Blurred boundaries between private and public spheres within digital communication represent challenges to users and their media literacy: Who will see my posts and what will they think? What are “safe” spaces to exchange with other people? What should I reveal about myself and what not? All of these issues involve complex psychological processes (such as calculus mechanisms and normative influences) that demand certain capabilities from users. Against this background, we pursue the following questions:

• How does the behavior of users differ in private compared to public communication spaces?
• To what extent is people’s media literacy related to how they act in private versus public communication spaces?
• How can users learn to deal with blurred boundaries between privacy and the publicness in online communication?
• What psychological and social factors influence the private and public communication behavior of social media users?

Neubaum, G., & Lane, D. S. (accepted in principle). Nevertheless, it persists: Political self-effects in the context of persistent social media [Registered Report]. Journal of Media Psychology.

Neubaum, G., & Krämer, N. C. (2017). Opinion climates in social media: Blending mass and interpersonal communication. Human Communication Research, 43, 464–476. https://doi.org/10.1111/hcre.12118