Blurred reputations: Managing professional and private information online

Blurred reputations:
Managing professional and private information online
Presented by
Frances VC Ryan
Information, Interactions, and Impact (i3) Conference
Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland
29 June 2017
Co-authors: Peter Cruickshank, Hazel Hall, and Alistair Lawson
Edinburgh Napier University | Centre for Social Informatics
@FrancesRyanPhD | f.ryan@napier.ac.uk | www.FrancesRyanPhD.com

Frances VC Ryan | @FrancesRyanPhD | www.FrancesRyanPhD.com
@FrancesRyanPhD
www.FrancesRyanPhD.com
f.ryan@napier.ac.uk
Frances VC Ryan
Edinburgh Napier University
Centre for Social Informatics
Co-authors:
Peter Cruickshank (@spartakan), Hazel Hall (@hazelh), and Alistair Lawson

An overview of the PhD research
How online information contributes to the building,
maintenance, and evaluation of personal reputations
►Personal reputation: Private individuals, rather than
corporate identity and brand
►Considers both “private” and “professional” reputation –
and how the two merge or blur together
► The term “private” relates to a person’s private life not privacy settings

Research themes focus on online information
How people evaluate the
personal reputations of others
1
How people manage their
own personal reputations
2

►Facebook
►Twitter
►LinkedIn

The literature
Personal
Reputation
(Private and professional)
Information
Science
Social Media

The framework
(Ryan, Cruickshank, Hall, & Lawson, 2016)
(Cat & Mouse, 2016)
Hello, my name is (redacted)

Research questions
RQ1: How do individuals build
identities for themselves online?
RQ3: How do individuals evaluate the identities and reputations
of others based on the online information available to them?
RQ2: How do individuals use online information
to build and manage their reputations?
RQ4: To what extent do individuals actively practise
identity and reputation building and evaluation online?
RQ2: How do individuals use online information
to build and manage their reputations?

Managing the blur
between professional and private

The methods
► Qualitative methods
► Everyday Life Information Seeking (ELIS)
► Participant diaries (one week)
► In-depth, semi-structured interviews (1 hour)
► NVivo 10 for analysis
► Coding structure based on themes from
the literature and participant data

The sample
► 45 UK-based participants
► Recruited in generation groups
► Aged 22-69 (in 2016)
► 31 females; 14 males
► Social media users
► Moderate to heavy users (41)
► Higher than average education levels
► In employment or recently retired

How individuals use online information to
build and manage their reputations ...
… as it relates to the blurring between
their private and professional lives.

Four primary behaviours
(1) Portraying of different aspects of personas for different
audiences
(2) Managing different types of information for different platforms
(3) Managing how connections are made with others
(4) Undertaking various levels of self-censorship

(1) Portrayal of different aspects of personas
► Based on offline identities,
personalities, and hobbies
► To showcase aspects of “real
world” selves
► Three ways:
► Intentional personas for different
audiences
► Unintended personas through information
sharing behaviours
► One identity—online and offline

Intentional portrayal of personas
“… so that I can be a wee bit more irreverent…” (Colin)
“… even though it’s not very trendy at the moment…” (Donna)
“I am very conscious that [regardless of what you think your
privacy settings are] people are seeing both [personas].” (Sharon)
“I [have] different personas. I have a personal
[persona] and I have a professional [persona]. I try to
keep the two fairly separate...” (Nicola)

Unintended portrayal of personas
“[My] way of managing it is doing things quite separately knowing that they
will have an impact on each other. [What] my friends think of the work I do
and what my colleagues think of my home life, I try to keep separate.” (Amanda)
“People [who] see me on LinkedIn and people who know me on
Facebook would describe me in very similar shape and fashion, I’m not
entirely different people. However, what I share is different.” (Yvonne)
“People follow you [because of your interests] … I want to make
sure the content is relevant to what I’m interested in.” (Jennifer)

One identity – online and offline
“My boundaries are ridiculous. I do both (private and professional)
in the same field … I’m not using it strategically.” (Diane)
“I do believe in always being the same person and not presenting
a different version of yourself to different people.” (Craig)
There is so much blurring you “can’t think of them as being separate.” (Zoe)

(2) Managing different types of information
►Platforms are viewed as private, professional, or both
► Facebook: Largely private
► LinkedIn: Strictly professional
► Twitter: Both – separate accounts or sharing on same account
Private Professional

Managing information
“I feel like I’m lucky that I’m actually really interested in what I do for
work. Sometimes it’s hard for me to determine whether I’m sharing
something because of a professional or personal reasons.” (Gillian)
“I separate all my personal stuff … and anything professional …
I keep them very separate so that [the opinion others have] of
me personally and professional are separate .” (Amanda)
“I use [LinkedIn] very much as LinkedIn should be used: It’s a
professional networking site … I use it as an ongoing, live CV …
I post things on there that benefit myself.” (Kevin)

(3) Managing connections with others
►Determined by platform
► Facebook: Largely private
► LinkedIn: Strictly professional
► Twitter: Both
►The “other” blur
► Online vs offline
►Exceptions to the rules
► Perceived levels of friendship
► Connecting out of obligation

Connecting with others
“I'm not Facebook friends with any current
colleagues … that’s what LinkedIn is for.” (Laura)
“If I would sit down and have a cup of coffee and a chat, as opposed
to the sort of colleague that [you would chat with].” (Amanda)
“If I left this workplace and went somewhere else … I would
probably unfriend all of [my current] work colleagues.” (Alison)

(4) Undertaking various levels of self-censorship
►It is more important to censor private
information than professional
►Appropriate platform behaviours
► Often based on perceived audiences
►Privacy settings also play a role
► Including how or if posts can be tagged
STOP!

Self-censorship
“There’s always an internal struggle of opinions and views. And if you put your exact
view down, then that’s it. It’s there forever. And that is the view that people are gonna
think that you have all the time.” (Kevin)
“There’s certain information that
I won’t share, or I’ll think twice
about sharing publicly.” (Gillian)
“I’ve got my settings so that I have to accept [tags or posts] for
them to go on my timeline. You can’t just add things … I’m so
conscious about that goes there.” (Jennifer)
“[Commenting] is always a hard choice
… I have to think twice about [how I
respond] to posts.” (Jacqueline)

►Alignments with prior work on reputation management
► For example: self-censorship of online information sharing, Hagger-Johnson,
Egan, & Stillwell, 2011; Ollier-Malaterre, Rothbard, & Berg, 2013
►New themes related to the blurring between professional and
private information
► Building identity is secondary to building reputation
► Professional reputation is managed with more intentional actions
► However, “reputation” is not always a prime motivator
►…
Conclusions

Everyday behaviours of cool cats
An obligatory model:
Ryan, F., Appleton, L., Buunk, I., Jenkins, L., Killick, L., Mowbray, J., Pawluczuk, A., Richter, T. (2017)
(With thanks to Hall, H., Cruickshank, P., Detlor, B., Muir, L. [under protest], Ryan, B.)

Full list of CSI papers at i3 2017
► Demonstrating the impact of the public library on citizenship development in the UK: focus group
findings presented by Leo Appleton (co-authors Alistair Duff, Hazel Hall and Robert Raeside)
► Tacit knowledge sharing in online environments: locating “Ba” within a platform for public sector
professionals presented by Iris Buunk (co-authors Hazel Hall and Colin Smith)
► Practices of community councillors in exploiting information channels for citizen engagement in democratic
processes presented by Peter Cruickshank (co-authors Hazel Hall and Bruce Ryan)
► The application of Social Cognitive Theory in Information Science research on workplace learning and
innovative work behaviours presented by Lyndsey Jenkins (co-authors Hazel Hall and Robert Raeside)
► Undermining our data: implications for trust in the population census presented by Lynn Killick (co-
authors Alistair Duff, Mark Deakin and Hazel Hall)
► Job search information behaviours: an ego-net study of networking and social media use amongst young
jobseekers presented by John Mowbray (co-authors Hazel Hall , Robert Raeside and Peter Robertson)
► Youth digital participation: measuring social impact presented by Alicja Pawluczuk (co-authors Hazel
Hall , Colin Smith and Gemma Webster)
► Getting unstuck: information problem solving in high school STEM students and evidence of metacognitive
knowledge presented by Todd Richter (co-authors Laura Muir, Tom Flint, Hazel Hall and Colin Smith)
► Blurred reputations: managing professional and private online presented by Frances Ryan (co-authors Peter
Cruickshank, Hazel Hall and Alistair Lawson)
► Digital storytelling and the use of iBeacon technologies by libraries: how to promote citizen interest in a city
and its cultural heritage by Brian Detlor (co-authors Fariba Nosrati and Claudia Crippa, McMaster University,
Canada)

@FrancesRyanPhD
www.FrancesRyanPhD.com
f.ryan@napier.ac.uk
Frances VC Ryan
Co-authors:
Peter Cruickshank (@spartakan), Hazel Hall (@hazelh), and Alistair Lawson
Thank you!

Blurred reputations: Managing professional and private information online

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