The impact of social media use on identity, social comparison, and self-esteem in youth in Cairo and Casablanca = تأثير إستخدام وسائل التواصل الاجتماعى على تقدير الذات: مقارنة بين شباب القاهرة والدار البيضاء : دراسة فى أنثروبولوجيا الاعلام / Heba Tullah Salah Elshahed ; Supervised Salwa Yousef Darwish , Tamer Mahmoud

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of African Postgraduate Studies - Department of Anthropology

The ubiquity of visual content and imagery in the mass media and in particular social media calls for a critical understanding of media content and impact on various profile of users. Today, we are bombarded by visual messages and cues that are becoming the foundation of our social structure. Social media platforms have revolutionized means in which people communicate and socialize, and it is important to better understand the ways in which this virtual social phenomenon is impacting how we think and feel about others and ourselves. An identity is a complex personal and social construct, consisting in part of who we think ourselves to be, how we wish others to perceive us, and how they actually perceive us. In particular, Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) research has looked at tall fragments, yet this study tackles the second of these fragments: how we wish others to perceive us. The process of setting forth an image we want others to perceive is known as self-presentation. This study aims to investigate youth{u2019}s experiences of social media use in order to explore the effects of comparing themselves to others as they integrate and respond to other{u2019}s online visual representation of identities. This study examined the ways in which one is impacted by social media participation and exposure to media images, which in turn, has the potential to affect the individual{u2019}s evaluation of self. Several key themes emerged and were explored including their presentations of an idealized self, their process of engaging in online self-representation, and the mounting comparison between their real and online selves, their varying experiences when viewing profiles of their networks, their affective responses when viewing, and to what degree online social comparison can affect the view of self

Issued also as CD