Eelteismeliste tütarlaste virtuaalse identiteedi konstrueerimine portaalis rate.ee

Date

2009

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Tartu Ülikool

Abstract

Description

Virtual Identity Construction of Pre-Teen Girls in SNS Rate.ee The purpose of my BA thesis was to study how pre-adolescent girls construct their virtual identity in popular Estonian SNS rate.ee. I focused on 10-year-old to 12-year-old female rate.ee users. To research the data from 100 accounts I used content analysis method. The categories I created included different textual, visual and audiovisual opportunities for virtual self-presentation. The basic concepts of theory were identity, self-presentation, impression management and virtual identity. Many of my assuptions and translations of my findings had connections with several previous authors’ findings and theories. The results showed relatively high amount of disclosed personal and contact information on the accounts of pre-adolescent female users. In many cases that information seemed to be enough to identify the girls in real life (IRL). Boyd (2008) and Larsen (2009) noted that SNS profiles are mainly created for friends and peers, presuming that boundary betweet offline and online is blurred. Pre- adolescent girls used textual self-presentation rather for social purposes. The possibility to write additional information was used approximately by half of the users, however, only few described one-self. Mostly, the information introduced and regulated several non-formal social norms and rules of behaviour in rate.ee. Belonging to clubs and showing one’s interests was far more popular for self-presentation among pre-adolescent girls. Relying on Buckingham (2008) it could be said that clubs and interests help youngsters to individuate self from others and belong to a certain social group. 10-12 year old females did not use photo processing frequently for self-presentation, instead a great deal of users prefered to insert textual descripiton below their pohotos, mostly dedicating pictures to their friends and peers. Theorists ( Parker et al 2006) claim that during adolescent-period peers play the most important role in child’s development of identity. The influence of family is displaced by friends and peers. Hence, bearing friends in mind and acknowledging them with photo-dedication helps to confirm and reinforce offline-world friendships in virtual world. The collected data showed that free additional functions without any cost are chosen more often for self-presentations. The priced skin (background image) and status were found only on under the half of the accounts (i.e. status was used by 10 out of 100 girls), whereas 60-70 users kept free diaries, characterized each other and added videos from Youtube to their accounts. I concluded that, however, skin is very eye-catching and distinctive feature, girls in pre-adolescence are economically depending on their parents and principal of status can be expressed for free elsewhere.

Keywords

H Social Sciences (General), bakalaureusetööd

Citation