Image and imaginary in digital environments: Comparative study of the image of the digital subject in social networks

From the "Study on Uses and Applications of the Social Network Facebook at the University of Cuenca (2015-2016)", winning project of the XIV Diuc Contest, we propose to give continuity to that previous research, now focusing on the image, characteristics, uses and impacts on social networks. Facebook and WhatsApp have become not only communication channels, but their languages and contents have unsuspected implications in culture, education, daily life and social order. The user population of these technologies and platforms shows radical changes in the understanding of identity and collective identities. We will now carry out a descriptive and comparative study on the use of images on the Facebook social network and the WhatsApp messaging platform, which intends to know the impacts, modalities of use in human, professional and social relationships, principles, rights and digital freedoms. This study focused on the young population of three specific spaces: 1. Students of the Social Communication career of the University of Cuenca 2. Young people of the Shuar culture of Morona Santiago 3. Young people of the Cañari culture of the province of Cañar. The emergence of digital subjects in our region forces the Ecuadorian Academy to know the characteristics of uses and implications of the image in different human groups. The image as a contemporary resource or communication vehicle. Our image study will be centered on 3 topics: 1. Self -representation and construction of the "I" 2. The representation of the other 3. forms of self -fiction in social networks.

XVI UNIVERSITY RESEARCH COMPETITION