v Editorial Self Representation In Social Media Siti Machmiyah siti.machmiyah@uny.ac.id Managing Editor INFORMASI Internet users in Indonesia has increased, the internet seems to be a primary need for everyone. The benefits forms a new culture that is inherent in most people. Accessing social media becomes a habit every day, especially for millennials. A survey from APJII (Association of Indonesian Internet Service Providers), which was launched from kompas.com page (2018), revealed that in 2017 the penetration of internet users reached 143.25 million, equivalent to 54.7% of the population in Indonesia. Social media is becoming the most accessible platform for most people, social media also offers a new form of communication in cyberspace. The form of interpersonal communication directly becomes something that can begin to be replaced by interpersonal communication in cyberspace. The benefit of social media is also inseparable from human efforts to represent themselves. The form of representation can be in the form of branding strategies, content created, and the purpose of using each person’s social media. Social media can be used for various purposes, such as doing business, to establish communication many people, to share important information or for other specific purposes. In using social media, people then try to “decorate” content that is made and shared with others according to their respective goals. This is inseparable from everyone’s branding efforts on social media because everyone wants to show their best parts to others, including in cyberspace. Social media seems to be an easy, cheap and effective platform to compare someone because most people access social media. A research from We Are Social revealed that the average Indonesian spent three hours and 23 minutes accessing social media, which many social media accessed were Facebook, Youtube, Whatsaap, Intagram, and Line. Uploads and content created on social media direct netizens to the form of representation of the content creator. Self-representation in social media should direct the audience to positive and good things, not the other way around. But sometimes people forget that social media is a mirror for themselves that can be seen by many people. Rather than wisely and wisely maximizing the use of social media, we sometimes encounter abusive expressions, insults, ridicule and insults on social media aimed at others. Even with bad words and abusive content, the representation of content creators is considered to be bad too. If it is like that, then social media is like an environment that is not healthy for one and the other. INF RMASI KAJIAN ILMU KOMUNIKASI Volume . Nomor . 201949 1 Juni ISSN (p) 0126-0650; ISSN (e) 2502-3837 vi Self-concept is also understood by Cooley (in Ritzer, 2004: 295) as three components. First, we imagine how it looks in the eyes of others. Second, we imagine what they should value regarding our appearance. Third, we imagine a certain kind of self-feeling such as self-esteem or shame, as a result of our shadow of knowing the judgment by others. The concept of self mirror is related to Goffman’s self presentation. Goffman assumes that when people interact, they want to present a self-image that others will receive. He called the effort “impression management”, namely the techniques used by actors to cultivate certain impressions in certain situations to achieve certain goals. Impression management is then illustrated through content content created on social media and then perceived by the audience. Not infrequently then we can judge someone from what he uploaded on social media, through the status, content, writing, opinions displayed on social media. In this case, impression management is something that must be done by us on social media because social media is a representation of ourselves. We can participate in forming good narratives, avoiding hoaxes, and reducing tension in the community through good posting. There have been too many negative posts by mocking each other, insulting, blaming others for not producing solutions but only resulting in social divisions and tensions. Even though self-representation on social media cannot be fully said to be true or close to reality, it is not wrong for us to represent ourselves on social media by giving a good and positive impression. Efforts to represent themselves well and positively on social media will have a lot of impact on netizens who participate in our uploads. By uploading and creating good content, cool and peaceful narratives will be created on social media. In addition, the content will have many positive benefits for others, people will also see us positively on social media. Let’s post good, positive and soothing content so that social media is a good environment for all.