Gender and Media

Identities and Intimacies on Social Media

“…Digital media represent an important arena for shaping, articulating, representing and performing gender, sexuality, and intimacies (Attwood, 2018;Krijnen & Van Bauwel, 2022;Scarcelli, Krijnen & Nixon, 2021). Despite the fact that traditional views still prevail in certain contexts, meaning that questions connected to sexual identity and gender are constantly under attack in both a political and cultural way, these topics are much more open for discussion when compared to the past, and, as a rule, we are more aware of the issues that gender and sexuality bring into our lives.…”

“…Following Krijnen and Van Bauwel (2022), we can identify at least three important levels of connections between digital technologies, gender, and sexuality. The first one relates to infrastructures: "digital media are built and conceptualised in a way that influences the way we use them and they contribute to our idea of gender [and sexuality]" (p. 124).…”

“…From dance halls in the early 1900s to today's SNSs, debates on the new medium's effects have always concentrated on the mental and physical health of the vulnerable (Thiel-Stern, 2014). The vulnerable are often embodied by girls, as they fall into all of the categories under fire: young age and assumed lesser mental and cognitive capacities (Krijnen & Van Bauwel, 2022). Within the current neoliberal discourse prevalent in societies of the Global North, the image of vulnerable girls is countered by a seemingly opposing image of the empowered girl.…”

“…These protectionist/ moralist discourses, as Dobson (2014) calls them, are not only prevalent in public debates but sustained and reinforced by publicly available research reports such as the Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls by the American Psychological Association (2010). Other researchers contribute to these discourses by showing how digital media cause body dissatisfaction among adolescent girls, or force them to self-sexualise by posting selfies and other sexualised self-images on social media (see Krijnen & Van Bauwel, 2022). Furthermore, in order to ensure safety for young women and to restore and/ or maintain more reassuring traditional social norms and roles, their activities should be controlled (Krijnen & Van Bauwel, 2022).…”

“My Parents Check My Profile”

“…These protectionist/ moralist discourses, as Dobson (2014) calls them, are not only prevalent in public debates but sustained and reinforced by publicly available research reports such as the Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls by the American Psychological Association (2010). Other researchers contribute to these discourses by showing how digital media cause body dissatisfaction among adolescent girls, or force them to self-sexualise by posting selfies and other sexualised self-images on social media (see Krijnen & Van Bauwel, 2022). Furthermore, in order to ensure safety for young women and to restore and/ or maintain more reassuring traditional social norms and roles, their activities should be controlled (Krijnen & Van Bauwel, 2022).…”