ABSTRACT
The social life and impact of online media invite intense speculation from the academia and the general public. Social networks have always been a part of everyday life and sociality. Social scientists have addressed all of these questions through compelling research focusing on related themes, grouped into three broad categories: sociability, publicity, and privacy. Interpretations of the publicity dimensions of social media use have been largely derived from a symbolic interactionist perspective of identity management, that is, that the self is a product of interaction rather than being a fixed entity. The danger in this approach is to visualize these new media forms as merely new forms of old media and not as enabling new forms of sociality and interaction. The study of privacy and surveillance has utilized frameworks supported by privacy regulation and boundary management theories, which has led to a forced binary public/private interpretation of social media use.
