Philippine E-Journals

PORTALS OF INSTITUTIONAL CULTURE: UNIVERSITY CONFESSION PAGES IN FOCUS

Christense Geonzon | Anna Gerasmio | Khimberly Lanos | Frevilyn Salvan | Monique Tagaytay

 

Abstract:

One of the innovations in the social media landscape is the proliferation of confession pages on Facebook which allow social media users to “confess” their thoughts, feelings and experiences without revealing their true identity. Confession pages associated with specific higher educational institutions have become a venue for student revelations about everything and anything pertaining to campus life. This multiple case study ventured to find out if the university confession page serves as a peep hole into institutional culture as revealed by the confessions made by users on Facebook and also to figure out whether users’ perception about their own school as well as other schools is affected by the content that they read on university confession pages. The study selected three higher educational institutions in Davao City as its locale. To obtain thick descriptions of this phenomenon, the researchers triangulated between transcripts of conducted focus group discussions, and open- ended questionnaires and content analysis of actual posts from the selected university confession pages. The data revealed that the cloak of anonymity and absence of direct consequence emboldens those who “confess” and serves much like a freedom wall. The study also reveals that while most informants used the confession page because it is the current “in” thing, reading the posts somewhat changed their perception about their school as the hallowed hall of learning as some posts shed light on events and experiences on campus.