I confess therefore I am : how can online confessions be used in a social media cyber performance

Abstract

“Forgive me reader. It has been two months since my last confession. Ere I err let me confess that this reasearch is to be understood as a confession and this abstract (also a confession) written after the fact. My confession: an admission to another party in order to gain some form of transendance, is this research. All the research is done as a confession where I aim to speak as a parrehesiate- one who speaks frankly what they know to be true. I the confessant speak (or rather write) to you my confessor who will offer me absolution and transfering on to me the status of one who has completed a Masters research dessertation. My research is autoethnographical, that is to say that as I write (about) myself into the research as an individual, in a social construct which also operates on me I am doing the reseach. My research in my confessional; the liminal, or outside of time and space, from which I speak. This research explores how online confession can function as a performance strategy- the sum of force relations of a dramatic presentation intended to affect an audience- in cyber performance on Social media. Where cyber performance is a performance that uses internet technologies for both content and form to connect performers to near or remote audiences. Social media is the user generated internet platform that uses ones social networks as a means of communal connection.