Networked Communication and Self-Identity: Exploring the Exchanges on Social Media and Offline Social Networking and Their Implications on Cultural Attitudes and Perceptions

Abstract

This study thus took on social network’s implication on the cultural identity of young Kenyans. Social networks was approached at two levels: online (which was by way of social media), and offline (which was through direct and face-to-face interaction of young people in an educational institute). Ethnocentric tendencies and perception of one’s cultural practices, on the other hand, were regarded as hallmarks and indicators for measuring cultural identity, along with socio-demographic characteristics, such as age, gender and community, which were considered as cultural attributes and important components of young Kenyan’s personality. By dealing attributes and important components of young Kenyans’ personality. By dealing with social network both online and offline, this study viewed the cultural identity of young Kenyans as no longer confined in the domain of their traditional cultural communities, but is now exposed to, located and lived in a context of borderless communality, multicultural interconnectivity, and portable sociality.

Two sets of self-administered questionnaires were used for this research. The first questionnaire was distributed to the respondents from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA), the Institute of Social Communication (ISC), and the senior youth of Divine Word Parish. The questionnaire was designed to collect data on socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents, their social media usage, and their ethnocentric tendencies and perception of their cultural practices. The second questionnaire was for social network study of the students of ISC. It collected data on the socio-demographic characteristics of network participants, as well as the interactions and exchanges they performed among themselves.

Using Pearson correlation coefficient, analyses revealed that years and frequency of use of social media had a relationship with the ethnocentrism tendencies and perception of cultural practices of young Kenyans. The social media usages referred to here were activities like posting text messages, photos and videos, and Facebook friends one is always in contact with or have not met offline. Similarly, the contingency coefficient showed that communication devices respondents used had relationship practices. Relationship also existed between ethnocentric tendencies and sending friend requests, and between perception of cultural practices and the same group of variables. Moreover, using UCINET application for social network analysis (SNA), network values like degree centrality, betweenness centrality, ego network density and ego network homophily were generated, UCINET’s quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) correlation analyses revealed that discussion about culture, face-to-face- interaction and level of friendship among first year students had relationship with their age and gender. The same thing could be said the second year’s interaction on social media and their age. Moreover, willingness to interact with peers was related to their gender. For third year students, it was their community that had relationship with their peer admiration. Between ethnocentrism and social networking, QAP correlation analyses showed some relationships. Most of these relationships were among first year students, and one for second year students. No relationship between said variables was observed among third year students. Pearson correlation coefficient did not discover relationship between network categories or values, such as degree centrality, betweenness centrality and ego network density, and the ethnocentric tendencies and perception of cultural practices of ISC students. Lastly, there was significant correlation between the ethnocentric tendencies of the respondents and their view of their cultural practices.