Identity and social networks

Narrative construction of hypertextual self

Abstract

With the plethora of social networks, a new form of autobiographical narrative is becoming popular, in which technological elements are mixed with a new narrative. Among the major changes taking place in this new environment we can consider the extension of autobiographical narratives to an exponentially larger audience, even anonymous people; the technological mediation of the platforms, which follows a predefined kind of subject in terms of options allowed by the means of self-expression; and the leap from the virtual identity as a mean of concealment to a conception of the self-representation on the internet that operates under the principles of authenticity and interaction. As well, unlike other previous forms of expression, in these profiles we find that resources such as hypertext take a major part of the life story and the self-representation, which is embodied in a concept of online identity in which social and qualitative aspects prevail. This paper provides a comparative analysis—from a semiotic perspective— of different individual profiles on various social networks, both in content and in mediation techniques from different websites, relating them to the ability to implement a narrative construction of the subjectivity of the user, and also with other practices that interact with that ability, such as changes that take place in family or job, the existence of fragmented biographies, and to what extent there are assumptions that prevail in that construction (biographical consistency or collage format).