Digital Genre -- DA #3

LinkedIn is a digital social platform that aims to “connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful” (LinkedIn, 2022). While social networks were rising in popularity during the early twenty-first century, LinkedIn took an alternative approach in the creation of an online communication platform compared to others, such as Facebook and Myspace. Rather than for entertainment and informal communicative purposes, LinkedIn focuses on a business-oriented model by providing its users with a platform composed of those in the global workforce and, therefore, can easily gain economic opportunities. LinkedIn thus essentially integrated traditional business networking into the rising technological innovation of social platforms. 

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In contrast to conventional networking, LinkedIn allows its users to take their time in crafting how their professional identity is perceived, as they can be selective on the information they would like to portray. The platforms’ main social purpose can be identified as an aid for developing business relationships in a conveniently digital manner. Supporting this motive, LinkedIn supplies its users with various capabilities, including viewing mutual connections to accelerate the pace of networking, the ability to message companies and recruiters directly, and providing online career development tools like interview preparations and certifications. Business interactions are typically discerned as formal, anxiety-inducing, and requiring a fair amount of preparation and social skills to succeed. LinkedIn re-formats this type of social communication by reducing the norm for formality, having to put an extreme amount of energy into networking with career similar individuals, and eliminating the fear of face-to-face rejection. While LinkedIn has the attributes of posting pictures, status updates, liking, commenting, sharing, and other similarities to social networking sites, it differs in the sense of expected professionalism rather than casual speech. Despite the reduced formality of traditional business interactions, LinkedIn still anticipates a level of articulate language rather than the norm of abbreviations and slang in other social platforms. Composing these social interactions includes terminology such as “invitations” that are similar to “friend requests” on other social networking sites, as well as “messaging” and “connections” that occur once a user accepts these invitations. Users are also able to "like," "comment," and "share" other posts depending on the set privacy level with whom they are choosing to interact with.

Beyond the platforms’ social aspects, LinkedIn exhibits additional discursive purposes that are unique to the features they offer. With the ability to update your profile and post career updates, the platform acts as a professional portfolio for potential employers to see. By highlighting certain skills and accomplishments, users can gain a competitive edge against those in the same industry and showcase how they rank compared to others. The platform offers the ability to highlight personal skills, certifications, education level, post job updates, and even upload documents such as resumes. While the platform's main use is to act as a convenient tool for digital professional networking, there lies underlying cut-throat competitiveness and a boastful purpose through oversharing. Since users can choose what they would like to display publicly and what they want to remain private, it encourages the act of comparison of identities, often a common negative effect of digital platforms. LinkedIn has continued to grow in its user base, still holding prominent relevancy in the platform it has developed into in the modern day. 

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Sources:

https://about.linkedin.com/