{"id":761,"date":"2022-05-10T03:15:45","date_gmt":"2022-05-10T03:15:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/?page_id=761"},"modified":"2022-05-10T03:25:27","modified_gmt":"2022-05-10T03:25:27","slug":"blog-3","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/blog-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog #3"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wanna Connect? – Disclosure Etiquette on Linkedin<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alaina Salas<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Communication Privacy Management Theory (CPM) is all about disclosure. What, to whom, and how much we choose to disclose and the privacy rules we create to determine whether or not to share are the main aspects of the theory. In our last blog, we discussed how disclosure habits differ from social media platform to social media platform and also how they can differ on the same platform when different audiences are introduced. One specific social media platform that deserves its own discussion is Linkedin. As a website for making professional connections and presenting oneself to the rest of the professional world, posts on Linkedin are heavily filtered – meaning, individuals usually share even less personal information on this website than they share on any other. Our own privacy rules are hard at work when it comes to deciding which personal information to share on Linkedin because we want to paint a certain picture of ourselves for our audience (including potential employers and co-workers) – the people that will become co-owners of our information. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ham et al. (2019) conducted research to find what motivates people to post across the main different social media platforms. The researchers, citing Chiu et al., (2006) and Wasko & Faraj, (2005) discuss that reputation is a primary motivator in our decisions to post. This motive is largely related to Goffman\u2019s (1959) idea of self-presence that we discussed in the previous blog, which argues that people continuously manage how others perceive them. We, as individuals interested in self-presentation online, use our privacy management rules in order to control how others perceive us online by controlling what we share online. Because our audience on Linkedin is largely professional, we may choose to conceal a lot of personal information on this social network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previous literature surrounding sharing habits on social media have also concluded that reputation is a primary motivator for sharing (Ham et al., 2019) Tate Barber, young professional and social media user, when asked about how his sharing habits on Linkedin differ from his sharing habits on other social media platforms, says, \u201cThe audience and the nature of what I\u2019m sharing is completely different when I am sharing on Linkedin. It is the online equivalent of talking to my friends and family in a casual setting versus talking to my bosses and coworkers in an office setting. What I share is going to be completely different, and even if I\u2019m saying the same thing, I\u2019m going to present it differently.\u201d For instance, when Tate is planning on posting about his upcoming graduation on both his Instagram account and his Linkedin account, he notes that the posts will look a little different, \u201cwhen I post on Linkedin, it will probably be one professional looking photo of me thanking a lot of people for helping me get here and announcing my plans for after graduation whereas on Instagram I will probably post a few photos of me and my friends with  a witty caption.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vast majority of Linkedin users feel the same way, but it is CPM that provides the reasoning for why we feel this way. Based on the fact that our Linkedin audience largely consists of professionals, our privacy rules help us decide what and how much of our personal information to share with our professional network on Linkedin. When you think to yourself before posting on Linkedin \u201cwill this reflect well on me professionally?\u201d or \u201cWould my boss like this?\u201d that is your privacy boundary rules at work. We are the primary owners of our personal information and we are conscious of who we allow to be co-owners of that information based on how we think they will react to receiving the information and how their opinion of us might change after becoming a co-owner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research from Ann Schlosser in 2019 notes that in an effort to manage our online persona, we often decide to conceal rather than disclose personal information, with the exception being when the information reflects favorably on ourselves. (Shlosser, 2019). For example, it is rare to see a post about someone\u2019s political views on Linkedin. A person might choose to withhold this personal information (their political alignment) out of fear that they might drive away potential connections. Those that do post media relating to politics on Linkedin, especially bashing one side or the other, sometimes receive backlash. I observed the following comments on a pro-Trump and ant-Biden post on Linkedin:  \u201cThis isn\u2019t for LinkedIn\u2026 save this BS for your Facebook feed\u201d \u201cYea\u2026 I love Doctored Pictures on Linkedin\u2026 real professional!\u201d and \u201cLet\u2019s not politicize Linkedin.\u201d Comments like these show several things: first, most feel uncomfortable making their professional audience co-owners of information surrounding their political views as that could prevent forming professional bonds. And second, Linkedin in particular, because of a more professional audience, is not a great environment for this kind of disclosure. \u201cSave this for Facebook\u201dis a great demonstration of how our disclosure behaviors differ between social media platforms. Through utilizing our privacy boundary rules, we can cater what we share on social media based on what we deem appropriate for our audience in a given setting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Works Cited<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life<\/em>. London: Penguin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ham, C.-D., Lee, J., Hayes, J. L., & Bae, Y. H. (2019). Exploring sharing behaviors across social media platforms. International Journal of Market Research<\/em>, 61<\/em>(2), 157\u2013177. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/1470785318782790<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schlosser, A. E. (2020). Self-disclosure versus self-presentation on social media. Current Opinion in Psychology<\/em>, 31<\/em>, 1\u20136. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.copsyc.2019.06.025<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wanna Connect? – Disclosure Etiquette on Linkedin Alaina Salas Communication Privacy Management Theory (CPM) is all about disclosure. What, to whom, and how much we choose to disclose and the privacy rules we create to determine whether or not to share are the main aspects of the theory. In our last blog, we discussed how … Continue reading “Blog #3”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/761"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=761"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":785,"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/761\/revisions\/785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}