, where the description directly addresses a singular, personalized interlocutor as indicated by the verb desinences and the use of the pronoun “you” (“disfrutas”, “te gusta”: “while you enjoy the music you like the most”) and an emotional appeal to being “surrounded by friends”. This personal, emotional self-presentation is very similar to their profile information on Facebook but, expectedly, very different from their Spanish LinkedIn profile, where their information is highly factual and written exclusively in English, which may add to their international identity (as it is claimed at the very beginning of the paragraph). One noteworthy exception, especially given its increasing popularity, is the social networking site TikTok, where users can add a profile photo or video (other SNSs only allow for photographs), a nickname and username, a short description (similar to the bio in other SNSs) and link the account to other SNSs. Interestingly, the fact that this short description

Fig. 6.2 Coca Cola Instagram and LinkedIn profile pages

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does not appear explicitly as “biographical information” may generate some confusion among users, as revealed by the profusion of videos explaining to users how to edit this specific part of their TikTok profile. Thus, even if TikTok can indeed be considered highly visual, users may be accustomed to including personal information in the same way as they do for other SNSs they use, which may explain why they are interested in knowing where this option is located and how it can be edited. Besides the choices provided by the interface of the platform itself, users may also choose different ways to construct the more specific bio information, which tends to be textual (i.e. language-based) but may often be multimodal, combining text and visual elements such as emoji. This chapter will first adopt a macro-level approach as it will deal with the main characteristics of those interfaces, analysing them from the perspective of Kress and Van Leeuwen’s visual grammar, with special attention to notions such as framing , saliency or the axes along which information is arranged (e.g., top–bottom or left–right). More specifically, a contrastive analysis among the most commonly employed social media will be presented, focusing on the common features and differences. Secondly, a micro-level analysis will zero in on the bio profile information, providing a qualitative, in-depth case study of two prolific social media users (one male and one female in their early 50s who also agreed to be interviewed) to find out how and why they choose to write their bio information on the different platforms the way they do, and what strategies they employ when “exploiting” the affordances-constraints of the interfaces of the SNSs they employ. For the sake of clarity, the remainder of this chapter is divided into five sections. Section 6.2 will provide a brief review of the main theoretical concepts of the theory of visual grammar that can prove fruitful in the analysis of the different platforms’ interface, namely: saliency, framing, top-down and bottom-up axes. Section 6.3 will contrast different profile interfaces belonging to a range of social media (e.g., Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Tinder, Weibo, etc.), concentrating on the different sub-types users may choose—i.e. textual, visual or multimodal. As usual, the chapter will close with a case study in Sect. 6.4 and a summary of the chapter in Sect. 6.5.

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The Grammar of Visual Design

The revolutionary work by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996/2021) was partially reviewed in Chapter 5. However, while this chapter focused on personal images, the authors also provide a comprehensive and systematic framework that allows the analysis of other dimensions centred on the composition of the message—i.e. where image and text are placed and how they interact. These three principles are information value, salience and framing. This section will explore these three principles and how they can be applied to the analysis of profile area of social platform webpages. It is important to point out, however, that what is an affordance of social media (e.g., allowing its users to upload photographs, personal information, etc.) is simultaneously a constraint, as users cannot change the layout of the interface itself. As rightly argued by Yus (2022), another important constraint on the way the information is displayed depends exclusively on the kind of device users employ. For example, when a user accesses Facebook on the smartphone, the interface looks quite different from accessing it on a computer, laptop or tablet. Other media do not change so drastically; thus, the desktop versions of WhatsApp and Telegram, for example, look exactly the same as they do on the smartphone. Information value works along two axes: left to right and top to bottom, where the horizontal axis (left to right in the case of Western cultures) refers to the linguistic notion of given versus new information, whereas the vertical axis divides information into ideal (placed at the top) and real (at the bottom). Within information value, a third contrast can also be distinguished: centre as opposed to margins, with more relevant information occupying a more central position. For example, if we take a look at the profile page illustrated by Fig. 6.3, we can see that the information is arranged in three blocks, from left to right, where the left block presents the given information of “tabs” of well-known actions on X-Twitter such as Notifications or Explore. On the third block on the right, the platform displays new information (potential new topics or people to follow), even though it is well-known by users that this is the information included in this block, it still contains new topics and new

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Fig. 6.3 X-Twitter Profile Page (information value)

users. The information in the centre is hence the most relevant information, which includes the information about the user herself: profile photograph, name, profile bio, etc. The second axis works from top to bottom, arguably moving from more ideal to more real information (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1996/ 2021). In Fig. 6.3. the information at the top (especially in the central block, more relevant to the viewer not only because of its centrality versus the margins but also because of its larger size) is occupied by the profile photograph and background photo, with the bio occupying the central space and the bottom information presenting the number of tweets, etc., or current use of the platform by the individual. This orientation (left–right) and (top–bottom), with both profile picture and background picture occupying the “ideal”, top position, is paralleled in other social platforms, such as LinkedIn or Facebook, as depicted in Fig. 6.4., where the horizontal axis is however arranged in two rather than three blocks, with the right block (new information) containing new messages (“udpates”): It is worth mentioning that, for those pages that can also be checked on the smartphone (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.), the favoured information value arrangement is along the vertical axis, undoubtedly due to the fact that the “natural” movement is to scroll up and down the screen rather than left to right. It is interesting to notice, however, that in all the cases, the profile image always occupies the top

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Fig. 6.4 (Left) LinkedIn and (Right) Facebook profile page

position and is made salient by being included within a framed circle. The following paragraph deals with the notions of salience and framing in the theory of visual grammar. Salience and framing are closely related and refer to the perception of the elements composing the message. In other words, some of these elements are made more “remarkable”—i.e. salient—by means of their colour, size and the presence of frames. For example, in the profile web pages displayed in Figs. 6.3 and 6.4 the profile photograph is framed within a circle, which makes it more salient. The background photograph is also framed as a rectangle although it is placed behind the profile photograph, hence appearing as secondary. Likewise, the main blocks are framed by the use of rectangles, which helps to perceive them as belonging to a different category (e.g., personal information, people you may also know, etc.). Another example of how framing can boost the salience of a particular element is how Instagram also employs circles to frame new stories posted by the user’s “followed”, which are located at the very top of the screen. Interestingly, the vertical axis favoured by the smartphone screen is often paralleled by the horizontal axis (from left to right) in the computer (and similar devices like tablets). This seems to have become a globalized pattern, independently of the writing orientation of the users’ language. In other words, in languages which are often written and read from right to left and from top to bottom, the current arrangement is also

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left–right for the desktop interface and top–bottom for the smartphone one. For example, WeChat, RenRen or Sina Weibo, some of the most popular social media used by the Chinese, follow a left–right arrangement in their desktop version, with the given-old information on the left and the new information on the right, just as their Western counterparts, although traditional Chinese follows a top–bottom pattern. In other cases, however, the direction of the text is automatically reversed from left to right to right to left. For example, when a user writing in Arabic goes to Facebook and wants to leave a comment, the TextBox’s input direction will automatically change based on what their chosen keyboard direction is. Needless to say, users are constrained by these choices and designs, although some apps allow users to customize the way the information is depicted. For example, Instagram provides users with the chance to arrange their posts in a three-column layout—i.e. Instagram grid. It could be argued, however, that the use of common patterns—e.g., framing profile images within a circle- helps to homogenize navigation and makes it easier to process for users (especially when jumping from one social media to another), as they are used to a common “visual schema”. As Yus argues (2022: 147), “processing is faster if the visual arrangement of objects in the image fits our mental store of the prototypical visual syntax for these objects, a sort of ‘visual schema’ that precedes and influences actual perception”. Likewise, common patterns boost easiness of use or “usability”, which increases the users’ satisfaction as opposed to apps that may be too obscure or hard to use. For example, Hong et al. (2017), quoted in Yus (2022: 43) argue that “a system with good interface design is easy to use; with users scanning the screen and identifying relevant information easily. On the other hand, a poorly designed interface can create confusion and misunderstanding”.

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Types of Profiles: From Monomodality to Multimodality

While users may have few options to customize social intermedia interfaces (for example, they cannot choose the place where the profile picture will be located or frame it within a square rather than a circle), they can nevertheless be more creative when composing or editing their profile information or “bio”. At first glance, the reader may think that bios are less important than other elements we share on social media like posts, updates, videos, etc. As already argued, however, users place a great deal of importance on what personal information to display on different platforms and how. This is usually dependent on the platform’s ultimate objective. For example, a user on LinkedIn may display a professional profile as they are interested in finding a new job or increasing their professional network while this same user may display a very different bio—and hence identity—when writing their profile information on Tinder, where they might be looking for a romantic partner. Individuals, hence, can display as many identities as they wish depending on their purpose for using different social media. A commonality of profile bios is that they are often limited in the number of characters. LinkedIn, for example, is one of the platforms that allows for a higher number of characters in the “about me” section, as users can write up to 2,600 characters, even if only 200 are initially visible and other users need to click to expand the information, hence making these 200 initial characters highly strategic. Tinder limits that number to 500 but advises its users not to get closer to that number. Other platforms allow for a much lower number; thus, TikTok only allows its users to write 80 characters to introduce themselves. WhatsApp profile information is limited to 139 characters, Instagram extends it to 150 while X (formerly Twitter) has a slightly higher 160 characters. Facebook stands at 255 characters. As is well known, characters include not only words but also spaces and other typographic elements like punctuation marks, emoji, emoticons, etc. As a result, TikTok’s 80 characters may amount to no more than 20 words, even less if the user chooses to include emoji or punctuation marks. This apparent constraint could however become an

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affordance as users are forced to boost their creativity if they want to capture other users’ attention. Indeed, it could be compared to the effect of newspaper headlines, which tend to be brief and catchy3 to compel readers to keep on reading. From a pragmalinguistic perspective, users are hence presented with a set of choices, which can be conceived as a system. Users’ first choice is simply not to edit their profile information. For example, some platforms such as WhatsApp provide users with a set of automatically generated profiles from which users can choose (similar to the status relationship on Facebook). More specifically, in the case of WhatsApp, the default status is “Hey there! I’m using WhatsApp” but users may choose from the following range of 12 other default statuses, mostly showing their degree of availability (Available, Busy, I can’t talk, only WhatsApp, Low bat, Only emergency calls, I’m sleeping) or places where they are located (At School, In the cinema, At work, At a meeting, In the gym). This choice may be conscious if users are not interested in editing their profile information or choosing any of these by default statuses—e.g., they consider it irrelevant—or unconscious if users do not have the know-how, something that might happen among older users (e.g., Sánchez-Moya & Cruz-Moya, 2015). The alternative choice is to edit their profile information. Some platforms like Twitter, for example, allow users to simply leave the information blank if their choice is not to write anything at all about themselves, and just include their profile photograph and username. This seems to be rather common on TikTok (probably given that the number of characters is low and that the platform itself is highly visual) and on Tinder, even if, in the case of e-dating apps, “a little effort in grooming profiles […] goes a long way in attracting attention” (Tyson et al., 2016: 461). In the case of WhatsApp, for example, users that choose to edit their profile information by leaving it blank are not allowed to do so and hence often edit it by simply typing a dot after leaving a blank space. The most common choice for most social media users, however, seems to be to edit their profile information by displaying information about 3

This is also known as “clickbait”, or the use of content whose main purpose is to attract attention and encourage visitors to click on a link to a particular web page. Common clickbait examples are utterances like “You’ll never believe this”.

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Profile information

themselves and hence performing self-presentation (see Chapter 1). In turn, this can be done monomodally4 by means of text or the use of just visual elements like graphicons (e.g., emoji, emoticons, etc.) or multimodally by combining both text and visual elements. Arguably, all profile information on social media is highly multimodal even if users resort to a purely textual description of themselves, as this information is combined with the profile picture and the platform’s interface, hence rendering a multimodal ensemble. This system of choices is summed up in Fig. 6.5. Unexpectedly, the ultimate purpose of the platform may also play a role in whether users choose a monomodal or multimodal profile description or bio. For example, on its “how to use LinkedIn” page, the platform itself recommends its users to employ emoji “sparingly” and to enhance rather than replace text5 —e.g., using checklist boxes to list positive characteristics. Example (1) illustrates a LinkedIn monomodal (textual) bio:

Generated by default

Blank Textual

Self-generated

Monomodal Visual Multimodal

Fig. 6.5 Profile information: system of choices

4 Monomodality can be defined as the use of one mode of communication (e.g., text) while multimodality is defined as the combination of at least two modes of communication (e.g., text and image) (see Jewitt et al., 2016). 5 https://www.linkedin.com/advice/0/what-best-practices-using-emojis-job-postings#:~:text= You%20can%20use%20emojis%20to,t%20use%20too%20many%20emojis. (Last retrieved September 2023).

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(1) Profesor de profesión, educador de vocación. Siempre dispuesto a aprender. (Translation: I work as a teacher, my vocation is to educate. Always willing to learn). Other platforms with a more ludic, entertaining raison d’être, tend to be multimodal, and text is often spiced up by emoji whose main purpose is usually purely ornamental, so as to colour the message and make it more attractive for other users, as in the case of example (2) from TikTok or (3) from Instagram, which advises its users to add emojis to make their bio more attractive (as opposed to LinkedIn). For example, the user in example (3) resorts to a merely visual bio, arguably subject to different interpretations but undoubtedly understood by those who know her: (2) Todo está en los detalles (Translation: Everything depends on details) (3) Multimodality also seems one frequent choice on other platforms whose objectives may be more varied such as X (formerly Twitter), although purely textual bios also abound, as in example (4), where the user displays his occupation and his hobbies: (4) Profesor, escritor ocasional, adicto a las buenas series y a la música. (Translation: Teacher, occasional writer, addict to good series and music) Given the pervasiveness of emojis, however, it can be claimed that multimodality is the rule more than the exception (albeit LinkedIn may be a different case, as already pointed out). For example, in her study on profile presentations by Spanish WhatsApp users, Maíz-Arévalo (2021) found out that automatically generated statuses ranked first accounting for almost one-third of her sample (29.61%). As already mentioned,

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there are two main reasons why users may choose the default status: either they are not willing to edit it for different motives (lack of time, lack of interest, etc.) or they simply do not know how to edit it. Counterintuitively, monomodal statuses consisting of text were the most frequent despite the inherently visual and multimodal nature of digital communication. In fact, in her sample of 206 WhatsApp statuses, over one-third (31.55%) accounted for purely verbal (i.e. textual) compositions, as in example (5) from her dataset (Maíz-Arévalo, 2021: 189). (5) Hoy puede ser un gran día (Today can be a great day) The third most frequent option was purely visual or iconic statuses, where users employed just an emoji but no text (hence resorting to monomodality). In the author’s sample, this kind of status amounted to 17.48% of the sample. Although they seem rather iconic, from a pragmatic perspective these statuses are indeed more ambiguous, especially when users seem to be constructing “utterances” by piling up a series of emoji, whose meaning may be understood in different ways by different addressees. In example (6), the user simply employs a smiley face, which could lead to multiple interpretations (e.g., happiness, friendliness, etc.). Example (7), taken from a different study (Maíz-Arévalo, 2018: 151), is also monomodal as it relies on the same emoji replicated three times. As in the previous example, addressees may interpret it differently (e.g., a passionate person, a person in love, someone sending kisses to others, even someone that likes wearing red lipstick, etc.) (6) (7) Also against expectations, multimodal or hybrid statuses accounted for 14.08%. In this case, users combined text and graphical elements like emoji, as in example (8) (Maíz-Arévalo, 2018: 151), where the textual message is accompanied by a series of emojis whose interpretation may vary but which may be more contextually accessible to recipients whose mutual knowledge with the user is high (i.e. her girlfriend in this

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example), hence helping to strengthen rapport between both interlocutors in what Yus (2016) describes as the “joy of mutual manifesteness” or “joy of mutuality of information” or what, in more traditional pragmatics, is referred to as “claiming to common ground” as a positive politeness strategy (Brown & Levinson, 1978): (8) La mala noticia es que el tiempo vuela, la buena es que tú eres el piloto (Translation: The bad news is that time flies, the good one is that you are the pilot) Finally, less than 10% of the users (7.28%) chose to leave the profile information blank, even if they had to include at least one space as WhatsApp does not allow for the profile to appear as completely blank. Indeed, it would be highly interesting to carry out further research on users’ actual motivations for choosing a specific type of status, especially more ambiguous ones like those employing just emoji or a blank space.6

6.4

Case Study: Same Users, Different Platforms

As already mentioned in the introduction to the chapter, an interesting avenue of research is to analyse how the same user(s) may choose to present themselves depending on the platform or social media they are using, as these often have different purposes (e.g., entertainment, social connection, job opportunities, etc.) that play a key role in what to say and how to say it when performing self-presentation. The objective of this section is to focus on two users’ bios in different media. Both users (a man and a woman) are in their early 50s and are rather active online. They are both educated, as they hold at least one university degree (two 6 Readers might be interested in this anecdote regarding blank statuses on WhatsApp. After one communication on this topic, one of the members of the audience pointed out that she never knew what to write, as she was worried that other users might get the “wrong impression” or “idea” about her. That was the main reason why she chose to write a simple dot as her WhatsApp status.

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in the case of the male participant). Both consented to have their information used provided it was anonymized and no personal images or their names were employed.7 It is also important to mention that, although this chapter does not focus on profile pictures (see Chapter 5), they were also considered for this case study, given that they might show interesting differences when comparing the four platforms under scrutiny. After analysing their profiles from a multimodal perspective, both informants were interviewed to gather more information about their motivations for displaying one type of self-presentation or another. Interviews were carried out in Spanish,8 and were semi-structured, as they consisted of the same questions addressing the four different platforms, but informants were given freedom to elaborate as they wished, and the interviewer could encourage them to develop a specific point more if unclear by asking additional questions. Because of logistical reasons, the interview with the male participant was carried out face-to-face while that with the female informant had to be on the phone. The main questions remained the same for both interviews, namely: (i) which social media do you use? (ii) why have you written this information on your profile on [name of the platform]? (iii) why have you chosen this photo as your profile picture on [name of the platform]? As the informants stated, both actively use Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Additionally, the male participant also employs Twitter and LinkedIn. None of them follow other media like TikTok, which they consider to be “for youngsters”. Despite initial expectations, participants tend to employ the same profile information for different platforms. In fact, the female participant claimed that “both [Facebook and Instagram] are connected and 7 I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to both informants for their collaboration. Without their help, this case study would not have been possible. 8 To ease the reading process, all the extracts within the main body of the text will be quoted directly in their translated form into English (my translation). Extracts quoted separately will appear in the original Spanish immediately followed by their translation.

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they allow to share the same things”. As a result, her profile information and photograph are the same on both platforms. More specifically, on Facebook, she has simply added her place of residence but no further information about herself apart from the background and profile picture, as she has done on her Instagram account. With regard to the male participant, his use of Facebook and Instagram highly differs, with Instagram being employed “for my things”. However, he admitted that he had “shifted” in his use of Facebook from a more personal to a more professional approach (he works for an ecological political party). In his own words, (1) “Al principio usaba Facebook con fines personales, para compartir cosas con mis amigos y familiares, pero luego empecé a tener “amigos” también de mi trabajo y fui cambiando el tipo de fotos y de publicaciones. Se ha vuelto más profesional, porque ahora solamente comparto o subo cosas más relacionadas con mi trabajo en el partido” (Translation: In the beginning, I used Facebook for personal reasons, to share stuff with my friends and family, but then I started to get “friends” also from work and I started changing the kind of photos and posts. It’s become more professional, because now I only share or post stuff more related to my work at the party). For him, both Facebook and Twitter are used within his professional sphere, hence he has similar profile information, connected to ecological activism on both social media. Thus, his Facebook profile includes, in English, a reference to the film “Look up”, to raise awareness about the need to implement urgent ecological measures and, most importantly, to stop denying the reality of climatic change (extract 2). On Twitter, which he claims to use for “more active criticism”, he elaborates the same message further, as illustrated by extract (3), where he also intertextually alludes to another film (The forgetfulness we will become), where the protagonist (Colombian doctor Hector Abad Gomez) states that all human beings are entitled to these five “As” (air, water, food, shelter and affect). His bio profile closes with a direct appeal to other followers,

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where he provokes them to join the party he works for (the name has been omitted for privacy reasons) if they really are ecologically minded: (2) Look up!! (3) (Translation: Air, Water, Food, Shelter, Affect. You are not that ecologist if you haven’t joined [Party’s name]) This shows that, rather than the platform itself, what motivates users to display a specific kind of self-presentation is rather the purpose for which they are using the media and the audience they are targeting. Thus, for the female participant, both Facebook and Instagram are intended to “show my friends photos about my trips” (she is a very active traveller) while the male participant has very different purposes (raise ecological activism) when using Facebook and Twitter. It is interesting to point out that his use of Instagram is purely personal. In fact, his profile photograph simply shows his silhouette against a colourful background, hence making it impossible to recognize him. When asked about this choice, he stated that: (4) “Bueno, he puesto esta foto porque me gusta, pero también porque no quiero que gente del trabajo me pueda encontrar por la foto y seguirme, porque Instagram es para mí, para mis cosas personales” (Translation: Well, I have chosen this photo because I like it, but also because I don’t want people from work to find me because of the [profile] photo and follow me, because Instagram is for me, for my personal stuff ) This personal choice also translates into his bio information, where rather than making a political statement, he also writes about his personal hobbies (more backstage information in Goffmanian terms), as illustrated by extract (5), where the information is visually reinforced by means of emoji, also placed at the end of the text, hence rendering it

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multimodal and lexically playing with the Spanish collocation “en vivo y en directo” (“live”): (5) La Naturaleza en vivo y la Música en directo Look up!! (Translation: Nature live and Music live. Look up!!) Both informants also make an active use of WhatsApp in their daily lives, both for work and for personal reasons, as they use the same phone number (and hence the same WhatsApp) for both. This renders selfpresentation slightly more challenging given the fact that the “audience” encompasses not only friends and family but also other recipients with whom they just hold a professional relationship. Hence, the need to balance front and backstage information becomes more difficult. In fact, the female participant has chosen to write what could be regarded as an implicit, “cryptic”” profile information text, where she chooses Catalonian (even though she does not speak this language) to quote the first line of the game “Never have I ever” (“Jo mai mai…”). This message, in her opinion, is appealing but does not reveal anything personal about the self. Her profile picture, as usual, depicts her in one of her multiple travelling destinations, which is the main use she makes of social media. It is interesting, however, that she establishes what could be considered a dialogic interaction with her followers, as she never says where she is exactly, leaving the recipients to “fill the gap”. In her own words: (6) “Son fotos de mis viajes, en las que salgo yo en lugares emblemáticos de cada sitio. No etiqueto las fotos poniendo dónde son. Tampoco subo frases ni cosas así”. (Translation: It’s photos of my trips, where I appear in emblematic locations of each place. I don’t tag the photos or indicate where they were taken. I never upload sayings or things like that). Unsurprisingly, both informants report that they only upload profile photographs pleasing to them, and where they find themselves attractive, hence displaying the most positive side of the self. However, while the

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male participant simply uploaded this kind of photo, the female participant added the following information, which shows to what extent she carefully edits her self-presentation to appear in her best light in front of others: (7) “La elijo [la foto de perfil] según me vea yo de guapa. Antes, le paso el filtro de belleza para borrar manchas de la piel y minimizar arrugas y que se vea que es en algún sitio reconocible y bonito”. (Translation: I choose it [the profile picture] depending on how attractive I see myself. Before, I use the beauty filter to delete skin stains and mitigate wrinkles and it’s always in a place that is recognisable and pretty). Although this is merely a case study delving into the self-presentation practices of two users on different social media, it shows how users go to certain extents to perform self-presentation on their profile pages, always considering first and foremost the main objective they have when using the platform, rather than the purpose of the platform itself. In other words, while Facebook and Instagram may be said to have entertainment and personal connections as their inherent objectives, it is the personal goals of the users that really determines how they perform self-presentation (as clearly stated by the male participant). Certainly, it is not possible to generalize results when there are only two informants, but gender seems to play a key role when selecting the profile picture, with the male participant always appearing “in action” and the female one always “posing” (see Chapter 5). In this case, however, both participants are middle-aged and heterosexual, which might explain why they are following their gender expectations. It would indeed be extremely interesting to expand this kind of research into users’ motivations with a larger sample including other genders, relationship statuses and age spans. In my view, and even if time-consuming, the use of interviews would be the most appropriate methodological choice to delve into users’ real motivations.

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Chapter Summary

This chapter departed from the notion of choices and the fact that some of these choices are constrained by the interface of the platform itself. Thus, while social media users can opt for writing a fully verbal or a multimodal profile and select the kind of photo or video that they want to display on the profile page, there are some aspects over which they have no possible option such as the position where the profile picture is placed. Section 6.2 has summarized the main theoretical concepts of the theory of visual grammar that, in my view, can prove fruitful in the analysis of the different platforms’ interfaces. Thus, readers were referred to the notions of information value, saliency and framing and how they could be exploited to analyse visual self-presentation on different platforms. Besides the visual element, Sect. 6.3 has shown that, in the case of selfedited profiles, users can opt for three main options -monomodal profiles (either textual or visual) or multimodal ones, where both textual and graphical elements are combined. Finally, the chapter closed with a qualitative case study based on two active social media users by analysing their motivations behind their choice to present themselves on the different social media or platforms they use in their daily lives. Results show that these decisions are mostly determined not so much by the platform itself and its usual purpose (e.g., Instagram for entertainment) as by the users’ purpose when using them and especially, the kind of audience they have in mind. Indeed, this case study is admittedly limited to just two users, but it proves that users perform different self-presentations according to their objectives. I hope that other researchers might feel encouraged to widen this knowledge by studying larger populations from different cultural backgrounds, ages and genders.

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References Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1978). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge University Press. Crystal, D. (1997). English as a global language. Cambridge University Press. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Anchor. Hong, J. C., Tai, K. H., Hwang, M. Y., Kuo, Y. C., & Chen, J. S. (2017). Internet cognitive failure relevant to users’ satisfaction with content and interface design to reflect continuance intention to use a government e-learning system. Computers in Human Behavior, 66 , 353–362. Jewitt, C., Bezemer, J., & O’Halloran, K. (2016). Introducing multimodality. Routledge. Kress, G., & Van Leeuwen, T. (1996/2020). Reading images: The grammar of visual design. Routledge. Maíz-Arévalo, C. (2018). Emotional self-presentation on WhatsApp: Analysis of the profile status. Russian Journal of Linguistics, 22(1), 144–160. Maíz-Arévalo, C. (2021). Humour and self-presentation on WhatsApp profile status. In Xie, C.; Yus, F. and Haberland, H. (Eds.), Approaches to Internet Pragmatics pp. 175–206. John Benjamins. Sánchez-Moya, A., & Cruz-Moya, O. (2015). “Hey there! I am using WhatsApp”: A preliminary study of recurrent discursive realisations in a corpus of WhatsApp statuses. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 212, 52–60. Tyson, G., Perta, V. C., Haddadi, H., & Seto, M. C. (2016, August). A first look at user activity on tinder. In 2016 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM) (pp. 461– 466). IEEE. Vernon, M. D. (2013). A further study of visual perception. Cambridge University Press. Yus, F. (2016). Humour and relevance. John Benjamins. Yus, F. (2022). Smartphone communication: Interactions in the app ecosystem. Routledge.

7 Conclusions and Pointers to Future Research

As David Crystal (2001) already mentioned in his seminal work on internet language, any research on this field is doomed to be outdated while being written. This could be seen as a challenge, as it is indeed, but also as an opportunity to keep on researching in a forever evolving field. In fact, new apps are continuously appearing, others like TikTok and Threads are reaching top popularity and others like Facebook, seem to be on the decline among certain sectors of the population. For example, younger Spanish users below 25 years old have quit Facebook and shifted to Instagram and TikTok, and Facebook has become a favourite among older populations (users older than 50 or more). Bearing the above in mind, the present volume has dealt with selfpresentation on digital environments, with a specific focus on Peninsular Spanish users. Throughout the volume, the approach adopted was primarily linguistic, more specifically pragmatic, but taking into consideration perspectives from different disciplines such as psychology and social psychology, among others. I also attempted to illustrate each chapter with a practical and unedited case study, hoping that they can open new avenues for future research. This is, in fact, the objective of

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Maíz-Arévalo, The Power of Self-Presentation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52931-3_7

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this final chapter: to summarize the key aspects of the previous six chapters while providing other researchers with pointers to what still remains to be done in the field. Thus, Chapter 1 focused on defining self-presentation. Following Goffman (1959) and his stage metaphor, I believe that self-presentation can also be compared to a multi-faceted prism where we, as individuals, intentionally choose to reveal different faces depending on our imagined audience and on the main purpose for which we use the different platforms and social media. For example, in my personal case, I use X (formerly known as Twitter) for academic purposes. In other words, everything I post is often related to conferences I am attending, academic events I am taking part in, publications I find interesting, etc. In other words, what Goffman would term the “front stage”. My Instagram and Facebook accounts, on the other hand, are aimed at showing my “backstage” and more private aspects of my life, and only to friends. In other words, I would never post a photo of myself wearing a bikini and watching a sunset on the beach on X, but I would likely share such a picture on Instagram or Facebook. Oftentimes, however, what we share may escape our control.1 For example, when we are tagged in a photograph or post that we would not like to post ourselves. In this case, many users resort to what has been termed as “damage control” (Huang, 2014; Rosenberg & Egbert, 2011), for example, by asking that person to “untag” them or by providing an explanation for that behaviour. Unfortunately, damage control may not always be within our reach or, if it is, it might not be enough to restore our image. This recalls the need to be aware of the risks that sharing personal information online entails, a research area that has experienced exponential growth in the last decade in an attempt to warn the general public of the dangers of exposed privacy (see Bezáková et al., 2021; Cerruto et al., 2022; Li et al., 2020, among many others). Chapter 2 focused on the notion of self-disclosure. More specifically, it analysed the two dimensions of breadth and depth—i.e. the amount 1 In this regard, it is also important to mention that sometimes users activate the option to automatically copy publications on Facebook into Instagram and vice versa. This can lead to unwanted situations if the content is meant to be different on both sites (Francisco Yus, personal communication).

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of personal information a user displays and the intimacy level of such information. A key area in the chapter was the influence of age on both dimensions, with a special focus on younger users (in fact, adolescents have been the most researched population in this regard) or the pedagogical implications that sharing personal information on social media might have for teachers. In my view, however, there are at least four avenues requiring further exploration, which I will develop in the following paragraphs. As already pointed out, one of the key ideas regarding both dimensions is that younger generations, possibly because they are unaware of the potential risks of sharing too much personal information online, have been shown in most studies to disclose more quantity (breadth) and more private personal information (depth) than older users. As was put forward throughout the whole chapter, there are nonetheless other studies pointing in different directions, which calls for further research involving larger corpora (preferably big data) as many studies up to date are based on convenience samples and hence do not provide generalizable results. Closely connected with the use of larger corpora might also be the employment of corpus tools (largely neglected up to date) such as Lingmotif or Qualtrics for sentiment analysis. As some of the reviewed studies in the chapter have shown, the use of Azure Text Analytics has already rendered interesting results, but the field is still in its infancy. As reviewed in Chapter 2, the pedagogical implications of teachers’ and students’ self-disclosure online still have not received enough attention, especially in the Spanish context, which remains largely unexplored. Besides the two aspects mentioned above, I would also argue for the need to carry out, together with quantitative studies, more qualitative ones on the subject of self-disclosure. For example, the use of interviews and focus groups might throw light on the motivations behind self-disclosure as well as help raise awareness of the potential risks it may have (e.g., sexual grooming, sexting). In Chapter 3, I dealt with the dimensions of positivity and authenticity. It was concluded that users tend to present the most positive side of the self in what is known as the positive bias while stretching the truth and avoiding the negative aspects of the self (what is also known in

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psychology as acquisitive self-presentation). As in the previous chapters, a multidisciplinary approach was adopted, especially to find out the users’ motivations but also how these two dimensions may affect how others perceive the user. In my opinion, one of the most interesting aspects in this field is the shift that seems to be taking place from positivity to authenticity, especially in the case of younger generations, and which is reflected in the growing popularity of apps like BeReal or LiveMe. Future studies might ascertain whether this emerging shift will get consolidated or is a generational feature that might get reversed in the case of future generations (like the upcoming Alpha Generation). This chapter also showed that the use of inspirational or eudaimonic messages is largely unexplored, especially by different social sectors like teenagers or male users, as the use of inspirational quotes has often been studied as a feature of “female digital communication”. To sum up, two main avenues for future research in this field might be: The shift from positivity to authenticity in digital self-presentation and the use of eudaimonic messages as a self-presentation strategy online. Chapter 4 was devoted to the study of humour as a self-presentation strategy. Key mechanisms such as intertextuality and incongruity were reviewed from a pragmatic perspective and illustrated with examples, as well as with a case study from Spanish male Tinder users. Besides, the four dimensions of humour (i.e. self-deprecating, self-enhancing, affiliative and aggressive) were also considered, as well as the potential risks of resorting to humour as a self-presentation strategy. However, it was also shown that this is largely unthreaded territory, where future research is highly encouraged, especially in the following three aspects: First, how users employ humour as a self-presentation strategy on different platforms such as TikTok or Threads, whose popularity is on the increase. Secondly, and as commented in Chapter 4, the sociological variables of age and gender seem to play a key role in how humour is employed as a self-presentation strategy, but most studies so far have only addressed them sparely. Particularly interesting is the increasing shift among younger generations such as Millennials and especially the Z Generation towards self-deprecating humour. This fascinating aspect indeed needs more empirical research based on larger datasets, which

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include not only actual uses of humour but also how other users react to it. Finally, in connection with the points mentioned above, it would be necessary to further explore to what extent the use of humour is felicitous. In other words, when users resort to it as a self-presentation strategy, does their “audience” grasp the humour and hence perceive them as a witty, creative, humorous persona or does it have a negative effect? More empirical research combining larger datasets and qualitative approaches based on the use of focus groups or interviews might indeed render interesting results. Furthermore, these results could have a social impact on, for example, politicians’ campaigns on social media or users’ success on e-dating apps. Given the paramount importance users of social media attach to the profile images as a self-presentation strategy in itself, Chapter 5 explored the types of images users select for the profile picture on different platforms and how this is carefully and intentionally done, also depending on the main objectives underlying each platform (e.g., LinkedIn versus Tinder) but also on the users’ cultural background. Gender differences, especially regarding the concept of face-ism were also revised, revealing contradictory results. Additionally, readers were presented with the theory of visual grammar (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1996/2006), as a tool for the analysis of photographs. Indeed, users’ profile pictures show how users try to depict an authentic, albeit enhanced, image of the self. This was further illustrated with a case study on profile images on WhatsApp. In my view, and even though profile pictures have received much attention to date, there are still at least three main aspects in need of future research, namely: First, the study of how culture affects the type of profile picture users tend to employ, given that this choice might be closely connected to cultural values. Hence, the study of profile pictures in connection with culture might help shed light on cultural differences and similarities. Secondly, the notion of face-ism and its evolution on social media. More specifically, is face-ism still a way to construct social gender and to favour male users as opposed to female ones? From my point of view, a new area of research might also be the emerging shift from static profile pictures to dynamic profile videos, as

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this seems to be a new tendency on platforms such as TikTok or the edating app LiveMe! and more consolidated platforms such as WhatsApp are also including new affordances to allow their users to upload “profile videos”. Finally, Chapter 6 focused on how users may resort to different modes when constructing their personal information. Thus, they can exclusively employ one mode such as the use of text or just images (most often emoji) in what is termed monomodal self-presentation. Most selfpresentations on social media profiles are nonetheless multimodal. In other words, users resort to more than one mode to construct their selfpresentation such as a combination of text and emoji or different uses of typographic alterations (e.g., exclamation marks, repetition of characters, etc.). More remarkable, as shown by the case study in Chapter 6, is the fact that the same user may opt for very different profiles to present the self on different platforms, thus revealing different faces of the prism. Unfortunately, contrastive studies in this regard are practically non-existent, most likely because of the methodological challenges involved in gathering such a sort of dataset. However, it would be extremely interesting, for example, to gather all the profiles of politicians and see whether they perform different strategies depending on the kind of social media they are using as well as whether political ascription is valid and inferable across profiles and social media used. Furthermore, diachronic studies have never been carried out in the sense that it would be fascinating to see how profile information changes along users’ different life stages (e.g., from adolescence to seniority) hence ascertaining what aspects of the self are given more prominence depending on age. As in the previous case, the methodological difficulties this kind of study poses might explain the reticence to carry them out. Nevertheless, the increasing advance of big data tools might render it possible in the near future, which might open to us a myriad of possibilities in different fields such as linguistics, psychology or social psychology, just to mention a few.

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References Bezáková, Z., Madleˇnák, A., & Švec, M. (2021). Security risks of sharing content based on minors by their family members on social media in times of technology interference. Media Literacy and Academic Research, 4 (1), 53–69. Cerruto, F., Cirillo, S., Desiato, D., Gambardella, S. M., & Polese, G. (2022). Social network data analysis to highlight privacy threats in sharing data. Journal of Big Data, 9 (1), 19. Crystal, D. (2001). Language and the internet. Cambridge University Press. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Penguin Books. Huang, H. (2014, November). Self-presentation tactics in social media. In 2014 International Conference on Social Science (ICSS-14) (pp. 416–421). Atlantis Press. Kress, G., & Van Leeuwen, T. (1996/2006). Reading images: The grammar of visual design. Routledge. Li, K., Cheng, L., & Teng, C. I. (2020). Voluntary sharing and mandatory provision: Private information disclosure on social networking sites. Information Processing & Management, 57 (1), 102128. Rosenberg, J., & Egbert, N. (2011). Online impression management: Personality traits and concerns for secondary goals as predictors of self-presentation tactics on Facebook. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 17 (1), 1–18.

Index

A

B

Affiliative (humour) 112, 113, 116, 127, 190 Affordance(s) 9, 17, 74, 105, 134, 150, 169, 170, 175, 192 Aggressive (humour) 112, 113, 116, 124, 127, 190 Airbnb 17, 41, 139–142 Angle 147, 150, 152, 157, 158 Anonymity 33, 35, 37, 77 Anonymous 31, 34–36, 47, 75 Appropriateness 30, 52, 147 Ascription 50, 51, 54, 60, 192 Attitude 15, 33, 40, 86, 87, 92, 113, 136, 149, 150, 157 Authenticity 8, 11, 12, 21, 22, 41, 75–77, 80, 81, 84, 93, 189, 190

Backstage 3–8, 21, 32, 54, 166, 182, 183, 188 BeReal 190 Big Five 135, 136, 138 Breadth 8, 9, 12, 21, 22, 30, 33–35, 37, 38, 47, 51–53, 59, 188, 189

C

Constraints 169 Culture 9, 11, 20, 30, 43, 46–49, 52, 74, 78, 82–84, 87–89, 92, 93, 109, 114, 120, 136, 148–150, 170, 191

D

Damage control 188

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Maíz-Arévalo, The Power of Self-Presentation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52931-3

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196

Index

Depth 8, 9, 21, 22, 30, 33–35, 37, 38, 45, 47, 51–54, 59, 188

Goffman, E. 4, 32, 166, 188 Grindr 35, 121, 126

E

I

E-commerce 41, 138, 141 E-dating 2, 10, 35, 76, 77, 105, 113, 117, 119, 121, 126, 127, 134, 147, 158, 175, 191, 192 Emoji 6, 11, 15, 23, 31, 44, 50, 51, 53, 75, 87, 91–93, 118, 122, 124, 125, 166, 169, 174, 176–179, 182, 192 Eudaimonic 22, 76, 85–88, 92, 93, 109, 190 F

Face 1, 3, 4, 8, 13, 31–33, 36, 37, 40, 43, 46, 74, 78, 88, 102–105, 116, 124, 138, 143–146, 148, 178 Facebook 1, 5, 9–11, 13, 17, 32, 34, 36, 38, 41, 42, 45–48, 76–83, 85, 104, 133, 134, 137, 142–148, 152, 153, 156, 166–175, 180–182, 184, 187, 188 Face-ism 136, 142–146, 148, 158, 191 Frame (framing) 118, 123, 166, 169, 170, 172–174, 185 Front stage 51, 166, 188 G

Gender 2, 33, 37, 43–45, 50, 51, 59, 60, 81, 90, 120, 127, 135, 136, 142–147, 152, 154–158, 184, 190, 191

Incongruity 107–111, 113, 116, 118, 122, 127, 190 Information value 170, 171, 185 Inspirational 22, 76, 85–93, 110, 119, 122, 190 Instagram 1, 7, 11, 20–22, 32, 44–46, 50, 57, 76, 77, 79–81, 85, 88–91, 93, 152, 153, 167–169, 171–174, 177, 180–182, 184, 185, 187, 188 Intention/intentionality 2, 4, 8, 10, 12, 16, 19, 21, 35, 37, 77, 85, 88, 91, 111, 119, 121, 139, 141, 142, 165 Interface 9, 14, 34, 93, 169, 170, 173, 174, 176, 185 Intertextuality 106, 107, 109–111, 116, 118, 122, 127, 190

L

LinkedIn 4, 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 23, 77, 123, 127, 167, 168, 171, 172, 174, 176, 177, 180, 191 LiveMe 134, 190, 192

M

Meme 79, 101, 102, 106–108, 166, 167 Monomodality 178 Multimodality 176, 177

Index

N

Narcissism 7, 45, 137 Neuroticism 115, 136, 137 Nonymous 12, 35, 36, 75–77

P

Personality (traits) 45, 116, 135–137 Politeness 78, 102, 114, 120, 179 Positivity 8, 10–12, 21, 22, 41, 73–78, 80–85, 87, 93, 114, 189, 190 Positivity bias 74, 75, 83 Post (posting) 2, 6, 7, 12, 16, 20, 74, 76, 78, 79, 81, 85, 135, 137, 143, 173, 174, 181, 188 Pragmalinguistics 106, 127, 175 Pragmatics 2, 19, 22, 33, 40, 88, 123, 165, 179 Privacy 15, 19, 20, 34, 38, 47–49, 59, 90, 153, 182, 188 Privacy paradox 38, 48, 59 Profile 1–3, 7, 10, 12–17, 19, 21, 23, 30, 32, 34, 37, 41, 42, 44, 50, 52–56, 59, 77, 87, 90, 103, 105, 109, 111–113, 117, 119–121, 123, 125, 126, 133–156, 158, 166, 168–177, 179–185, 191, 192

197

Self-enhancing humour 2, 114, 120 Self-praise 3, 78 Social distance 149–151, 156 Social Penetration Theory (SPT) 29, 30 Sociopragmatics 102, 106, 114, 127 Speech act 2, 12, 15, 85, 88, 102, 134 T

Threads 187, 190 TikTok 1, 32, 46, 77, 80, 81, 89, 120, 127, 134, 168, 169, 174, 175, 177, 180, 187, 190, 192 Tinder 2, 4, 11, 17, 22, 23, 35, 105, 106, 114, 115, 117, 119–124, 126, 134, 147, 151, 167, 169, 174, 175, 190, 191 TripAdvisor 138 Twitter 1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13, 15–17, 19, 21, 22, 35, 37, 45, 49–53, 55, 56, 59, 77, 103, 107, 113–115, 167–171, 174, 175, 177, 180–182, 188 U

Unspirational 86 Update 7, 174

S

W

Saliency 13, 169, 185 Self-deprecating humour 112, 114, 123, 124, 126, 190 Self-disclosure 8–10, 22, 29–51, 56, 57, 59, 79, 188, 189 Self-enhancement 73, 77, 80, 81, 93, 114

Weibo 13 WhatsApp 1, 12, 15–17, 21, 23, 44, 85, 87, 91, 93, 101, 105, 109, 111, 118, 119, 122, 134, 136, 138, 151–154, 158, 166, 170, 174, 175, 177–180, 183, 191, 192

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Index

X

Y

X 6, 10, 17–19, 22, 50, 107, 152, 167, 170, 171, 174, 177, 188

YouTube 45, 85, 102