Identity and Information Sharing in Social Media: A study of Political Identity and Social Media Behavior

Abstract

This study studies content shared in social media as expression of identity of the users. This study focused on political identity. We analyzed how individual political identity affects sharing content in social media. Second, we analyzed how self-monitoring can affect sharing political content in social media. Data showed that participants who held more extreme attitudes (positive/negative) appear more likely to share that attitude on social media to help enhance their identity. No significant difference in sharing was observed based on self-monitoring. Further implications are discussed.