Feeling authentic on social media: Subjective authenticity across Instagram Stories and Posts
Kreling R, Meier A, Reinecke L (2022)
Publication Language: English
Publication Type: Journal article, Original article
Publication year: 2022
Journal
Book Volume: 8
Journal Issue: 1
DOI: 10.1177/20563051221086235/
Abstract
Self-presentation on social network sites (SNS) such as Instagram is often assumed to be inauthentic or even fake. While authenticity on SNS has been linked to increased well-being, most research has investigated it either monolithically (e.g., via screen time measures) or with regard to stable self-presentations (e.g., in Facebook profiles). In contrast, this study compares subjective authenticity perceptions within users and between self-presentations via two SNS features—Stories vs. Posts. Drawing on the affordances approach, we theorize and test whether and how Stories produce greater state authenticity than Posts. Results from a preregistered within-subjects study comparing self-reports on N = 489 Posts and N = 546 Stories from N = 202 Instagram users show that by allowing more spontaneous self-presentation, Stories indeed produced (slightly) higher authenticity perceptions than Posts. However, subjective authenticity was high in both features, indicating that they similarly offer a space for authentic online self-presentation.
Authors with CRIS profile
Involved external institutions
Germany (DE)How to cite
APA:
Kreling, R., Meier, A., & Reinecke, L. (2022). Feeling authentic on social media: Subjective authenticity across Instagram Stories and Posts. Social Media + Society, 8(1). https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/20563051221086235/
MLA:
Kreling, Rebekka, Adrian Meier, and Leonard Reinecke. "Feeling authentic on social media: Subjective authenticity across Instagram Stories and Posts." Social Media + Society 8.1 (2022).
BibTeX: Download