Defending the Face of a Pseudonym: Face-Saving Acts on Reddit

The thesis deals with the concept of face, as defined by E. Goffman (1982), in computer-mediated communication, particularly in situations where comments threaten an individual's positive face, criticizing them for their actions. This is conducted by examining face-saving acts in comments written by original posters (OPs) on the r/AITA and r/AITAH subreddits, focusing on how individuals attempt to preserve their self-image and maintain a positive face in an anonymous online setting. The study investigated whether OPs respond to these threats by defending their image, and, if so, how they do it. The results show that OPs most commonly defend their face by justifying their actions, showing remorse, politely disagreeing or attacking the commenter’s face in return. Moreover, the research explores whether OPs are more likely to respond politely to avoid further damaging their self-image. The assumption is that an OP whose positive face is at risk will attempt to defend it politely, rather than attack the commenter in return. It is therefore predicted that despite the anonymity of the setting, the polite face-saving strategies will be more common than impolite ones, as they protect the OP’s positive image without further harming their reputation. The methodology involved manually analyzing 50 randomly selected posts from the AITA subreddit, written in English, between June and December 2024. A total of 620 comments were analyzed and coded to identify face-saving phrases, which were then grouped together and categorized. The frequency of each strategy was calculated to identify the most common face-saving acts employed by OPs.