The Evolving User Self-Concept

McRae, K. | May 2021

Exploring the ways in which consumers interpret, develop, modulate, and express their identities using New Media since the introduction of Web 2.0

See full study here (includes literature review, process, findings & moderator guide): https://www.dropbox.com/s/i92k43ehi10yigk/Final%20Treatise_KM.pdf?dl=0

Research Questions:

1. How does using multiple social media channels affect consumers’ self-concept?
2. How do consumers use available new media to define their identity? (in terms of the ‘ideal’, ‘real’, ‘ought’, and ‘false’ selves).
3. How do users/consumers manage multiple online identities? (Self-Presentation strategy).

Research Objectives:

1. Investigate how consumers use and perceive online media channels as a digital extension of self.
2. Understand the affects & cognitions consumers associate with different online media channels.
3. Explore the ways in which consumers create and manage multiple online profiles.

Population: 9 participants (7 male, 1 female, 1 non-binary)

Methodology: Literature review in addition to nine 1:1 moderated in-depth-interviews (IDIs) ranging 40-70min duration

Main Findings:

• All participants described different social networking sites and accounts as representing different facets of their personalities partitioned into smaller subsets across different online channels.
• Participants were more likely to describe themselves in terms of the content they shared on each platform, the degrees of anonymity on those platforms, the type of following they had on each platform, and how they related to each platform on a sentimental level than organize each social platform as a ‘real’ or ‘ideal’ self-concept.
• Consumers tended to categorize the type of content they shared and consumed depending on which media channel they were traversing.
• All participants referenced some degree of privacy tools implemented across various platforms (or within the same platform) ensuring ‘partial anonymity’ in which consumers were granted more control over vetting their followers before sharing content deemed inappropriate for a larger audience.
• Some participants used anonymity to fully experiment with different identities.
• ‘Expressing extreme sentiments’ and the ‘true self’ were the most cited use cases for adopting anonymous accounts among all participants in this study,
• All participants reported they would not change their online behavior even if they had total reassurance of their anonymity online from a brand or service.
• All participants referenced distinct affects & cognitions associated with different platforms discussed in each IDI.