Excerpt translated from Context collapse: Theorizing context collusions and collisions.
Social media often blurs the boundaries between "public" and "private," "professional" and "personal," and the different selves and contexts that individuals inhabit.
Broadly speaking, context collapse refers to the permeation of people, information, and norms from one context into another. Meyrowitz first identified this phenomenon in broadcast media, as journalists were no longer limited to a specific audience but instead spoke to multiple, invisible audiences, each with different perspectives and expectations of news and society. Boyd expanded on this idea in 2002 to include the realm of digital media and coined the term "context collapse." She argued that collapsed contexts have become a part of everyday interactions for internet-connected citizens.
We assume that all contexts experience some degree of collapse, although the level of collapse varies depending on the context. Furthermore, the discussion of context collapse that we are engaging in is situated within the context of contemporary online social media.
In a general sense, context involves various aspects of the physical world, social relationships, situations, time, and location. Here, we focus on role identities and the social networks that connect them as a lens through which to consider context. In social life, the self is often composed of multiple identities, each existing within a specific network, where people expect each other to perform specific roles, and these expectations determine appropriate and inappropriate actions and identity performances. In this context, collapse refers to the overlapping of role identities through the blending of different networks.
Throughout our lives, we play multiple roles. For example, a person may be a mother, sister, athlete, student, and dancer. Each role carries specific identity meanings that guide how he/she should behave. While there may be overlaps in expectations between different roles, often each role has distinct meanings, and even contradictory situations can arise.
Social psychologists argue that we come to know ourselves by observing our own behavior and how others respond to our actions, and then through interaction, we attempt to maintain the identity meanings associated with each role. Mead proposed the existence of a separate generalized other or a larger moral understanding for each role, which dictates how one should be and how one should exist in the world.
Contemporary social media platforms default to merging different generalized others into a single entity. For example, this may mean that a person attending a party is subject to expectations from different roles such as friends, colleagues, family, and bosses. You may feel comfortable sharing party photos with friends, but you generally wouldn't want your boss to see them.