“Essa vai para o meu Face” : a construção da fachada em sites de redes sociais

Abstract

This work describes and characterizes the front built by men and women on the social network sites Orkut and Facebook taking the photographies published on both websites. The photographies are considered to be resources of personal presentation: they provide visibility, allowing the management of impression in front of the contact network. The dynamics of presentation and interaction of the websites are contextualized having the perspective of post modernity as backdrop and the analysis is set in a hedonist and tribal conception suggested by Michel Maffesoli and the notions of performance and front of Erving Goffman. The research, descriptive and of an (n) ethnography kind observes the profiles of fifty users from both Orkut and Facebook, twenty-five from men and twenty-five from women, aged between 18 and 68 years old. Regarding the photographies, it is noticed that there is a common repertoire of themes: Family, Party, Trips, Me, Friends, Partner, Memories and Montages. For the appreciation of this Facebook culture, besides the observation, the speeches of the interviews carried out on-line with the observed subjetcs are analyzed as well. And what they reveal is a will to convey, through the photographies, the joy and happiness of their lives represented by the everyday life, the moments with the family, with the friends, with the pets, the relaxation moments at parties, trips. These “eternal moments” are the ones which seem to grant life and which highlight the emotional aspect as an outstanding feature of our time.