Pretty in pink vs pretty in black: blogs as gendered avatars

Abstract

Blogs are usually treated as texts, despite the expressive potential of their visual elements through which ideology is often not expressed straightforwardly, but encoded in the imagery. This study offers an analysis of blog design themes and blog sidebar ‘badges’ produced by Jewish-Israeli girls aged 11 to 16 on Israblog, Israel’s largest blogging community. By looking at the blog as a ‘digital body’ or an avatar of the blogger, the author examines design elements as resources of identity performance and contextualizes the findings within the fields of girl studies and feminist theory. She argues that under the surface of the distinctive subcultural styles often presented as adversarial lies the same hegemonic Western girlhood model; however, global girlhood models may be interpreted as subversive in the Israeli cultural context.

A Quantitative Approach: Hope Labor Among Turkish Female Bloggers

“…Blogosphere has become a promising site which offers to combine storytelling with multimedia content, including lifestyles, daily lives, literature, technology, politics, fashion, health, hobbies and crafts to commercial products. Even establishing a blog's homepage requires much effort for bloggers since blog is a "digital body" or avatar of the blogger, not only with the content but also with all design elements from the buttons to links, pictures to causes (Vaisman, 2016). One of the things that differentiates blogs from other kinds of writing on the web is that they are imbued 'with a strong sense of the author's personality, passions, and point of view' (Nardi et al, 2004: 42).…”

Cultural Components of Sex Differences in Color Preference

“…The color pink is widely used as a marker for female gender, in mass communication, mass media, and mass-produced children's clothes and toys (Auster & Mansbach, 2012;Koller, 2008;Merler, Cao, & Smith, 2015;Sweet, 2013;Vaisman, 2016). Debate over the appropriate use of color, especially pink, to signal gender has become increasingly polarized in academic fields (Del Giudice, 2012Giudice, , 2017Fine & Rush, 2018;Liben & Bigler, 2002;Sweet, 2013), in government (White House Office of the Press Secretary, 2016), and in the popular press (Gonchar, 2015).…”

“…Contemporary global information flows, such as mass media, mass communications, and mass‐produced goods, encourage the transmission of transnational cultural ideas such as the pairing of pink and female (Featherstone, 1990 ). On the internet, pink is used to signal content for girls in online toy stores (Auster & Mansbach, 2012 ), on magazine websites (Koller, 2008 ), on blogs (Vaisman, 2016 ), and in social networks (Fortmann‐Roe, 2013 ), and pink is used as a marker for female gender on television (Kolbe & Muehling, 1995 ). Perhaps as a result of these media and communications, parents are likely to buy pink toys, clothes, and furniture for girls and avoid them for boys (Fisher‐Thompson, 1993 ; Jonauskaite et al, 2019 ; Pomerleau, Bolduc, Malcuit, & Cossette, 1990 ).…”

“…Together, this evidence suggests that color preference is part of the social construction and experience of gender that comes with culture, including global culture. Messages about pink as a marker of female gender could be delivered through mass media (Kolbe & Muehling, 1995 ), mass communication (Auster & Mansbach, 2012 ; Vaisman, 2016 ), or mass‐produced children’s products (Pomerleau et al, 1990 ; Sweet, 2013 ), and could therefore influence children in any industrialized or semi‐industrialized context with access to these aspects of global culture. But to determine whether girls’ preference for pink is influenced by mass media, mass communication, or mass‐produced children’s products, we would need to see whether girls prefer pink more than boys do in settings without access to these aspects of global culture.…”

A Cor no Branding: um estudo sobre design de marca e comunicação visual estratégica

“…As marcas que se expressam visualmente de maneira flexível, em diferentes níveis de alteração -de uma mudança total até as menos radicais e com número limitado de variaçõessão denominadas marcas mutantes (Kreutz, 2007) ou cambiantes (Kopp, 2002 Como exemplos de cores caracterizando atributos em escopo global, tem-se os sacos brancos para farinha ; o cor-de-rosa designando um público feminino (Koller, 2008;Vaisman, 2016); e cigarros em embalagens "mais brancas" ou em combinações cromáticas mais claras do que as cores das embalagens normais, indicando versões "suaves"…”