Competing narratives, gender and threaded identity in cyberspace

Abstract

Using a blog corpus, the current study of weblog writing explores changing cultural norms surrounding technology-mediated formation of interpersonal relationships and aims to gain insight into important aspects of online female behaviour. More specifically, this article analyses the way in which British and Spanish female adolescents disclose personal information about their love-lives. In doing so, I argue that these bloggers create competing narratives which consist of either crediting or puncturing traditional love and relationship myths. The study of these competing narratives, in turn, reveals that these female adolescents live out different gendered discourses when they are entering, and when they are leaving, love relationships. Furthermore, this study examines the contemporary association between laddish attitudes in female adolescents and the involvement of verbal aggression in their personal weblogs.