Influence of Self-presentation on Bridging Social Capital in SNSs: A Moderating Effect of Self-presentation

Abstract

Social networking sites (SNSs) by and large have deeply penetrated in the daily routine of internet users, where they can articulate their social relations and manage their profiles to present themselves. SNSs users engage heavily in self-presentation strategies by keeping their profile updated regularly, which prompted this study to examine how far it impacts on bridging social capital. This paper provides an understanding that self-presentation of the owner of a profile has impact on the bridging social capital. In this connection, a self administered survey was carried out at Huanzhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China on the sample size of 199 (N=199) students. Findings of the study showed that the self-presentation have strong moderating impact on the relationship of SNSs usage and bridging social capital, suggesting that an effective self-presentation on SNSs by users does indeed help them in bridging social capital on SNSs.

Keywords: Self-presentation, bridging social capital, impression management, social networking sites, moderator.