Kinship carers' complaints about birth parents' Facebook posts: Mediated evidentiality and identity construction

Abstract

Popular discourse contends that social media interactions are somehow less valid than face-to-face exchanges. Complaining about the impact of online activities can construct identity-linked cultural and moral norms. One such identity is that of ‘kinship carer’ - family members who step in to parent a relative's child when the birth parent is unable. From a corpus of video recordings of 10 support group discussions, we identified two ways that participants constructed family identities in topicalising Facebook use: by a) negotiating social media norms for this sensitive family context, and b) supporting their epistemic status with reference to ‘mediated’ properties of Facebook posts. We discuss how ‘mediated evidentiality’ works as a participant's resource in constructing 'what's real’, thus validating speakers' identity.