A109. Walton, S. C. &
Rice, R. E. (2013). Mediated
disclosure on Twitter: The roles of gender and identity in boundary
impermeability, valence, disclosure, and stage. Computers in
Human
Behavior, 29(4), 1466-1474.
Social
media such
as microblogs (Twitter) allow more people to disclose more personal and
private
information more frequently to more others than ever before. But
what is the nature of, and what factors
influence, those disclosures? Applying concepts from research and
theory on self-disclosure
research and microblogging, this study analyses 3751 tweets, with
nearly 40%
including disclosures, over a three-day period.
At the user level, user-controlled boundary impermeability
varied by
user gender, feed identity (parenting, social media professional), and
their
interaction. At the tweet level, tweet valence, presence of disclosure,
and
front- or back-stage disclosure were variously influenced by user
gender,
twitter feed identity, interactions between them, and boundary
impermeability. Social
construction of gender roles and social identities, as well as
individual
tendencies, and possibly communication contexts, are reflected in the
valence,
presence, and stage of disclosures in microblog content.
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