國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
Ch7 Conclusion
7.1 Discussion
Overall, this research illuminates the ways in which a marginalized group in Taiwan utilizes Facebook to negotiate impression and perception in the global production of images. It also demonstrates how different technological designs on the same social media platform allow for different affordances for representation and advocation.
This research seeks to contribute to several interlinked literatures. This study is the first to explain how the younger generations of Taiwanese Muslims perceive their identity and majority society’s perception of them as well as the first investigating how young Taiwanese Muslims are trying to use SNSs to respond to the perceptions, even endeavor to reverse and reshape images of Muslims through their day-to-day self-presentation on SNSs. Taiwanese Muslims have been a subject of studies for several decades, starting from Pillsbury’s dissertation (1973) that paved the way of the historical evolution of Hui people/Muslim popularity/Islam in Taiwan, and have expanded into broader map of identities of Muslim communities from different origins. Using Goffman’s dramaturgical approach and impression management, this study provides a close look at how young Taiwanese Muslims utilize Facebook as a social and performance tool to present themselves regarding their hybrid identity and make efforts to negotiate the impression of Muslims and Islam within the larger
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
Taiwan society.
In line with previous studies of Han-speaking Muslim popularity, this study has shown that the younger generations of Muslims in Taiwan have developed the local identity of being uniquely Taiwanese Muslim. As Pillsbury (1973) indicated, the Muslims who arrived in Taiwan during the Chinese civil war were Hui ethnic group.
Lin (2013) and Pelletier (2014) both addressed that their identity as Muslim minority in Taiwan has shifted from ethnic view to religious view. In this study, all of the interviewees identified themselves with the hybrid identity of Taiwanese Muslim.
They further explained that the identity first includes their religious identity as Muslims who believe in Islam, one of the religions with largest popularity in the world. Secondly, their identity as Taiwanese refers to a collective citizenship among people who lived, grew up and received education in Taiwan.
A major part of the study discusses Taiwanese Muslims’ strategies of impression management on Facebook for achieving the goal put forth. As the dramaturgical approach focusing on how individual embedded in societies to perceive the self and the social context then managing to present appropriate impressions, I have explore how Taiwanese Muslims consider the non-Muslim majority of Taiwan society.
Though they believe that the Taiwan society possess certain negative stereotypes against Muslim under the global context of international terrorism and anti-terrorism, they experienced the society has superficial understanding about Muslim and Islam
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
around the world due to lack of relevant knowledge thus the negative images are only linked to Middle-eastern Muslims. However, with the influence of fast-pacing international media and globalization, they still feel the urgency to engage in constructing “real” images of Muslim around the world. They believe it would be an advantage for them to spread the knowledge and information in the multi-religious and multicultural society in Taiwan to reverse the biased perceptions of Muslim by presenting their own identity. By carefully corresponding to the context aforementioned, they provide three main categories of identity expression: 1) sources of correct information about Muslim; 2) ordinary people who believe in Islam; 3) a self-disciplined person. For performing the self, they mostly use the sharing function to provide knowledge about Islam and Muslim to construct comprehensive understanding of Muslims for the non-Muslim audience. Then they are likely to post photos, videos and even check-ins in which they are at a Muslim gathering, using the visual symbolic contents to attract non-Muslim audiences’ attention on the presence of Taiwanese Muslim community.
Yet another concern of impression management on Facebook is that the different features of SNSs can shape the forms of performance as well as social context (Aspling, 2011). Facing the challenge of context collapse, some of the Taiwanese Muslims developed their skills of impression management. They take advantage of collapsed context to glance at other Muslims’ failure of management and learned to segregate audience by applying custom friend list tagging review function to maintain
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
the confines between their own stages and other performers. Through the customized friend list, they are able to give appropriate performances to differentiated audiences according to Muslim and non-Muslim. Through the tagging review, they are able to make sure that their friends cannot arbitrarily make them give involuntary performances in front of their audiences. Gender is another social factor here influencing their strategies. The influence mostly comes from their religious disciplines under gender norms. Some interviewees also manage to create new stages in order to give performance in front of more audiences while keeping certain degree of privacy.
The Taiwanese Muslims’ experiences provide a detailed sketch of what aspect needs to be taking consideration when a minority group of people intends to negotiating their social position by identity performance and impression management on SNSs.
The action of performance may be personal on account of the individual-centered nature of SNSs, however, as studies using Goffman’s approach has been laying emphasis on the importance of context and the interaction between performers, audience, teams and front and back stages, the Taiwanese individual activities toward the society may also resonate the dynamics of identity in a larger scale and reflecting in the real world.