- Title
- Self-presentations on social network sites: emerging adults and their marketised personas
- Creator
- Millhouse, Natalie Therese
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2025
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Social network sites (SNS), such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X (Twitter), are ubiquitous in Australia, in both social and professional contexts. Australian emerging adults (18–25-year-olds) in addition to social participation on these SNS, are creating public self-presentations to establish professional credibility, make industry connections, and earn an income. Drawing on concepts of habitus, this thesis argues that these self-presentations are ‘marketised personas’, a concept developed by the researcher throughout this project. The research participants’ marketised personas, as a combination of public self-presentation and early career practices on SNS, are potentially shaping their adult identity beyond its use on digital networks. Using a sequential mixed-method case study methodology, the project’s qualitative and quantitative datasets include a self-administered anonymous internet-based survey (N=147), semi-structured in-depth interviews (N=16), and SNS profile content data (N=16). The project results provide a comprehensive characterisation of marketised personas, with a range of influences, impetuses, and actions established. In particular, the findings indicate that factors outside of the individual’s control may be wielding significant influence on the capital-seeking, commodified elements of marketised personas, particularly in the context of capitalist neoliberal ideologies. Research participants identified SNS platform design as the most impactful external influence on the development of their marketised personas, along with the peripheral external influences of education, industry, audiences, and society. Dominant participant motivations were publicity and self-promotion, community and network building, professional credibility, self-expression, and public identity establishment. Actions used to build marketised personas include seeking and implementing learning, brand and niche establishment, plus management and capital growth strategies. As a result of these findings, a ‘Marketised Persona: Best Practice Toolkit’ has been created to enable critical reflection for emerging adults building careers via SNS marketised personas. Tangible and practical, the toolkit is designed to optimise available agency and professional outcomes, empowering young adults to minimise the negative effects of the identified external influences.
- Subject
- agency; capitalism; Instagram; marketised persona; online identity; power; profile; self-presentation; social network sites; social media; TikTok; young adult; commodification; X (Twitter); emerging adults; early career; external influence; Facebook; goals; habitus; impetus
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1518878
- Identifier
- uon:57386
- Rights
- Copyright 2025 Natalie Therese Millhouse
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
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| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 4 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 258 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |