Social identity construction in expert-lay dialogue on Facebook
The paper focuses on identity construction on the Facebook profiles of medical professionals. Drawing on existing
conceptualisations of identity and proximity, the study explores how five Polish medical experts construct their social identity
and create affinity spaces in their interaction with an audience. The analysis shows that affinity spaces are established through
the reduction of social distance and epistemic asymmetry between the professionals and their audience. Increasing emotional
proximity and stressing the proximity of experience between the interlocutors also contributes to the creation of affinity.
Affinity spaces are co-constructed in dialogue with the profile visitors through e.g. deictic resources indicating proximity,
personal stories, recontextualisation of medical concepts, expressiveness, and the stressing of commonalities between the
orthopaedic surgeons and their followers.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Identity and proximity
- 2.1Identity management
- 2.2Identity in digital communication
- 2.3Proximity
- 2.4Materials and methods
- 3.Results and discussion
- 3.1Orthopaedic surgeons’ multiple identities: An overview
- 3.2Building affinity spaces
- 3.2.1Reducing social distance
- 3.2.2Reducing epistemic asymmetry
- 3.2.3Increasing emotional proximity
- 3.2.4Stressing the proximity of experience
- 4.Conclusions
- Notes
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Primary sources
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References