Performing the self in digital India: negotiating identity, audience, and impression management on social media

The intensification of integration between social media and people’s lives results in profound changes in identity performance and impression management within the contemporary society. While there is some scientific literature dedicated to exploring digital identity and online communications, comparatively little attention has been paid to these phenomena from the viewpoint of classical sociological theories. Therefore, in the present paper, Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical approach will be applied to identify the patterns of impression management and identity performance by Indian social media users. To achieve the research objectives, a qualitative secondary-data analysis method will be used relying on the content analysis of peer- reviewed journal articles, academic books, sociological theory, and digital-media reports. Data will be taken from DataReportal’s Digital 2024: India, which estimates that, in 2024, there are approximately 462 million social media users and 362.9 million Instagram users in India. The study also draws information from scholarly publications discussing identity construction, digital self-presentation, online audience management, and impression management. Applying Goffman’s terms of front stage, back stage, audience segregation, and impression management, this research examines the strategies adopted by social media users to perform desired online identities. The fact that family, peer, and professional audiences overlap on social media leads to a blurring of lines between public and private identities and creates novel conditions for social interaction and identity performance. With the help of dramaturgical theory adapted to the Indian digital reality, this article demonstrates that classical sociological theories can be still relevant in interpreting contemporary online behaviours’ and phenomena