by Ariel Fink and Yiyang Zhang; presented at MPCA/ACA October 2017

On October 3, 2016, Kardashian was the victim of an armed robbery. Immediately  following the robbery, Kardashian completely disappeared from one of her most active social media accounts, Instagram, for 3 months before she started posting photos again. Kardashian has made a name for herself largely in part due to the way she invites the public into her life, sharing every detail about her life, including where she goes, what she is wearing and who she is with. Legally speaking, Kardashian is a public figure. Thus, her right to privacy is fairly significantly diminished (Jones, 2010). Based on this idea, how does one manage their privacy in the face of such an attack? The purpose of this paper aims to address this question, examining Kardashian through the lens of communication privacy management (CPM). A content analysis was conducted, using Instagram posts from before and after robbery.