The Proof of Being Pinoy: How the Filipino Identity is Constructed and Supported on Facebook Groups

Abstract

This thesis will focus on how social network sites (SNSs) can act as a platform where community identity is both created and supported through its affordances and where specific cultural practices occur. To do this, I will be directing my attention towards one community on the social media platform Facebook which has a particularly important presence both internationally and in the online world, the Filipino community. In doing so, I am to try to understand the use of SNSs as a platform for identity construction because I want to know how users employ the site’s features to reaffirm their identity concerning a specific community in order to help my reader understand that the cultural practices that surround the creation of identity may differ from that in the offline world due to the ubiquitous nature of new media. The Filipino community attempts to make sense of their cultural identities on a platform that helps connect them, especially due to their heavy migratory tendencies.