The Universal Scholar Journal

Abstract

Digital platforms have become primary sites where identity is constructed, negotiated, and displayed. This paper offers a conceptual review of digital culture and identity, synthesising theoretical and empirical scholarship on self-presentation, algorithmic mediation, and cultural hybridity in networked publics. Drawing on Goffman's dramaturgical theory, symbolic interactionism, and social identity theory, the review examines how individuals perform curated versions of the self-online while platform architectures simultaneously shape, filter, and commercialise those performances. The paper further discusses how digital technologies accelerate cultural hybridisation, allowing local and global cultural forms to intermix, while also raising concerns about digital exclusion, algorithmic surveillance, and psychological strain associated with continuous self-monitoring. Based on an integrative review of recent peer-reviewed literature (2013-2026), the paper proposes a working framework in which digital identity is understood as a triadic negotiation between the individual, the audience, and the platform. The review concludes that digital culture does not simply extend offline identity into new spaces but actively reconstitutes the conditions under which identity is formed, contested, and commodified, with implications for media literacy, platform governance, and future empirical research.

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Metric

12 │ 1 │ 24-32

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Digital Culture and Identity: A Conceptual Review of Self-Presentation, Algorithmic Mediation, and Cultural Hybridity in Networked Publics