AUTHENTICITY AND MULTIPLICITY: UNDERSTANDINGS OF AUTHENTICITY IN THE ERA OF SOCIAL MEDIA

There are many ways authenticity is understood, and in the context of social media, often a dichotomy between a virtual copy and a real life original is suggested. This article pays attention to the complexity of the real life self, thus, it explores the relation between authenticity, multiplicity (one having multiple identities or aspects of self), and social media. For that, 20 semi-structured interviews with respondents living, working, or studying in Riga, Latvia, were conducted. The results offer a nuanced outline of different ways people reflect about their authenticity, and how these different definitions impact the way people perceive their own authenticity both in real life and in the context of social media. It suggests multiplicity is acknowledged as a dimension of authenticity in real life context, however, in the context of social media, the representation of the essence of one’s self is questioned.