Identity Formation and Social Relations on Facebook for Taiwanese College Students

The purpose of my research is to reveal how Taiwanese college students express who they are through Facebook. Based in Taipei, Taiwan, this study applied a multi-sited approach and methods including interviews and textual analysis to explore the identity work and social relations on Facebook among college students in Taiwan, which exists under the surveillance of unseen audiences and the influence of technocapitalism in the context of cultural globalization and consumerism.

     Facebook has gradually played a substantial role in students' college life due to cultural globalization facilitated by information and communication technology and the international mobility of higher education. Specifically, Taiwanese youth culture embodies a hybrid of American, Japanese, and Korean popular culture because of Taiwan’s historical context and geographic location. This cultural phenomenon thus reflects not only the global influence of American site Facebook but also the cultural interflow within the Pacific Rim area between Taiwan, Japan, and Korea.

     32 participants were recruited from the same department of two universities for analytical purposes, as they offer similarities and differences that make for an interesting comparison of dissimilarities not only in urban and rural areas but also in public and private universities. In each university, 8 first-year and 8 fourth-year were recruited to compare changes of identity formation influenced by each university over time. Within each year, there were 4 male and 4 female students for gender consideration.

     The conceptions of performance introduced by Goffman, distinction proposed by Bourdieu, and surveillance developed by Foucault are referred as the primary theoretical frameworks in this research. The preliminary findings are as follows.

1. It’s all/not only about having fun?
2. Awareness of image management vs. ordinariness;
3. Intersection of gender and class.

The results will be situated in debates on subculture versus post-subculture within youth cultural studies.