E-identity: Social media and identity from the perspective of diasporic LGBTQs.

The internet, and social media in particular, create new opportunities and pose new challenges for the ways people think about themselves as well as manage the expressions and performances of their identities. In this research project I aim to refine and extend the latest theories on social media and identity, especially about 1) fixating the fragmented self (van Zoonen 2013), 2) collapsed contexts (boyd 2011) and 3) the multiplication of contexts (Papacharissi 2011), by investigating those phenomena from the perspective of diasporic LGBTQs (Polish post-accession immigrants to the UK). I will examine what diasporic LGBTQs and their social media's uses can teach us about the relationship between the internet and identity, as well as what opportunities and difficulties social media create to a group that faces different challenges of exclusion and discrimination. I will first use a quantitative survey to map the diversity of social media used by Polish LGBTQs in the UK. However, because I am primarily interested in meanings of daily media practices, it is qualitative methods, and in-depth interviews in particular, which will form the core of my methodological toolkit. At the same time, to trigger more and better quality data I will combine traditional qualitative methods with such innovative approaches as think-aloud protocols (which require from participants to talk about the activity in which they are involved) and digital methods (the methods of the medium under scrutiny).

Keywords:SOCIAL MEDIA

Disciplines:Communication sciences, Journalism and professional writing, Media studies, Other media and communications

Project type:Collaboration project