College of Arts and Sciences, Rizal Technological University, Philippines
Keywords:
Facebook, Social Network Service, privacy, identity management, construction of identity, enactment of identity, first and third year undergraduate studentsAbstract
Presently, Facebook is one of the most famous and prosperous social network service (SNS). In view of its pervasiveness, the following questions are apropos: How do participants negotiate and enact their identities on Facebook and what is involved in the construction of identities on Facebook? The present study provided adequate answers to these questions by examining students’ levels of participation on Facebook and how they used it to negotiate the “virtual self” (online identity). Survey research design was employed for the study. The sample size used was 240 posts drawn from the first and third year undergraduate students of the University of Cape Coast, Ghana (UCC). A combination of purposive and simple random sampling techniques was adopted for sampling the respondents. The main research instrument used for the study was questionnaire. The study revealed that by virtue of Facebook design, students have many opportunities to perform their identity on Facebook, several students are highly interested in posting pictures which immensely contributed to identity construction and they were not frequently updating their profiles on this less anonymous website – Facebook.
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