My personal showroom: Indonesian youths’ identity and space construction in Instagram

As one of the most popular social media platforms in Indonesia, Instagram is used by millennials and Generation Z. Nonetheless, it is now common practice for a person to own accounts in more than just one social media platform. Hence, this raises the question regarding how Indonesian youths present their distinctive self in their Instagram accounts. This paper aims to analyse the identity construction of Indonesian youths on Instagram, as well as the space construction compared to other platforms they use simultaneously. The research was conducted using the virtual ethnography method to gain insights of not only what appears on the digital screen, but also the correlation with the users’ offline reality and persona. Initial findings in this paper indicate that Indonesian youths tend to present a certain selected persona on screen. This persona is not seen as a separated fragment from their offline persona but rather embraced as a part of their whole self. However, the construction of identity and space in Instagram cannot be separated from the socio-cultural context, not only offline but also online. There are factors that tend to influence the space construction in Instagram as their personal showroom, a personal space to present their selected self. © SEARCH Journal 2021.