Aesthetic Influence, Narrative Structures, and Interactors' Agency in Social Media Self-Presentation
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The widespread accessibility and prevalence of digital retouching tools have detached selfies from their original purpose of authentic self-expression within specific social groups. Instead, self-presentation on digital platforms like TikTok, Instagram, etc., has evolved into a strategic tool for building and maintaining social relationships, garnering acceptance through shared recognition of identity, and, in some instances, sustaining livelihoods. This study explores the intricate relationship between contemporary social media users and how they curate self-images and identities through specific digital platforms. While under the context of neoliberalism, posting selfies ostensibly offers an opportunity for authentic self-expression, my investigation reveals a nuanced interplay influenced by external forces, particularly the beauty and advertising industries. Contrary to the appearance of natural self-presentation, these industries emerge as influential drivers, shaping women's self-presentation on social media. Motivated by societal expectations, individuals in the digital world present a meticulously "designed" self, often at odds with their authentic selves. Drawing on a comprehensive theoretical framework informed by the works of Erving Goffman, Guy Debord, and Michel Foucault, my study addresses the inquiry of how the agency of interactors influences the design choices within the foundational structures of interactive digital media, examining how selfies impact the aesthetic of digital creativity and narrative structures. Goffman's insights and Debord's concept of the spectacle in the self-presentation provide a foundational understanding, while Michel Foucault's panopticon theory provides a critical reflection of our exploration of contemporary digital media. By integrating qualitative content analysis of social media posts, I demonstrate the lived experiences of individuals negotiating self-presentation and their designed selfie choices. By synthesizing these qualitative findings with the theoretical framework, I aim to uncover the complex structure influencing the construction of digital self-identity. The primary research objectives are to critically analyze the evolving dynamics of self-presentation on social media platforms in the context of neoliberalism and to illustrate the impact of these design choices on digital creativity, narrative structures, and interactors' agency. Grounded in these objectives, my hypothesis is that the underlying structures of interactive digital media significantly shape the form and content of media, influence digital creativity, and impact interactors' narrative structures and agency. This study seeks to contribute to an understanding of the interplay between photo designing choices in interactive digital media and their profound implications on self-presentation, media forms, digital creativity, narrative structures, and interactors' agency. This study aims to provide a nuanced insight into negotiation visual presenting strategies employed by interactors in the context of neoliberalism in digital communication.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".