Tragic performances? How unions stage their online identity

Abstract

With the rise of social media, unions are increasingly performing their identity on the digital scene. While this displacement has generated much academic speculation, the literature still largely ignores how unions concretely stage ‘who they are’ on social media. This article elaborates upon Goffman's approach to identity performance by analysing how eight Quebecois trade unions present themselves online. The findings highlight four types of online identity performance: self-caricaturing bureaucracy, fading service provider, opponent polarizing and community narcissizing identity performance. The article makes two main contributions to the literature. First, it enriches debates about unions’ use of social media by showing that digital technologies may not be considered as universally good, bad or neutral for unions’ online identities. Second, it contributes to discussions about the nature of unions’ identities by highlighting how communicational spaces help to shape them.