Public*private: how the political self emerges in social media

Hannelore Bublitz has shown that a linguistic and visual performing subject presents itself in a "Beichtstuhl der Medien". The subject actually only comes into existence in the mirror of the media. The "medial confessional" becomes a place of real time self-revelation. This paper deals with the performance of the private and the public self in social-media-communication of politicians. Unlike the "average" user of social media one always expects political actors to use these media strategically and aware of their rules and codes. Surprisingly, however, the politicians' self-descriptions in social media does not differ so much from other users. Politicians on Facebook talk about their favorite quotes or books or show pictures of their pets. This may show that the presentation of the political self is very much dependent on the rules and structures of every single social medium. Social media strongly demonstrate that there is no such thing as a given unity of the political self before it is set in the context of the particular medium.