Online Self-presentation:Predictors Of Self-presentation Tactics In Social Networking Sites

As Internet has come to the web2.0age, social networking sites has become the most popular network application, and it brought people offline life transferred to online life. Which is different from the past social interaction, the feature of social networking sites is "met acquaintance through acquaintances". The first "acquaintances" usually is offline social acquaintances, like family members, relatives, friends, and so on, while the second "acquaintances" usually means new friends in social networking sites. And openness, interpersonal and authenticity are the three aspects of "met acquaintance through acquaintances". Overall, people in social networking sites usually attend to maintain the offline social relationships and develop new social relationships. The performance of self-presentation in social networking sites also differ with the past internet social interaction, and is more like realistic social interaction.As Social networking sites is a new thing, there are a few relatively studies of self-presentation in social networking sites, especially few quantitative researches. By clarifying concepts and motivation of self-presentation, we studied self-presentation and the the influencing factor of self-presentation strategies in social networking sites based on dramatic theory, impression management theory, and self-monitoring theoryWe tend to think that the individuals in social networking sites perform more like true self and try to show the ideal self. Individual text (such as status, logs, etc.) and image (personal photos, etc.) are the main symbols of self-presentation in social networking sites. Overall, the individual in social networking sites perform mainly three kinds of self-presentation strategies due to large number of friends in the front of social networking and the uncertain target audience:1) proactive strategy, individuals in the social networking sites show the excellent self-image on the views of others on the social networking sites very carefully;2) generalization strategy, individuals tend to blur express their inner thoughts and feelings in order to avoid others to see self-generated stereotype in the social networking sites;3) passive strategy, individuals control the negative attitudes and behavior in the social networking sites to try to control the expression of negative emotions.On the basis of previous studies, this study argues that the self-monitoring varies on the explanatory power of self-presentation strategies in the social networking sites. Others-direct self-monitoring has significant impact on the proactive strategy and passive strategy, which means when one pay much attention to his/her own image presented in social networking sites which is important for others to the view of text and image presentation, at the same time one avoids showing negative attitude and behavior in social networking sites; high self-monitoring has a significant effect on generalization strategy, one mainly avoid others forming stereotype, and self-direct self-monitoring has a significant influence on the generalization strategy, which means he/she is more concerned about the self-harmony and do not want to show it. At the same time, the motivation to use social networking sites and the use viscosity of social networks have varying degrees of impact on self-presentation strategies. To expand the relationship has significant impact on the three strategies of self-presentation that individuals who want to make new friends through social networks pay more attention to the outstanding self-image and to avoid the performance of negative attitudes and behaviors, and they tend not to express their inner feelings on social networking sites.