For this assignment, I am choosing to use the medium of -- surprise -- Facebook! Because I think it is easier to get an impression that is reliant on CMC cues, I will analyze the personality of someone who I have not actually met. For the sake of anonymity, I will refer to him as S.
In order to assess S's personality using the Brunzwikian Lens Model, I have to determine the enviornment which will act as my lens through which I will view S's personality characteristics. As earlier stated, this enviornment is Facebook, a website in which people largely are able to manipulate the information present, although some key elements of the profile are enacted by others. Those elements, as seen in Walther's experiment, can play an important role in the guest's perception of the target's facebook page. In this case, I will try to reach Walther's "functional achievement" by determining whether the cues presented by S seem to be valid, and by utilizing those cues in a way that links the Facebook enviornment to my own interpretation of the cues.
Off the bat, S's profile seems pretty average, maybe trying a little to hard to impress. The reason I deduce this is because in his profile picture, he is holding a smoking hooka-- not necessary. However, this assumption that he is trying to hard is probably not valid because it only represents a small part of the person he is presenting, and doesn't take into account any of the other aspects of his profile, much less his personality.
More important than my first impression, however, are the four mechanisms defined in Walther's Facebook Study pertaining to the Brunswikian Lens Model. By viewing his other-directed identity claims, largely the information in his "about me" section and his other areas of interest, we can find out S's hometown, email address, and a few interesting quotes which speak of his interest in funny movies. Under his Activities, however, there is a statement which doesn't seem to make sense. This particular aspect of his "about me" might, then, fall under Walther's category of self-directed identity claims, a difficult mechanism to find in Facebook. However, the undiscernable nature of his statement could be an inside joke, and thus an identity claim that is not directed at others, but at himself. This indicates to me that S is at least a somewhat social individual, since he seems to be making references to friends. As for S's interior behavioral residue, we can turn to the groups he has joined. Such groups are reminiscent of his internal activity on Facebook, as well as his personal news feed. The groups he is in present him as relatively well-rounded. He is in both academic, sports, and social groups. His news feed indicates that he spends some small amount of time on Facebook, and that the time he spends is mostly dedicated to making new friends, thus enhancing our view of S as a social individual. Lastly, we can examine S's exterior behavioral residue. A great example of this mechanism on Facebook is seen through the "photos tagged of S" section of S's profile. This area contains pictures from the football game and pictures taken with other attractive people, which according to Walther would make S appear more attractive to viewers. I can't say that my personal experience was in accorance with Walther, but maybe S wasn't at that level of "average" attractiveness that Walther used in his study. Maybe having hot friends can only help you get so far.
Overall, I understood S to be relatively open to experiences, maybe conscientious, extroverted, agreeable, and not very neurotic. My impression was based on the small amount of information I was able to garner from his facebook profile and thus, my statements are likely not very accurate, especially those regarding conscientiousness and neuroticism, becuase those traits are less easily detected in a CMC medium.
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2 comments:
Hey Chrissy,
I like your dedication to an unbiased observational experiment. Those who know their subject will undoubtedly be influenced by how they already feel about that person. Do you feel the accessibility of this person’s profile could have also influenced your impression? By that I mean, does it affect your impression to know that at a time when many college students are restricting view of their profile to their friends, this stranger had his profile accessible to you? Maybe that can tie into the “trying too hard” quality you describe- his inclination to make contact with and make a good impression to others.
Interesting post,
Christina
Nice post Chrissy.
I was especially interested by your conclusion that S was a social individual. When I see a friend on facebook who's only news updates are confirming friend requests, I tend to think of them as not being on facebook too much, but doing more important, probably social, things instead. Your analysis of the possible inside joke was intriguing. I like how it seemed to counteract the "trying too hard to impress" feeling you got by showing that he valued something more than just what others saw in his profile.
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