"MY FEED, MY REFLECTION": ANALYZING NARRATIVE OF PHOTOS AS IDENTITY ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Abstract

Ways of expressing the self will always develop as the world changes. Identity constructs affected by the real self as well as desired self we want to present. The purposes of this research are to know the details of how the way and the purpose of the informants constructing and expressing themselves through shared photos online. By using narrative approach interview and observation, data were collected from two males and one female President University students, aged 20 to 22 years old. They had shared hundreds of well-prepared photos online. In this research. Social media involves in the way of both identity constructed and expressed. Actual-self is something that the informants start their identity with, having ideal figure helps them to figure out how to construct their identity better; from the way they construct their identity within them, and showing it through details in the photos. Therefore, the expressed identity is the desired or well-constructed self, which results to their own ideal-self. Sharing photos through online platform such as social media can express the self in two ways, by the photo itself (visual) and the captions (text). Photos show the profile details of the informants based on their goal and purpose of sharing the photos, focusing on the details in the photo such as settings, outfits, the momentum, pose, and facial expressions. To express feelings, the informants do it through explanation text, which is the caption of their shared photos. The captions take part as the explanation of the moment as well as the feelings.