Abstract
Based on interviews with feminist Instagram users, this article studies emergent feminist visibilities on Instagram through the concept of filtering. Filtering entails both enhancement and subtraction: some feminist sensibilities align with Instagram’s interaction order, while others become subdued and remain at the margins of visibility. Taken together, users’ filtering practices contribute to the confident and happy image, individualistic streak, and accommodationist cast of popular feminism, while also amplifying feminist politics that affirm the pleasures of visibility and desire. Instagram proves a more challenging environment for feminists seeking to criticize competitive individualism and aesthetic norms. The notion of filtering enriches existing research on how online environments reconfigure feminist politics and problematizes the avowal of feminism in media culture.
Highlights
Based on interviews with feminist Instagram users, this article studies emergent feminist visibilities on Instagram through the concept of filtering
How do feminist Instagram users reflect on the prospects and perils of online visual self-presentation? What strategies do they employ in attempting to reconcile their feminist identity with their investment in visual social media? What kinds of feminist images and imaginaries do they produce in their characteristic blending of activism with conformity and aspiration? To answer these questions and understand how feminist sensibilities transfer to and circulate in social media like Instagram, we propose the concept of filtering that emerged from our aforementioned empirical analysis
Social media is constitutive of popular culture, and popular culture is a terrain where feminisms of varying positions of compliance and resistance vis-à-vis the status quo circulate and struggle over meaning and visibility (Banet-Weiser, 2018)
Summary
The data consist of semi-structured interviews with feminist Instagram users. We found 12 initial interviewees by querying data gathered via the erstwhile Instagram API on users who had geotagged posts to either Amsterdam or Copenhagen between 1 December 2015 and 30 May 2016 (see Boy and Uitermark 2016, 2017, 2020). We searched for users who used the word “feminist” or “feminism” either in their user profiles or in the caption of a post This initial sampling frame included everyday users of the platform who affiliated with feminism through the platform’s affordances. We recruited 13 additional interviewees via snowball sampling (i.e. having interviewees recommend additional people to talk to) In this way, we broadened the range of interviewees beyond the initial population of north-western European urbanites, and included more widely known users whose feminist affiliation is more broadly recognized. We transcribed interviews and coded them, identifying patterned and recurring contradictions and inner struggles interviewees reported feeling when using Instagram In this inductive way, we discovered the filtering practices by which users attempt to reconcile their dissonant aims in using the platform.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
