La EIS-I/A un medio para desarrollar planes de apoyo personalizados

This literature review aimed to frame the context of this study. It provided a background perspective on how SNSs have evolved through time. The argument is then taken forward to the present, and I introduce Facebook as the SNS under investigation in this study. The review takes the reader through different definitions of public and private and whether there is a difference in its definition online and offline.

I briefly introduce the different studies in the area of SNSs and Facebook in particular and narrow down the study of the past literature on privacy and self-presentation. The last

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subsection of the study draws on the current state of the Internet and Facebook access and use in Iran. It is important to draw attention to the blurry line between network publics and public to explore participants’ privacy experiences and self-presentation practices. Thus, for Iranians the blurry line between network publics and publics mapped out here is not simply a constraint in the online world, but it is a part of negotiating the norms and rules of everyday public life (Boyd, 2010).

This study will use a dramaturgical approach as a theoretical lens to understanding self- presentation on Facebook. This approach is particularly useful for a systematic understanding of the self-presentation process. Individual self-presentations on Facebook are shaped to some degree by the affordances of the nine settings (Papacharissi 2009, Boyd, 2010). So a combined perspective of both Goffman and Boyd (2010) will be beneficial to this study as Boyd (2008) borrowed Goffman’s dramaturgical features previously in an extensive ethnographical study to explore SNSs’ affordances and dynamics and to suggest how they shape networked publics and people’s participation. In conclusion, Facebook has become a prosperous environment for the development of new public space which allows Iranians to obtain connections and communication with the outside world and experience a public space without restriction. Based on the review of the literature, Facebooks’ privacy features also provide a degree of privacy within the public space and this will be further explored in the field study. This chapter also provided an overview of Goffman’s dramaturgical approach.

So far, very little has been published on the use of Facebook among Iranians and approaches used to enhance their self-presentation and privacy protection experience and practice. Literature on the online personal practices of Iranians, their appropriation of Facebook, their engagement with the wider public, or their self-presentation on it, is still scarce.

As mentioned in this literature review, even studies focusing on privacy focus their attention, particularly on users in Western countries with no restrictions on access to Facebook, or else they studied different forms of self-presentation. This study aims to bridge that gap by looking at these individuals’ use of Facebook to explore their privacy and self-presentation practices.

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Moreover, how this particular group of Iranian Facebook users, Iranians, develop and nurture their profiles and present a self beyond the boundaries of the control and surveillance of Iran’s regime, needs further examination. The majority of studies to which I had access focused on the use of the Internet in general and the context of the regimes’ censorship towards information control.

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3 Research Design and Implementation

3.1 Introduction

The previous chapters identified the background literature and justification for this study. It also highlighted the advent of SNSs and its uptake in Iran. This chapter first discusses the underlying philosophical assumptions, and ontological and epistemological positions, as they inform the methodological choices for this study. Later, three research paradigms - positivist, interpretive and critical - and the applicability of this research will be discussed. The interpretive paradigm is adopted for this research. Paradigm selection will lead to a focus on appropriate research methods. The second part of this chapter moves on to describe in greater detail the research design and implementation. Later, it explores and reflects on field study as a methodology and as a technique for understanding the research practice in the study of SNSs. Detailed examination of field study as a research approach is developed, focusing on its characteristics and limitations. The chapter concludes with a discussion of data collection process and data analysis.

The research lens introduced to aid the analysis of research data was Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical approach. It has been used to formulate the understanding of phenomena that the participants were revealing and to help with the analysis of collected data as well as with the ethical issues I had to deal with as part of this project.

This research study adopts a qualitative approach. It aims to develop and draw a richer picture and an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon. Hence, the research paradigm is an interpretive one and the research design is based on this. This study made use of field study as a research method, as explained in later subsections of this chapter. Data is gathered through semi-structured interviews and observation. The qualitative methodology provided a more suitable approach to engage with the research participants and their primary personal experiences.