LOSING CONTROL: THE UNCERTAIN MANAGEMENT OF CONCEALABLE STIGMAS WHEN WORK AND SOCIAL MEDIA COLLIDE

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lauriano, Lucas Amaral; Coacci, Thiago
• 署名单位: IESEG School of Management; Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
• 刊物名称: ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0001-4273
• DOI: 10.5465/amj.2020.0586
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 222-247
• 关键词: NETWORKING SITES; CONTEXT COLLAPSE; Sexual minorities; GAY MEN; IDENTITY; disclosure; online; QUEER; CONSEQUENCES; self

摘要

Scholars have typically portrayed employees' management of concealable stigmas in face-to-face encounters in which social groups are easily separable (e.g., friends, family, and coworkers). This analytical predisposition overlooks the possible roles of social network sites (SNSs) such as Facebook and Instagram. These online platforms enable a cohabitation of different audiences-that is, a context collapse that allows a growing, invisible audience to easily access information about one's stigma. In our qualitative analysis in a Latin American organization, we develop a model that documents the everyday dynamics of context collapse among gay male employees. In a disclosure dilemma, employees are uncertain about how to be a professional online and simultaneously keep SNSs as platforms where they can show more relaxed versions of themselves. As a response, most employees adopt mirroring, and attempt to reflect their face-to-face disclosure levels on SNSs. Some employees engage in destigmatization efforts online, and as an outlier case we mapped an employee in collapse denial. Our study questions the established idea of disclosure as a relatively controlled process in microinteractions. We also nuance the assumption of SNSs as safe spaces and show the unintended impacts of context collapse on the stigmatized.