ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how face can be applied to the understanding of interpersonal interactions via social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Face management within online social networks requires active strategies that take on new forms in computer-mediated communication. In online social networking sites, face management transpires in technologically facilitated ways where the structural design of these networks can amplify, constrain, and complicate facework. Individuals can take to online social networks to announce personal triumphs or milestones that invite salutations. Online social networking sites offer powerful tools for self-presentation such as customizing pages, updating one's status, writing comments, sharing images, disclosing selected personal details, and so on. Conversely, personal difficulties may also be publicly aired, eliciting gestures of support and proclamations of assistance. The Asian concept of face thus sensitizes researchers to different dimensions of social, cultural, and possibly economic capital that individuals can derive when giving, saving, and gaining face via their online network interactions.
