“You Need to Back Off!”

Utilizing Communication Privacy Management to Explore Responses to Public and Private Negative Interpersonal Disclosures on Facebook

West Virginia UniversityDepartment of Communication StudiesMedia and Interaction Lab

Lo: I’m been thinking about last night…Mid: I’m really upset about something you did last night…Hi: What you did last night was $@%&!

“…We need to talk.”

AbstractSocial media sites such as Facebook provide both private and public contexts in which to share and disclose messages. From a communication perspective, this function can allow for diverse responses and reactions to online disclosures depending on the message access exclusivity. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to investigate how individuals would respond to negative interpersonal disclosures across the differing channels of exclusivity (private and public) using the theoretical perspective of Communication Privacy Management Theory (Petronio, 2002).

BackgroundFacebook is an increasingly-popular space for disclosing and sharing interpersonal information. Disclosures can be public or private, reflecting differences in message access exclusivity (MAC; O’Sullivan, 2004). CPM proposes that public or private disclosure of one’s relationship information might be perceived as boundary violations for those involved. RQ1: Does the degree of message access exclusivity of a negative interpersonal disclosure impact people’s stated response to dealing with that disclosure?

The intensity of an online disclosure is also important (Anderson & Agarwal, 2011). More emotionally intense messages might elicit stronger rebukes. RQ2: Does the degree of intensity of a negative interpersonal disclosure impact people’s stated response to dealing with the disclosure?

MethodOnline Survey with six experimental conditions varying MAC (public or private) and emotional intensity (low, moderate, or high).

N = 131 students read a randomly-assigned vignette and were asked to craft an open ended response.. Responses were coded using an iterative thematic analysis, with one round of three untrained coders and one round of two expert coders.

Zachary W. Goldman (zgoldman@mix.wvu.edu)

Nick Bowman, Ph.D.David Westerman, Ph.D.

Takeaway:

Don’t disclose negative relationship

stuff in public Facebook

walls, because it’s

inappropriate

! ~wvu

Results

1. Channel concerns2. information seeking3. Uncertainty4. Privacy5. Offended

6. Acceptance7. Deletion8. Immediacy9. Confrontation10.Relational maintenance

(2) Responses differed as a function of MAC

(1) 10 themes of responses emerged from data

Public led to more…

OffendedDeletionPrivacy Concerns

Private led to more…

Information SeekingAnxiety (High Intensity)Acceptance (Mid Intensity)