Self-presentation And Social Identity Of The Marginal Man In Online Community

The Marginal Man are on the social and cultural margins,rejected by the dominant group and mainstream culture,and the marginal situations and marginal status they occupy make it difficult for them not only to integrate into society,but also to go unnoticed and submerged under the dominant group.Although the marginal man are submerged in the real society,their media activities can be glimpsed in online communities,and by observing their media activities in online communities,we can deepen our understanding of the marginal man.This study takes the Baidu Tieba "Liulang Ba" as the research object.Based on participatory observation and textual analysis of the media activities of Liulang Ba members in the Liulang Ba,combined with in-depth interviews,this study explores the self-presentation of the marginal man in the online community,analyzes their social identity We will explore the impact of online media on their social adaptation and expand the research on the media activities of the marginal man in the field of journalism and communication.At the same time,it will promote more people’s understanding of marginalized people,dispel social misconceptions about them,and promote their social integration.The study found that the developmental history of Liulang Ba can summarize the types of the marginal man in Liulang Ba: The Structural Marginal Man,The Psychological Marginal Man,and The Dual Marginal Man.In the context of the binary coding mechanism of success and failure created by mainstream society,the marginal man encounter "Developmental Crisis" and "Psychological Crisis" in the development cycle.Secondly,as an online community,the Liulang Ba provides a stage for marginalized people to perform,and they gain attention through various performance acts of "display","recording" and "retrospection".The self-presentation in the Liulang Ba is characterized by a sense of contradiction: practicing a low material life while striving for spiritual upward mobility;showing negative misanthropy,but expecting a positive attitude towards life.Finally,The marginal man search for similar selves through identity narratives and emotional resonance in Liulang Ba to complete the social classification process in social identity construction,but in social comparison,as a stigmatized subordinate group,they establish a negative social identity in negative self-evaluation and flirtation with out-groups.However,the online community provides them with a platform for in-group interaction and positive uncertainty in the process of interaction,which provides marginalized people with hope and confidence that they can "cross over" into the dominant group and is important for their integration into mainstream society.