‘You have one identity’: performing the self on Facebook and LinkedIn

Social media are popular stages for self-expression, communication and self-promotion. Rather than facilitating online identity formation, they are sites of struggle between users, employers and platform owners to control online identities – a struggle played out at the level of the interface. This article offers a comparative interface analysis between Facebook and LinkedIn. While Facebook is particularly focused on facilitating personal self-presentation, LinkedIn’s interface caters towards the need for professional self-promotion. And yet, both platforms deploy similar principles of connectivity and narrative – strategies that can be succinctly revealed in recent interface changes. These changing digital…