Research Spotlight: Rethinking Fragmented Digital Identity and Soft Power in Social Media

That relationship is explored in “Creation and Dynamics of Identity within Social Media Landscape: A Discourse of Fragmentation,” by Yuliia Maslova, Vitaliia Babushchak, Olena Zarutska, Olena Krasilnikova, and Yan Medviedev. The article connects theories of the fragmented self and soft power to explain how social media identities may shape propaganda and political behavior.

In written comments prepared for this spotlight, first author Yuliia Maslova of the National University of Ostroh Academy reflects on digital identity, public diplomacy, agenda setting, and the challenges of modeling influence in a fragmented media environment.

Social media platforms do more than distribute information. They structure self-presentation, filter exposure, reward particular performances, and create separate contexts in which identity can be continuously revised. These dynamics can complicate the assumption that political communication addresses a stable, unified audience.

The article also matters for public diplomacy and propaganda research. Microtargeting, echo chambers, platform cultures, and political fragmentation can change how messages reach people and how identities respond. Understanding those mechanisms is important for democratic resilience and responsible communication.

Professor Maslova reflected on the broader significance of the study: “The central implication is that digital influence does not address a stable and internally coherent audience. It encounters identities that are contextual, fragmented, and continually reconstructed across platforms. Scholars and policy leaders should therefore examine not only the content of persuasive messages, but also the particular identity dimension through which influence is activated.”

The article makes three theoretical contributions to the study of identity and influence online.

Digital identity is treated as fluid, contextual, and fragmented. People may adapt self-presentation across platforms, audiences, and forms of participation, producing multiple behavioral patterns and a less coherent relationship between online personas and an ideal self.

Soft power operates through a multidimensional identity landscape. The proposed model treats social or status identity, national identity, and citizen or political identity as separate but interacting axes, each composed of multiple elements that can be influenced in different ways.

Fragmentation complicates political influence. Highly fragmented identities may be harder to address through a single message, encouraging tools such as microtargeting, relationship marketing, agenda setting, and value co-creation. The article also notes that ideological interaction online can be more complex than simple polarization models suggest.

Looking back on the conceptual model, Professor Maslova said: “The most important insight was that fragmentation should not be understood solely as a vulnerability. It changes the geometry of influence. A highly fragmented identity may be less responsive to uniform persuasion, yet more susceptible to precisely targeted interventions directed at status, national belonging, or civic participation.”

The study adopts a social constructionist stance and combines qualitative content analysis with elements of grounded theory. Its theoretical framework draws on soft power, public diplomacy, social identity, network theory, and agenda-setting theory.

The authors analyzed a literature sample of 51 sources. They used the categories developed from the source material to construct and model relationships between fragmented identity, social media, propaganda, and soft power.

The article states that the 51 literature sources were processed with the help of Evidano as an AI powered solution for grounded theory. The tool supported thematic analysis and the formulation of potential categories and concepts.

Those candidate categories informed the authors’ theory construction and modeling. The article describes Evidano as useful for directing attention towards complex and interpretive aspects of theory development, while the methodical process of inductively developing theory from qualitative evidence was carried out manually.

This distinction is important because a conceptual model depends on scholarly decisions about how theories relate, what categories mean, and what claims the evidence can support. Evidano supported the identification and organization of themes and candidate categories, while the authors verified and interpreted the outputs, integrated Foucault, Nye, and the wider theoretical framework, and retained responsibility for the conceptual relations and conclusions.

Professor Maslova also noted how AI tools can support careful research workflows when used responsibly: “Evidano helped us identify recurring themes and formulate candidate categories across a corpus of 51 literature sources. Its function was supportive rather than substitutive. The authors verified the outputs, interpreted the categories within the theoretical framework, and retained responsibility for every conceptual relation and conclusion. Researchers using AI in theory building should preserve traceability, disclose the tool’s role, and treat generated categories as propositions requiring scholarly validation.”

For communication and political researchers, the model provides a way to study influence across several dimensions of identity rather than treating audiences as psychologically uniform. It can help generate more specific empirical questions about platforms, messages, groups, and contexts.

For policy leaders and public institutions, the article highlights the need to understand identity dynamics when designing digital communication, media literacy, and resilience strategies. Influence may work through belonging, status, national narratives, and civic participation at the same time.

For future research, the proposed model needs empirical testing and refinement. Comparative studies could examine how fragmented identity operates across platforms, countries, political systems, and communities, and whether the dimensions interact as the framework proposes.

Professor Maslova offered this takeaway for researchers and policy leaders: “Identity is not merely a background characteristic of the audience. In digital environments, it becomes an active component of the influence process. Responsible communication and public policy must therefore account for the ways in which platforms fragment, connect, and repeatedly reconfigure social, national, and civic belonging.”

The article ultimately asks scholars to treat identity as a dynamic part of the influence process, not merely a fixed characteristic of the audience receiving a message.