Imagined Audiences, Acceptable Identity Fragments and Merging the Personal and Professional: How Academic Online Identity Is Expressed through Different Social Media Platforms

The rise of social media and its permeation into all aspects of social life has in turn led to its adoption and use by academics in their professional lives. Social media, and social networking sites in particular, require profiles and cultivation of an online identity. An individual may use a range of online platforms, and existing models of online academic identity have only examined a limited number of platforms. This study draws upon previous literature to test a model of academic online identity, across a wider range of platforms and participants. This paper presents the results of a survey-based study, which asked academic about the information shared and perceived audiences at a range of platforms and was completed by 198 participants. The findings support the idea that online academic identity aligns with a continuum between personal and professional concepts of identity. In examining the information shared through different sites, three main identity fragments were identified, which enabled the way that academic identity is refracted through different platforms to be further characterised.