The Brunswikian Lens Model is a way in which “individuals make inferences about the characteristics of others” (Walther). It is said that when an individual has cues with a high level of validity (cues that truly reflect one’s personality) and actually utilizes these cues (exploitation of valid cues), and individual can reach functional achievement and therefore be accurately judged by other outside individuals. I decided to analyze one of my acquaintances on Facebook, “Kristin”, a girl whom which I am not extremely familiar with. Following are the four individual—environmental links that all helped me to assess information about Kristin’s personality and style of life.
A self-directed identity claim is an inwardly defined claim that one makes about themselves. Kristin is married to a girl on Facebook who attends a university other than her own. I believe that this union could be considered an inside joke between Kristin and her “wife” because Kristin has additionally indicated that she is a “female” interested in “men”. This marriage is simply a constant reminder of her strong friendship with her “wife” and is purely self-directed because I believe that not many of her Facebook friends put much thought into her inside joke with her friend from home.
An other-directed identity claim is a claim an individual makes about him or herself and purposefully, publicly displays on CMC so that others can view it. An example of an other directed identity claim are some of the applications Kristin has added to her Facebook homepage. For example, Kristin has a “Movies” application displayed in her profile. She seems to be an active user of this application because she has rated over 75 movies and shared her favorite movies with her other friends who have this application added. This application is purely directed towards her other Facebook friends and gives them some additional information about Kristin in which they can hopefully relate to.
Interior residue is proof of one’s behaviors or actions interior to a specific space. On Kristin’s Facebook, an example of interior residue would be her news-feed. I cannot assess information directly from Kristin’s news-feed but I can assess information about Kristin that shows up on my Facebook news-feed. Kristin shows up repeatedly on my news-feed, which is exactly how I came across the idea of analyzing her profile for this assignment. The fact that she comes up on my news-feed on almost a daily basis is proof of two specific things about Kristin’s Facebook usage: 1.) She is an active user of Facebook (writing on other’s walls, adding applications, editing her user information to reflect her life, etc. daily) and 2.) She is very open and public about these behaviors. I believe that many Cornell Facebook users are quite “private” with their Facebook use. For example, they make their profiles available only to their friends, they remove themselves from other’s news-feed and delete their own mini-feed by editing their privacy options. Kristin doesn’t manage her Facebook in this manner. Either she wants all her friends on Facebook to have proof of whom she’s friends with or who writes on her wall or she is oblivious to how evident her actions on Facebook are.
Exterior residue is evidence of things one does outside of an online space, for example photos reflecting one’s activities and life outside of Facebook. Kristin has many photo albums (14 to be exact) of her and her friends out partying. Therefore, I feel it is safe to assess that when Kristin isn’t studying for prelims or engaging in the basic necessities activities (i.e., sleeping, eating), she spends much of her time hanging out with her friends and being social.
I do not believe that I have reached complete functional achievement of Kristin’s personality because I have only completely analyzed her profile this once. Additionally, I do not know her well enough off-line to verify my observations made through her identity claims and behavioral residue. However, I do believe that by analyzing her Facebook profile, I have a relatively accurate, basic idea of her personality.
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2 comments:
Hello,
Great title! It was able to catch my attention from the side bar.
Your description of the Brunswikian Lens Model seems solid, and I believe that your examples do indeed demonstrate the different aspects of the model.
I particularly like your discussion of the interior behavioral residue on 'Kristen's' profile. What exactly are her intentions in leaving her 'stories' on the Mini-Feed? I personally delete my mini-feed so other people don't have to read about it (I'm assuming that they find it as annoying as I do). Without knowing the subject, it's difficult to say whether or not she realizes how far reaching her Mini-Feed goes. However, I'm inclined to believe that she is aware of it, which would be another interesting aspect of her profile.
Kristina,
Great post! I think that you did an excellent job of explaining the terms expressed in the Brunswikian Lens Model through examples from Kristen's Facebook.
The part that I found to be particularly interesting was your discussion on interior residue. I think it was interesting how you mentioned that Kristen was very public and open about her Facebook usage. I always thought it was interesting how the concept of Facebook was to share in essence your life with your friends. However, with behaviors such as removing onesself from other's news-feed and making one's profile "private" that whole purpose it pretty much defeated. You bring up a good point though when you mention "Either she wants all her friends on Facebook to have proof of whom she's friends with or who writes on her wall or she is oblivious to how evident her actions on Facebook are". I think that each conclusion speaks differently to her personality. If the former is true then one can conclude that she is a very social and open person. However, if the latter is true, it is rather difficult for one to say that she is extremely social.
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