บทคัดย่อ/เนื้อเรื่องย่อ:
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The study entitled, “Social Media Innovations and Digital Narcissism” aimed
to 1) study the process of a construction of an ideal self and a real self of digital
narcissists in social media 2) analyze digital narcissists’ social presence via photos
and messages as appearing in social network. 3) analyze digital narcissists’ symbolic
interaction through social media innovations, i.e. the number of likes, shares, and
comments, and 4) analyze the frequency and accessibility to the use of social network
and digital narcissism.
Mixed research methods were conducted by using qualitative research as the
main method in a textual analysis for analyzing the patterns of signs, a symbolic
interaction, a self-construction, and digital narcissism on social network through
images, likes, shares, and status posts. Quantitative content analysis was also
conducted by tallying the number of likes, frequencies, and accessibilities to the use
of social network to gain supplementary empirical data to support qualitative findings
responding to the research question No. 2, 3, and 4.
From the study, it was found that all selected samples were narcissists prior to
being digital narcissists, reflected partly by their sense of being more beautiful,
handsome, or good-looking than others from the perception of their ideal selves
through the process of an ideal-self construction in social media comprising 1) their
motives or motivation in a self-construction 2) the use of a photo-editing application
for their social presence of their ideal selves 3) others’ acceptance of their self-
construction. The samples with digital narcissism thus chose to perceive only their desirable selves and delete the perception of their real selves through the management
and selection of the best images to be presented. On the other hand, an editing
application and a high-quality camera enhanced the samples’ ideal selves more
vividly.
In terms of a social presence through images and messages of digital
narcissists, the samples chose to present only the story about themselves, especially
by a show-off the most. Particularly, a selfie of one’s own face at a close-up shot
through repeated angles was found the most, followed by a presentation of their
luxurious lives through an image-component arrangement at a medium and long shot
to emphasize the grandiosity, i.e. an expensive car, a big chain of gold necklace, etc.,
and a presentation of their awards or life-achievement at a long shot to see the grand
award and their extraordinary activities that general people cannot do respectively.
Besides, their social presence was not only executed through their image but also their
messages, i.e. through their captions or status posting. Accordingly, the samples with
digital narcissism talked about themselves the most and perceived their stories as
mighty and significant. They even narrated about their trivial activities repeatedly to
show their perfectness all the time. Lastly, the samples felt proud of their work no
matter it was a normal job or a privileged assignment, i.e. a representative in a
national meeting, as parts of either their regular or special job. Besides, they perceived
their work as more important than others’ or perceived that they were more successful
than others through their repeated presentation on social media.
From analyzing the symbolic interaction on social media of digital narcissists,
it was found that their show-off was a consequence of their interpretation of social
media innovations, i.e. the number of likes, shards, and positive comments they
received from others during the symbolic interaction. Therefore, the samples with
digital narcissism placed high importance to social media innovations and led them to
manage and select their self-image prior to their social presence to others in social
media. Besides, after their social presence, they examined the negative comments,
which might be withheld or blocked. A consistent investigation of social media
innovations to avoid negative feedback or comments was thus conducted.
The samples’ paying high attention to social media innovations in a symbolic
interaction accorded with the frequency of using social media, of their photographing,and of their photo-posting. The access to the technology each time was not equal.
Every time, the samples would always have their goal in presenting themselves, i.e.
the needs towards the high number of likes, shares, or positive comments.
Accordingly, the samples selected their images with the most perfect portrayal more
than ordinary people prior to their social presence in social media. Consequently, the
samples earned higher frequencies of taking photos than frequencies of posting
photos. Furthermore, most samples used social media all the time and could not
identify the numbers of times. This was for checking how other people presented
their images and activities since the samples with digital narcissism often compared
themselves with others in the same social media and perceived their superiority to
others, which was one of the narcissistic personalities. Hence, the more the samples
accessed to social media, the more social presence they executed to show off
themselves.
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