Digital media shifted culture from representation of selves to self-presentation

Evidence

Focusing specifically on this new ability for internet users to self-brand and learn to promote themselves to a public, new media scholar P. David Marshall21 identifies a transition from “representational” to “presentational” media and culture. Before the age of digital media and self-curated content, users could only hope to have their identities and cultures characterized by traditional media actors in broadcast media as “representations.” In the age of digital media and DIY content, users are now able to broadcast, control, and negotiate how they would like their identities and cultures to be perceived as intentional “presentations” of the self. — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity, 77

Before the age of digital media and self-curated content, users could only hope to have their identities and cultures characterized by traditional media actors in broadcast media as “representations.” In the age of digital media and DIY content, users are now able to broadcast, control, and negotiate how they would like their identities and cultures to be perceived as intentional “presentations” of the self. — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity, 77

Categorization

• DEFINE: Marshall’s representational-to-presentational media shift — a framing distinction central to the field.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame…, 77
• XREF: connects to: Online self-presentation expresses a neoliberal subjectivity applying market principles to identity — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 25; Pre-Web internet fostered play and identity experimentation, not marketable self-presentation — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 493; Women’s online self-presentation is judged more harshly than men’s in tech culture — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 722 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Social media reframed self-identity as a personal brand selling attention #corroborates (0.85) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1031
• Showing oneself as a self online begins the manufacturing of the self as commodity #corroborates (0.82) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 61
• Social media turned attention capture into mutual self-display at unprecedented scale #expands (0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1062