Losing Control: The Uncertain Management of Concealable Stigmas When Work and Social Media Collide

Scholars typically portray employees' management of concealable stigmas in face-to-face encounters in which social groups are easily separable (e.g., friends, family, and co-workers). This analytical predisposition overlooks the possible roles of social network sites (SNSs) such as Facebook and Instagram. These online platforms enable a cohabitation of different audiences, that is, a context collapse that allows a growing, invisible audience to easily access information about one's stigma. In our qualitative analysis in a Latin American organization, we develop a model that documents the everyday dynamics of context collapse amongst gay male employees. In a disclosure dilemma, employees are uncertain about how to be a professional online and simultaneously keep SNSs as platforms where they can show more relaxed versions of themselves. As a response, most employees adopt mirroring, and attempt to reflect their face-to-face disclosure levels on SNSs. Some employees engage in destigmatization efforts online, and as an outlier case we mapped an employee in collapse denial. Our study questions the established idea of disclosure as a relatively controlled process in micro-interactions. We also nuance the assumption of SNSs as safe spaces and show the unintended impacts of context collapse on the stigmatized.