How does social media enable, or even encourage, people to create “best self” versions of their lives online, even if they might not be honest representations of what their “offline” lives are really like?

PAPER #1: NARRATIVES OF THE SELF

In our first unit of readings, we’re considering ways in which people create narratives about themselves online–or sometimes even multiple narratives. Even if we’re not trying to deceive anyone, it’s only natural that we would choose to share our “best lives” online. Though sometimes that can go to extremes, as Harnish demonstrates in her article, where the “online” version of a person is very far removed from that person’s “offline” experience.

Beyond trying to impress people or build a following, as Beck argues, we’re also trying to create our own life stories, to make sense of our experiences–kind of like explaining yourself to yourself.

For this paper, you’ll be summarizing and analyzing the ideas in our course readings, and using your own experience with social media to illustrate, complicate, or expand upon those ideas.

You have a couple options in terms of topics:

1. How does social media enable, or even encourage, people to create “best self” versions of their lives online, even if they might not be honest representations of what their “offline” lives are really like? In making your argument, you’ll need to draw substantially from our course readings, summarizing and analyzing these authors’ ideas, and showing how they relate to one another. But you can also draw on your own experiences with social media to help illustrate, or complicate, the authors’ ideas. Have there been times in your life when you’ve felt pressured to project a certain kind of image online? Are there things you wouldn’t post about online, because they feel too “real”? Is there a way to be our authentic selves online, or are we always, on some level, projecting a skewed (or at least edited) version of ourselves?

attached is the outline I kind of made

Requirements: 4-5 pages | .doc file