The sense of an audience is common in the online environment, just like in physical settings, meaning that people communicate differently depending on those they send the message to, such as potential romantic partners or business acquaintances. Therefore, before communicators send the message, for example, through a tweet, they first evaluate the nature of their audience because they will determine what to and how to send the message. Individuals imagine and construct the audience in the mediated conversation to ensure that they represent themselves correctly and make the desired impression. However, networked audiences have caused changes in the way people present their images on social media because of the diversity of the audience. Regardless of audience changes in the online environment, self-presentation and perception of honesty still play a crucial role depending on the type of audience a person is communicating to, such as romantic or business interests.
Self-presentation helps people understand how others behave in social environments, such as in the workplace or theater. The nature of the social environment plays a role in the type of self that individuals present to their audience. Goffman focuses on the way people guide and control their impressions and the things they might avoid to sustain the communicated self. For example, when potential romantic partners meet in a physical context, the type of self they present to each other differs from when a candidate presents the self for a job interview. In both contexts, individuals use different selves to create a lasting impression on the audience. Goffman alludes that the nature of the audience will determine how others present themselves, with some acting in calculated ways to make an impression because the audience uses the information to make a judgment about various aspects of the other, such as socioeconomic background (163). Generally, the person could present the self with or without knowing to make the impression depending on the audience’s type.
Social media has become an essential part of modern life, especially in the communication and social interactions. The online environment has completely changed the way people meet and interact outside the physical environment. Ellison et al. explore the issue of relationship formation in online dating and the role of self-presentation, which has become a norm in the modern world (415). Their study focuses on self-presentation strategies in the online dating environment, which is mediated by the possibility of meeting in the physical world, unlike other interactions that are limited to the mediated context. For example, even if people meet and begin dating online, reaching the audience physically affects how each party presents the self and what identity they wish to communicate. Potential partners strive to make a lasting impression that remains long after the one-on-one meeting. The need to create a positive impact plays a role in the general profile they use, such as the profile picture on Facebook and the type of message they send to the dating partner. The article reveals the perception of reflecting an “ideal self” through Social Information Processing theory to create a lasting impression on the other party in an online dating environment.
The question of honesty in the online communication environment emerges in self-presentation in the online context. Like Ellison et al., Marwick and Boyd suggest that the imagined audience in the social media determines the perception of honesty and the self that the communicator presents to the audience (115). Whether in dating sites of other social media platforms, the audience’s nature determines how communicators create and deliver their message. Marwick and Boyd used Twitter to examine the role ‘imagined audiences’ play in content creation, such as the tendency to conceal subjects, segmentation, and targeting, and to maintain authenticity. Self-presentation in social media is akin to personal branding. The content creator desires that their audience receives the “right” message that will convince them to align with the intention of the content creator, such as in business blogging. Communicators believe that the way they present themselves to the audience will reveal their honesty and persuade them to support their cause. They use strategic self-commodification through which the person uses a tweet to communicate to multiple audiences persuasively.
The three readings reveal the self-presentation tendencies which are common in all social contexts where people communicate. The audience shapes the presentation of an ideal self in social settings, which occur physically and in the online environment. Besides, whenever a person enters a social context, the audience seeks to collect information to make conclusions about aspects, such as the person’s socioeconomic background. The same social processes occur in the online environment, such as in business communication and online dating, where the person creates and delivers a message depending on the audience. The perceived reception of the message and the self-image creates a calculated desire to make a lasting impression on the other person in the communication process.