Online Personal Branding in the Middle East and North America: A Comparison of Social Capital Accumulation and Community Response

Abstract

Individuals are becoming reflexively aware and actively constructing their identities as they rely less on traditional sources such as socioeconomic status in a postmodern society (Hearn 2008; Wee and Brooke 2010). The ease and accessibility of improving technology and social media platforms facilitates identity creation to an unprecedented level (Labrecque, Markos, and Milne 2011). Online media is used to build individual identity using cultural indicators to develop the individuality of people (Featherstone 2007), as personal webpages are becoming controllable spaces of strategic self-presentation (Vazire and Gosling 2004).