Who self affirms more on twitter celebrities or politicians

The theory of self-affirmation explains the notion of people trying to maintain a positive self-image even though they are faced with threatening events. The main strategy that is commonly used by people to maintain self-integrity is resorting to defensive bias. This research seeks to answer the question who self affirms more on twitter, celebrities or politicians? The research focuses on how politician and celebrities use twitter in affirming themselves. It describes the theories underpinning self-affirmation theory and provides previous studies in relation to this theory. The paper further identifies the methods used in conducting the research and give detailed results pertaining to the research question. According to self-affirmation theory (Steele, p. 261), these individuals when faced with this kind of predicament, they tend to maintain a positive image that is appealing to the general public.

In a separate study, (Cohen, p. 787), observed that people whose self-integrity has been compromised tend to engage in activities that will rebuild their individual identity in the public domain. It is imperative to note that, individuals with ill intentions to tarnish the images of prominent people such as politicians and celebrities by spreading rumours or incorrect information as a way of redeeming themselves. Causal research design involves showing the effect a certain change will have on the existing norms and variables (Brewer, Ernest and Jennifer, P. Descriptive research design helps in finding answers to the questions such as who, when where and how. The answers obtained are usually shallow and cannot provide more information on variables. Since this research seeks to answer the question; who self affirms more on twitter, politician or celebrity, descriptive research design method will be used.

the descriptive design will help us to obtain information on the tweets the politician and celebrities post. This research requires informed people who are familiar with twitter and use it frequently. Secondly, the sample size matters a lot in determining the kind of participants to choose. In case where by the number of participants needed is high, the researcher ought to go for students or a group of individuals who can be accessed easily and more cheaply. There are two methods which can be used to choose participants. These methods are, purposive and convenience methods which can be chosen depending on the researcher’s requirements (Smith and Morrow, 1991). d. Means of contacting the participants and requesting them to participate. Therefore, our selection of participants will contain five politicians who are very influential or were very influential during their time as politicians in the world for both genders and celebrities who have international recognition.

The participants must be using Twitter and must be active members. Our research will use two groups of people and each group will be observed independently. Information relating to negative things and positive things will be posted in the tables according to the assigned codes. Procedure This research needed examination of two kinds of people; politicians and celebrities on twitter. In carrying out the research, observation method was employed. First, the participants were identified. To aid in the research, five politicians and five celebrities were chosen. Results In coming up with results that could understood easily, the attributes to be examined were assigned various codes. These codes were, a. ) Code 1- boasts about something positive- This included positive things posted about the participants that reflect their personality and behaviours.

b. ) Code 2-hints towards something positive –This included things posted by the participants that if they could have occurred they would have impacted on their lives positively. In the second group which comprised of celebrities, a total number of 250 tweets were also obtained. 155 tweets were boasts about something positive, 80 tweets were about hints towards something positive, 10 posts were hints towards something negative and five tweets were boasts about something negative. A total number of 500 tweets were obtained in the research. Code 1 had a total of 305 tweets in which celebrities were leading. Code 2 had a total of 150 tweets of which politicians were leading, code 3 had a total of 30 tweets of which celebrities were leading and code 4 had a total of 15 tweets with politicians recording the lowest number of tweets.

This is evident from the research where higher number of tweets on hints about negative things and boasts about negative things were recorded. However, the celebrities have more tweets on positive things than the politicians. This is because they are seeking for self-affirmation after they experience unpleasant occurrences that tarnish their public image. This is in line with the findings of (Cohen, p. 787), where he found out that people who had their self-integrity compromised before engage in activities that are meant to rebuild their personality or redeem themselves in the public domain. Many people do not publicly admit their mistakes or downfalls, therefore, future research should focus on techniques that can help people overcome self-defence mechanisms and give room for self –improvement.