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Communication Theory

13 Identity

(Tracy 2005).

  • The self is "a product or an effect of competing, fragmentary,a nd contradictory discourse (Tracy 2005)

  • Since we spend most of our lives at work, identities are now typically based on organizational and workgroups.

  • People performing “dirty” work typically perform and perceive different selves (real vs. fake)

  • There are no real or fake, but “crystallized”

    • multi-dimension, (multi facets, and complex).

  • Constituted Self: one is a thinking, feeling subject, and social agent

  • Deep vs. surface acting: both are separated from the “real” self

    • deep acting = change how they feel

    • surface acting = outward expression changed without changing internal feeling

  • Emotional labor creates emotive dissonance/discomfort

  • but we should conceptualize self as single self.

  • under the power discourse, organization prefers the dichotomized category of self.

  • should not call real, but “preferred” self

  • crystallization is “enacted in local/temporal moments.”


(Stephens, Goins, and Dailey 2013)

  • Using social identity theory, (Stephens, Goins, and Dailey 2013) hypothesize and find that people’s identification with a message source (HIT- health information technologies) mediates the effect of social media on outcomes.

  • According to social identity theory (SIT), one of the aspect of identity is affiliated with organization.

  • HIT can be either

    • social function: social media

    • information source (e-mail and websites)


(Meisenbach and Kramer 2014)

  • In the context of voluntary work, identities are (re)created via communicative behaviors.
  • Voluntary works are ways to enact participants’ nested identities (e.g., choir, music and family identities).


(Compton 2016)

  • Applying CTI (communication theory of identity) to the context of organizational employees managing their sexual identity.

  • Identity gap exists between

    • relational identity and enacted identity,

    • relation and communal identity

  • Policy text is different from policy talk

    • Policy and practices can be different.

  • participants receive mixed messages:

    • supportive

    • discriminatory

  • don’t scarify your life for your job (you should check your policy first)