Presentation of Self in MySpace.com an Online Social Networking Site

Abstract

This ethnographic study explores the presentation of self on MySpace.com, an online social networking website. One hundred MySpace.com profile pages were analyzed to discover how users complete and manipulate the MySpace template to create a virtual presentation of self. The one hundred profile pages represented fifty stated female users and fifty stated male users. Each page was archived and coded based on the elements present that were viewable by the public. All users were selected at random using the website search tool and a random number generator. The work of Erving Goffman in his 1959 book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, is the theoretical foundation for the this study. Analysis of the profile pages sampled indicates that most users studied modify the default template and add various elements from textual information to pictures, music, and video clips to the profile pages and create a virtual presentation of self on MySpace.com.