Intervening in the Social Spaces of Identity Shift

• In Event: An Intervention for Identity Shift: Unpacking the Challenges and Discrepancies of a CMC Theory and its Future

Abstract

Sophie F. Waterloo (University of Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS) focuses on the effects of online self-expression and self-presentation on the self in her PhD-project. She has done research on identity shift by experimentally assessing the influence of different degrees of online publicness as well as the active management of message publicness. The results of this research further sparked her interest in broadening the scope of selective self-presentations online and understanding its effects. For this reason, her current research concentrates on the selective expression of emotions and how this may impact the self, considering differences between current social media platforms. Building on the assumed underlying processes of identity shift, which include selective self-presentation, public commitment and behavioral confirmation, her work more specifically aims to understand how positive and negative emotion expression affects identity-related variables, such as emotional state and well-being. Her research tries to advance current knowledge on identity shift processes, and shed new light on alternative perceptional and behavioral effects of common forms of selective self-presentations online. She is interested in gaining a better understanding of identity shift’s underlying mechanisms, as well as how the phenomenon may manifest itself differently within different social spaces online.

Author

• Sophie F Waterloo, University of Amsterdam/ Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)