This was presented at ASIST '13 annual meeting (Montreal, Canada). Please contact me if you are interested in this paper.

1. The
Show
Must
Go
On:
The
Presentation
of
Self
during
Interpersonal
Conflict
on
Facebook
Jinyoung
Kim
and
June
Ahn
College
of
Information
Studies
University
of
Maryland,
College
Park
Monday, November 4, 13

2. Monday, November 4, 13

3. Conflicts
happens
Image
source:
Google
‘Facebook
fights’
Monday, November 4, 13

4. Conflicts
1)
Manifest
:
the
state
of
heated
argument,
clashes,
and
insulting
that
develops
behavioral
and
affective
states
2)
Latent:
the
state
of
perceiving
different
goals
and
intentions
of
counterparts
(Dahrendorf, 1958)
Monday, November 4, 13

5. Conceptual
Framework:
Dramaturgy
Everyday
life
is
a
performance.
In
the
presence
of
others,
a
person
tries
to
give
information
about
self
in
accordance
with
his/her
intention.
An
audience
is
supposed
to
watch
and
be
persuaded
by
the
performance.
Backstage
is
a
private
region
where
actors
keep
the
vital
secrets
of
the
performance
and
refine
themselves.
(Goffman, 1959)
Monday, November 4, 13

6. On
Facebook,
Visibility
and
relationship
with
an
audience
encourage
users
to
selectively
disclose
information
to
deliver
an
ideal
self-­‐image
while
not
creating
conflicts
with
an
audience.
Despite
users’
efforts
to
avoid
engaging
in
socially
unattractive
situations,
30%
of
adults
experience
conflicts
in
SNSs.
(Rainie et al., 2012)
People
from
diverse
contexts
are
present
at
the
same
place,
and
this
context
collapse
might
affect
users’
perceptions
and
behaviors
when
encountering
conflicts
on
Facebook.
Monday, November 4, 13

7. Research
Question
RQ1.
When
do
individuals
experience
conflicts
on
Facebook?
RQ2.
What
are
the
individuals’
thought
processes
in
perceiving
and
dealing
with
conflicts?
Monday, November 4, 13

8. Methodology
•
An
interview
method
•
6
college
and
10
graduate
students
•
Questions
include:
What
are
the
purpose
of
your
using
Facebook?
What
are
the
episode
of
conflicts?
If
the
conflict
was
resolved,
were
you
satisfied
with
the
way
how
it
was
resolved?
•
Themes
and
Findings
were
linked
into
conceptual
framework
Monday, November 4, 13

9. Findings
RQ1.
When
do
individuals
experience
conflicts
on
Facebook?
Controversial
topics
-­‐
Religion
&
Politics
Political
discussion?
Asynchronous
interactions
allowed
interviewees
to
back
off
from
intense
discussion
and
to
gather
backup
information
for
their
argument.
Monday, November 4, 13

10. Findings
RQ1.
When
do
individuals
experience
conflicts
on
Facebook?
Interviewees
often
experienced
conflicts
when
confronted
with
inappropriate
manners
in
online
conversation.
How
appropriate
is
appropriate?
Each
user
had
a
different
level
of
tolerance
toward
the
same
posting
Monday, November 4, 13

11. Findings
RQ2.
What
are
the
individuals’
thought
processes
in
perceiving
and
dealing
with
conflicts?
The
brave,
the
careful,
and
the
inconsistent
“It’s
really
fun
to
be
the
devil’s
advocate
and
say
something
like
[different
from
friends’
opinions].
I
have
a
lot
of
liberal
friends,
and
I
have
a
lot
of
conservative
friends,
and
so,
it’s
always
very
funny.
When
you
start
to
comment,
they
all
get
it
on
it.
It’s
just
very
interesting.”
(Mark,
graduate)
Monday, November 4, 13
“I
feel
like
I
tried
to
be
more
neutral
about
stuff
on
Facebook
'cause
I
don’t
really
want
someone
getting
mad
at
me
on
whatever
something
I
post.”
(Jamie,
freshman)
“I
wrote
it
to
make
people
to
think,
‘what
is
he
writing?’
because
I
don’t
tend
to
write
much
[on
Facebook].
So
if
I
write
something,
it
might
spark
[questions].
Somebody
might
go
like
‘what
are
you
writing?’
and
it
gives
me
the
opportunity
like
‘oh,
this
is
what’s
happening
in
my
country.”
(Dave,
graduate)

12. Findings
RQ2.
What
are
the
individuals’
thought
processes
in
perceiving
and
dealing
with
conflicts?
Shills
or
informants:
Conflicts
with
close
friends
“I
had
a
good
friend
who
I
was
a
friend
of
in
high
school.
He
made
this
comment
on
Facebook
about
[a
social
issue].
And
he
was
kind
of
citing
like
[positions
on
the
topic].
And
he,
I
don’t
know,
his
viewpoint
surprised
me
a
lot.
Cause
I
thought
I
knew
him?
But
apparently,
this
is
very
extreme
point
of
view
in
my
opinion?
So
I
started
arguing
him
about
like,
you
know...”
(Justin,
graduate)
Monday, November 4, 13
“I
think,
if
they
[his
friends]
were
being
attacked,
and
I
agreed
with
the
person
attacking
them
but
I
didn’t
know
them,
a
strange
scenario.
I,
still
would
be
stepping
inside
and
‘okay,
you
might
think
that,
but
don’t
be
rude
about
it,
don’t
attack
them.’
Even
if
I
don’t
agree
with
my
friend,
I
still
want
my
friends
not
to
be
attacked.”
(Chris,
junior)

13. Findings
RQ2.
What
are
the
individuals’
thought
processes
in
perceiving
and
dealing
with
conflicts?
Coping
mechanism:
backstage
processes
for
deciding
on
further
performances
“They
are
still
friends
in
real
life.
They
just
blocked
each
other
on
Facebook,
so
they
don’t
need
to
deal
with
each
other’s
political
[opinion].”
(Steve,
graduate)
Monday, November 4, 13
but
everyone
responses
like
‘you
never
gonna
make
Mark
mad,
you
never
gonna
do
it,
it’s
not
gonna
happened’.
Cause
most,
I
think
most
of
the
people
understand
that
I’m
not
gonna
get
like…
mad.
So
I
mean,
I
look
at
getting
mad
someone
has
like…I
don’t
want
people
to
know
they’re
gotten
to
me?
So
I’ll
just,
I’ll
just
suppress
it?
(Mark,
graduate)
“Of
course,
I
didn’t
want
to
solve
the
problem
and
have
the
entire
Facebook
read
[by
others].
That
makes
no
sense.
So
I
emailed
my
friend,
I
messaged
him,
but
actually,
since
I
couldn’t
find
it
[his
number],
I
wrote
him
an
email...
I
had
to
manage
the
situation
offline.”
(Dave,
graduate)

14. Discussion
Facebook
generally
is
not
a
platform
for
outward
conflict.
But,
the
brave,
the
careful,
and
the
inconsistent
are
connected
to
each
other
on
Facebook.
Actors
manage
their
walls
in
accordance
with
their
ideal-­‐self
by
sterilizing
information
for
their
front-­‐stage
performances
on
Facebook.
Once
conflicts
occurred,
actors
were
careful
to
resolve
the
conflicts,
reassure
the
validity
of
previous
performances
to
audiences,
and
stop
further
disruptive
interactions.
Monday, November 4, 13

15. Limitations
&
Future
studies
Limitations
•
Modest
sample
size
•
Homogeneous
group
Future
studies
•Conflicts
of
users
in
a
different
life
stage
•
Conflicts
on
Different
type
of
SNSs
Monday, November 4, 13

16. Thank
you.
Questions
or
Comments?
jkim0204@umd.edu
Monday, November 4, 13