CS 371 - Blog Post #2 - Rebekah Krofchick

Throughout the past few weeks, we've been discussing the idea of authenticity, or verisimilitude, when it come to how we use social media. In the Couldry and Hepp reading, they outlined how mediated communication contributes to our construction of our social world. These two concepts, in my opinion, go hand in hand when interrogating the role of social media on our daily lives. How we choose to present ourselves online contribute to the perceptions others have about us, and authenticity plays a key role in this. In class, we compared Instagram to BeReal in terms of comparing their ability to create authentic connections through mediated interactions. Points were raised about editing on Instagram and how easy it is to fake your life whereas BeReal kind of forces users to present a (somewhat) genuine view of their lives. I find this shift from Instagram to BeReal very interesting, and I wonder if it indicates a change in how we will come to use social media platforms in the future. Are we moving away from a highly filters/edited social media platforms and closer towards "authentic" platforms? Also, I placed authentic in quotations because I'd also like to know if you guys think that BeReal is an authentic social media platform. I'd love to hear what you guys think!