ABSTRACT
Facebook scholarship has looked at whether Facebook enhances "civic engagement", but perhaps a more salient question is how and whether our engagement with Facebook affects what it actually "feels like" to be a citizen. If everyday identity construction is constitutive of the political, then Facebook's emphasis on disclosure and connection brings this aspect of social life to the fore. One possibility is that Facebook further opens up a space for individuals to present themselves to a public. Facebook allowed user a venue to express political dissent in ways that they may be reluctant to do in an off-line public forum. One interesting feature of Facebook's newsfeed is the ability to gain a glimpse of other people's social networks. In a non-mediated public sphere, overt political expression can be seen as inappropriate. The emotionalization of politics, more often than not, leads to a passive-politics that is not transgressive and does not challenge true centers of power.
