A dramaturgical examination of the virtual identity roles of women living in rural areas (the case of Gümüşhane city center)

Abstract

Today, social media platforms constitute important spaces of digital interaction where individuals make themselves visible, present their identities, and perform various roles. Instagram, in particular, stands out as a stage on which users construct their self-presentations. However, interpreting such self-presentation solely in terms of individual preferences would be incomplete, as individuals’ digital identities are also shaped by the social and cultural environments in which they live. Accordingly, this study aims to examine the virtual identity roles performed by women living in a provincial setting on Instagram within the framework of Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical approach. Adopting a qualitative research approach, the study was designed as a holistic single-case study. The study group consisted of 22 women living in the city centre of Gümüşhane who actively use Instagram. The research data were collected through semi-structured interviews and observations of the same participants’ Instagram accounts. The data obtained were analysed using hybrid thematic analysis. The findings reveal that the participants performed various identities on Instagram, including those of a mother, wife, productive woman, sociable woman, and nature lover. It was found that the women managed these identities by taking into account the social norms prevailing in the provincial context and the possible evaluations of an audience consisting of people they knew. The participants generally kept certain aspects of their personal lives, such as family life, backstage, while bringing content perceived as socially acceptable and low-risk to the front stage. In this process, various impression management strategies—including privacy management, self-monitoring, content censorship, audience selection, and the restriction of visibility—were widely employed. Furthermore, the participants were found to use preventive visibility strategies by anticipating possible reactions in advance. However, digital visibility in the provincial context was understood not merely as a sphere of external social control but also as a mechanism of internalised self-monitoring. In conclusion, the provincial context was found to function both as a social environment that constrains women’s identity performances on Instagram and as a setting in which a sense of belonging and cultural and local values are reproduced.