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Home > HCAS > HCAS_PUBS > HCAS_JOURNALS > TQR Home > TQR > Vol. 29 > No. 6 (2024)

 

Abstract

The relevance of social media platforms in our daily lives is intensifying. Social media have become a "showcase" for our life experiences. In addition, they represent a range of dimensions of our status in the virtual and actual social world. These two factors trigger people to construct particular identities to thrive in dual social ecosystems. Subsequently, Tiktok's prominence as a current trending social media platform with a total of 500 million users globally transforms its function from a communication medium to a medium for gaining social capital. This phenomenon notably influences Indonesian society, with people being heavily invested in that platform, and triggered the rise of "influencers" as a popular career choice for the younger generation. Under those circumstances, this phenomenological study explores practical aspects of the identity construction of TikTok influencers on social media. Additionally, the study also analyses the motivations and experiences of the users in constructing their social media identity through impression management to build social capital. Eleven TikTok influencers were involved in this study as the key informants. The findings indicated that TikTok is socially tempting for building the users' social capital because of its high viral opportunity due to randomly generated algorithms. Moreover, the significance of viewer engagement for TikTok influencers compels them to create their most pleasing online impression for the sake of digital popularity. Therefore, popularity is regarded as both a gift and a social pressure.

Keywords

Indonesia, influencers, impression management, social media, TikTok

Author Bio(s)

Vidi Sukmayadi (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5223-7355) is a senior lecturer and researcher in the Faculty of Social Science Education of Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia. He can be contacted at vsukmayadi@upi.edu

Dante Darmawangsa (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1061-7795) is a senior lecturer and researcher in the Faculty of Language and Literature Education of Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia. He can be contacted at dante.darmawangsa@upi.edu

Suffian Hadi Ayub (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6303-9709) is a senior lecturer and researcher in the School of Communication and Media, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. He can be contacted at suffianhadi@uitm.edu.my

Sarah Annisa Fadhila is a student and assistant researcher at the Faculty of Social Science Education of Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia. She can be contacted at sarahannisa@upi.edu

Publication Date

6-22-2024

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2024.5992

ORCID ID

0000-0002-5223-7355

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