The Interplay Between Identity and Alterity in Brazilian Youth’s Use of Social Media Platforms

This chapter aims to demonstrate the interplay between identity and alterity in the uses of social media platforms by Brazilian youth in creating new forms of cosmopolitanism through media connections. Individuals form their identity, self-image, and self-perception through self-reflection or reference to their convictions, values, and principles. The construction of the self-image depends upon social recognition and the messages transmitted from the other during the interaction between them. The relevance of the other for defining self-identity ultimately leads to dependence on social media, which offers to help individuals in obtaining the social recognition that they aspire to by constituting and reinventing themselves in such a manner as to distinguish them from the masses. The process of self-presentation becomes an ever-evolving cycle through which individual identity is presented, compared, adjusted, or defended against a constellation of social, cultural, economic, or political realities. Technology may provide the stage for this interaction, linking the individual, separately or simultaneously, with multiple audiences. Social media constitutes sites of self-presentation and identity negotiation. It enables individuals to construct a member profile, connect to known and potential friends, and view other members’ connections. Social media appeal derives from providing a stage for self-presentation and social connection. Although several authors highlight the diversity of social media platforms and tools, only some studies examine this complexity. This study will present the uses of different social media platforms by Brazilian youth aged between 13 and 18. The methodology employed for the study constituted a questionnaire (N = 450), three discussion groups (N = 18), and game narratives, with a game tool developed by the research team (N = 180). The main findings show different possibilities of connections through social media with diversity and representations of the identity of young Brazilians.