Mediation of transgender impression management between transgender privacy paradox and Trans Facebook Persona: A trans perspective

Abstract

This study builds and evaluates a transgender privacy paradox impression management (TPPIM)' model to examine the influence of social networking site impression management (IM) on transgender users' sustained SNS involvement, contributing a new view to the field of information systems research. The study finds no direct relationship between privacy paradox and transgender individuals' online social media persona. However, transgender individuals, to enjoy an uninterrupted social media presence and protect their privacies, employ various impression management strategies on social media, which fully mediate the relationship between the privacy paradox and their social media personas. Transgender individuals use their social media presence to find resources required for their day-to-day survival, indicating that an active social media presence is not optional but mandatory. Users value privacy, however, they consciously or unconsciously implement privacy averseness for an active social media presence. The authors use a mixed methodology where qualitative analysis findings informed hypotheses and model development of a structural model that used 299 useable responses and PLS/SEM to test and confirm that trans impression management mediates the relationship between the trans privacy paradox and transgender persons' Facebook behavior. This study enhances model complexity relative to earlier work, mediating the investigation's hypothesized behavioral correlations. Complementing current SNS research, it highlights the complexity of social networking behavior, the suitability of impression management theory to describe dynamically evolving social structures, and how social capital drives impression management.