Paper Example on Identity

Identity elements

The use of photos, comments, self-presentation, video, group membership, and positions are the major elements of identity used by the people I am connected to in most Facebook group I participate in. In this case, most of the members use their comments to identify with their religions and beliefs some people comment on current issues through quoting texts from their religious books. On a general basis, however, the group members use dance videos and photos taken with their dance crews so as to identify themselves as dancers in the social platform since the group is for dancers. In the process of attaching videos and photos, the group members have formed a micro-identity in which each has a profile that relates them to certain genres of music that they dance to (their specialty) and the day to day performances they are involved in. Consequently, they have branded themselves with their different dance crews and most frequent performance venues.

Salient identity elements

Basing on the identified identity elements, the most salient/ prominent element is the use of videos and photos within the social platform. For instance, the different dance crews all have different theme colors regarding the costumes they commonly wear. Regardless of the different manifestations of these themes, there are different adopted logos that the dancers use. Some brand themselves as Panthers, some eagles, some bulls, some stars and other heavenly bodies. As a result, they all have specific colors and logos that are prominently displayed in their videos and or photos posted on Facebook.

Collapse context

There are different examples of context collapse self-representation that occurs within the group. Specifically, the fact that every member of the group, be it an individual or a group, the posted contents and comments are mostly related to dance. This means that everyone within this group narrows their life on the online platform to dance and dance related activities. In other words, the commonality with every member of the group boils down to dance and dance related activities.

Self-representation

There is a form of selective use of self-presentation that occurs within the group platform. For instance, the members of the groups mainly identify themselves as dancers and identify their religions within what they post but never display their real identities in terms of ethnicity. Rather, they display their general interest in diversity as dancers as they interact via the social platform.

Power relationship

There are specific binaries and power relationship involved in the identity within the Facebook group. Specifically, the aspect of power relationship revolves around gender. Every now and then, the all-male dance crews and the all-female dance crews try to outdo each other where the all-male crews view themselves as more powerful and complete as compared to the all-female crews. For this reason, there often occurs competitive posts between the two sets of crews within the platform. The competitive element creates a power relationship among the group members. The males want to be dominant over the females as the traditional society would expect while the females do not want to be dominated as they believe that the times have changed and that those periods of male dominance and power have faded off. To try and balance off the urges if dominance, crews that are mixed in terms of gender have been established and are quite successful in balancing out power.