Social Self, Identity and Credibility in the symbolic self-representation of Body Image in Social Networks and its impact on Self-esteem

Resumen

Social networks have become not only online spaces for interaction and entertainment, but also new symbolic configurations built, some intentional and others involuntarily, where the individual moves between the actual self, ideal self, the, and the duty self, these dynamics given by the social interactions that take place there. The objective of this research is to analyze identity and credibility in relation to the self-representation of body image in social networks and its impact on self-esteem. This study focuses on the psychosocial field from the perspective of Mead's Symbolic Interactionism. It is based on theoretical explorations and the review of empirical research that proposes results of the representation of the social self in 3 components: cognitive component, affective component, and behavioral component and how these components self-determine each other. Among the tendencies, there is a more dynamic construction of the identity of the self and co-constructed by others in the network, which has among its challenges the survival given by the credibility of the social group and, therefore, its alignment to the code’s medium.