新私人书写与公共化:社交媒体用户自我呈现中的“隐而不退”实践

New Private Writing and Publicity:Social Media User Practice of"Invisibility without Retreating"

社交媒体将自我呈现深刻嵌进社会交往。新情境中,更直接的呈现效果以及退化式的呈现反思一直是研究热点,但“隐身而不退场”的呈现弱化现象尚未引起广泛讨论。本文着眼于这一特征,以微信朋友圈为个案,通过媒介实践视角,对其四种典型权限功能进行探讨,考察自我呈现弱化建构过程以及社交媒体私人书写的新型特质。具体而言,社交媒体用户利用层级管理、流动转换、重构私人以及主动限制等不同程度的弱化行为,实现着公开呈现向私人书写的转化可能。社交媒体改变着私人书写长期以来存在于书信媒介的私密传统,实现方式从局限式的私密情境转向公共空间对私人的回归,在社交媒体构建着公私兼具的新型私人书写方式。“隐而不退”背后的私密需求,来源于社交媒体对外部公共力量的有序组织与重构,泛滥的私人书写经由制度化筛选后,更具公共化的普遍特征。

Social media has profoundly intertwined self-presentation with social interactions.While prior research has predominantly focused on direct presentation effects and the degradation of presentation in novel contexts,a noteworthy trend,namely the phenomenon of"invisibility without retreating,"has yet to receive widespread attention.This article hones in on this distinctive characteristic,utilizing WeChat Moments as a case study to explore four typical authority functions within the realm of media practice.It delves into the process of crafting weakened self-presentation and illuminates the emerging traits of private expression on social media.Specifically,users on social media platforms employ varying degrees of weakening behaviors,including hierarchical management,flow transformation,private reconstruction,and active restrictions.These strategies enable the transformation of public presentations into private expressions.Consequently,social media is revolutionizing the age-old tradition of private writing,originally rooted in letter-based communication.The modus operandi has shifted from a constrained private domain to a resurgence of privacy within the public sphere.This has given rise to a novel form of private writing that is both public and private in nature.The need for privacy within the context of"hiding without retreating"arises from the systematic organization and restructuring of external public influences facilitated by social media.Once institutionalized and filtered,what was once predominantly private writing has assumed a more public and ubiquitous character.