Yogalebrities: The postfeminist, fashionable construction of ‘psychic life’ on social media

Representing Online Hostility against Women

Where Is Portland Made? The Complex Relationship between Social Media and Place in the Artisan Economy of Portland, Oregon (USA)

McCracken’s analysis of identity construction in contemporary culture sees the drive to transform oneself as the expression of consumer agency and individual freedom. Transformation is accessible through cosmetic surgery, enabling consumers with funds to purchase a ‘whole new me’. This consumer is an active participant in the transformation process, not content with observing beauty but actively engaged in the creative construction of new improved selves. In doing so, they have “mastered the codes of cultural production” making themselves “co-creators in the culture they consume” (McCracken xvi). An alternative and far less positive narrative of consumer transformation focuses on the pervasive influence of promotion on individual identity. Marketing and promotion constructs a deficiency in the lives of consumers which, marketers imply, can be remedied by the purchase of cosmetic surgery. Rather than being powerful co-creators of their own fluid identity, consumers are constructed as victims of a promotional culture which valorises external values and ‘the new’ and preys on consumer vulnerabilities (Fatah 1). In this paper I draw on consumer blogs, industry webpages and regulatory and professional publications to explore the tensions between these competing narratives of bodily transformation. In doing so, I argue that there is an inherent paradox in the discourse of consumer transformation which advocates consumer freedom and creativity yet limits these freedoms to certain forms of ideal beauty which can be marketed by the promotional industries.

What Is Third‐Wave Feminism? A New Directions Essay

Bringing Sexy Back: To What Extent Do Online Television Audiences Contest Fat-Shaming?

Traveling Feminist Thought: Difference and Transculturation in Central and Eastern European Feminism

Like other forms of embodiment, pregnancy has increasingly become subject to representation and interpretation via digital technologies. Pregnancy and the unborn entity were largely private, and few people beyond the pregnant women herself had access to the foetus growing within her (Duden). Now pregnant and foetal bodies have become open to public portrayal and display (Lupton The Social Worlds of the Unborn). A plethora of online materials – websites depicting the unborn entity from the moment of conception, amateur YouTube videos of births, social media postings of ultrasounds and self-taken photos (‘selfies’) showing changes in pregnant bellies, and so on – now ensure the documentation of pregnant and unborn bodies in extensive detail, rendering them open to other people’s scrutiny. Other recent digital technologies directed at pregnancy include mobile software applications, or ‘apps’. In this article, we draw on our study involving a critical discourse analysis of a corpus of pregnancy-related apps offered in the two major app stores. In so doing, we discuss the ways in which pregnancy-related apps portray pregnant and unborn bodies. We place a particular focus on the ludification and gamification strategies employed to position pregnancy as a playful, creative and fulfilling experience that is frequently focused on consumption. As we will demonstrate, these strategies have wider implications for concepts of pregnant and foetal embodiment and subjectivity. It is important here to make a distinction between ludification and gamification. Ludification is a broader term than gamification. It is used in the academic literature on gaming (sometimes referred to as ‘ludology’) to refer to elements of games reaching into other aspects of life beyond leisure pursuits (Frissen et al. Playful Identities: The Ludification of Digital Media Cultures; Raessens). Frissen et al. (Frissen et al. "Homo Ludens 2.0: Play, Media and Identity") for example, claim that even serious pursuits such as work, politics, education and warfare have been subjected to ludification. They note that digital technologies in general tend to incorporate ludic dimensions. Gamification has been described as ‘the use of game design elements in non-game contexts’ (Deterding et al. 9). The term originated in the digital media industry to describe the incorporation of features into digital technologies that not explicitly designed as games, such as competition, badges, rewards and fun that engaged and motivated users to make them more enjoyable to use. Gamification is now often used in literatures on marketing strategies, persuasive computing or behaviour modification. It is an important element of ‘nudge’, an approach to behaviour change that involves persuasion over coercion (Jones, Pykett and Whitehead). Gamification thus differs from ludification in that the former involves applying ludic principles for reasons other than the pleasures of enjoying the game for their own sake, often to achieve objectives set by actors and agencies other than the gamer. Indeed, this is why gamification software has been described by Bogost (Bogost) as ‘exploitationware’.

Solace in Social Media: Women Unite Under COVID-19

Previous articleNext article No AccessRoundtable: Film FeminismsTheorizing the Bachelorette: “Waves” of Feminist Media StudiesLynn SpigelLynn SpigelSchool of CommunicationNorthwestern University Search for more articles by this author School of CommunicationNorthwestern UniversityPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Signs Volume 30, Number 1Autumn 2004Beyond the Gaze: Recent Approaches to Film Feminisms. Special Issue Editors Kathleen McHugh and Vivian Sobchack Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/422232 Views: 1204Total views on this site Citations: 24Citations are reported from Crossref © 2004 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Nicole Cox “The butterfly effect”: sexual assault and the aftermath on Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why, Feminist Media Studies 88 (Dec 2022): 1–15.https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2022.2154376Stefan Helmreich Wave Theory ~ Social Theory, Public Culture 32, no.22 (May 2020): 287–326.https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-8090094Steven Downing They’re Not Mean Girls If They Are Adult Women: Reality Television’s Construction of Women’s Identity and Interpersonal Aggression, Sociological Research Online 23, no.11 (Oct 2017): 3–20.https://doi.org/10.1177/1360780417735781Hannah Feldshuh Gender, media, and myth-making: constructing China’s leftover women, Asian Journal of Communication 28, no.11 (Jun 2017): 38–54.https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2017.1339721María Elena Cepeda Beyond “filling in the gap”: the state and status of Latina/o Feminist Media Studies, Feminist Media Studies 16, no.22 (Jul 2015): 344–360.https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2015.1052005Souha R. Ezzedeen Portrayals of career women in Hollywood films: implications for the glass ceiling’s persistence, Gender in Management: An International Journal 30, no.33 (May 2015): 239–264.https://doi.org/10.1108/GM-07-2013-0073Kumarini Silva, Kaitlynn Mendes Introduction: (In)visible and (Ir)relevant: Setting a Context, (Jan 2015): 1–15.https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137454928_1 Introduction, (Jan 2014): 1–26.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377030-001 Archives of Pain, (Jan 2014): 27–58.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377030-002 Speaking Sex/Speaking Race, (Jan 2014): 59–82.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377030-003 Race-Pleasures, (Jan 2014): 83–106.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377030-004 Laughing Matters, (Jan 2014): 107–127.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377030-005 On Refusal, (Jan 2014): 128–145.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377030-006 Conclusion, (Jan 2014): 146–151.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377030-007 Notes, (Jan 2014): 153–179.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377030-008 Bibliography, (Jan 2014): 181–211.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377030-009Nicole Cox Kicking Ass…With Lip Gloss: Mediating Gender on TLC's Police Women of Broward County, Critical Studies in Media Communication 29, no.22 (Jun 2012): 149–163.https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2011.637223Mary Beltrán Bridging the Gaps, Feminist Media Studies 11, no.11 (Mar 2011): 21–26.https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2011.537020Audrey Yue Critical Regionalities in Inter-Asia and the Queer Diaspora, Feminist Media Studies 11, no.11 (Mar 2011): 131–138.https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2011.537042Stefan Helmreich Nature/Culture/Seawater, American Anthropologist 113, no.11 (Feb 2011): 132–144.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2010.01311.xMythili Rajiva In Papaji 's House, Feminist Media Studies 10, no.22 (Jun 2010): 213–228.https://doi.org/10.1080/14680771003672338Sharon Sharp Television, gender and space: an overview of Lynn Spigel, Science Fiction Film & Television 2, no.22 (Jan 2009): 281–292.https://doi.org/10.1353/sff.0.0085Sherryl Vint The New Backlash: Popular Culture's "Marriage" with Feminism, or Love Is All You Need, Journal of Popular Film and Television 34, no.44 (Jan 2007): 160–169.https://doi.org/10.3200/JPFT.34.4.160-169Elizabeth McMahon Puberty Blues Takes Feminist Generationalism to the Beach, Australian Feminist Studies 20, no.4848 (Nov 2005): 281–289.https://doi.org/10.1080/08164640500280241

Trust Me, I’m Trolling: Irony and the Alt-Right’s Political Aesthetic

I just wrote a book on queer media studies, but I never fully understood how I got started on it until I sat down to write this piece.1 In retrospect, I see the questions that started it off and the research that provided me with jumping-off points more clearly. The scholars whose work I sought to model were located in feminist media studies. My book is a good example of how queer media scholarship is informed and contoured by work in feminist media studies insofar as it relies on the conceptual logics and unconventional archives that characterize that body of work. What follows is a story in reverse. I chart how my own research in queer media studies owes a tremendous debt to feminist media studies, working backward to identify overlaps and tensions between the two. From there, I underscore why the gaps and overlaps between queer and feminist media studies are so useful for rigorous analysis of sex, gender, sexuality, and media culture. In my book, I parse out the feelings of freedom, belonging, and transcendence that contemporary cinema, television, and online media make available to audiences comprised of sexual minorities. The book is heavily informed by Lauren Berlant's work on twentieth-century women's culture in The Female Complaint (2008).2 I am most moved …

This study delves into the profound impact of social media on body image perceptions and overall dissatisfaction among young adults at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. In today's digital age, social media pervades the lives of young people, shaping their self-perceptions and influencing their social interactions. This research aims to understand how the constant exposure to curated and often idealized images on social media platforms contributes to the development of unrealistic body standards, fostering feelings of inadequacy and pressure to conform to societal beauty ideals. Employing a quantitative research approach, the study focused on a sample of 200 undergraduate and postgraduate students aged 18 to 30 years. Data collection utilized systematic sampling techniques and involved the administration of questionnaires via Google Forms. The study drew upon Social Comparison Theory to understand how individuals evaluate their own appearance by comparing themselves to the seemingly flawless images and physiques presented on social media platforms. Data analysis was conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics. The findings revealed a significant correlation between social media usage and body image dissatisfaction among young adults. Frequent comparisons with idealized images of influencers and celebrities on social media platforms were found to be a major contributor to negative body image perceptions, leading to a range of negative emotional and psychological outcomes, including anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. These findings underscore the urgent need for interventions that address the detrimental effects of social media on young adults' mental health. This may include the development and implementation of comprehensive media literacy programs designed to equip young people with the critical thinking skills necessary to navigate the complexities of the digital world and resist the pressures to conform to unrealistic beauty standards. Furthermore, fostering a more inclusive and diverse representation of body images on social media platforms is crucial to promoting healthier body image perceptions and enhancing the overall well-being of young adults in the digital age. References Abi-Jaoude, E., Naylor, K. T., & Pignatiello, A. (2020). Smartphones, social media use and youth mental health. Cmaj, 192(6), E136-E141. Aichner, T., Grünfelder, M., Maurer, O., & Jegeni, D. (2021). Twenty-five years of social media: a review of social media applications and definitions from 1994 to 2019. Cyberpsychology, behavior, and social networking, 24(4), 215-222. Ali, R. (2016). Social Media and Youth in Pakistan: Social Media and Youth in Pakistan: Implications on Family Relations. Global Media Journal, 14, 26. Ando, Kanako, Francesca E. Giorgianni, Elisa S. Danthinne, and Rachel F. Rodgers. 2021. “Beauty Ideals, Social Media, and Body Positivity: A Qualitative Investigation of Influences on Body Image among Young Women in Japan.” Body Image 38:358–69. Asif, M., & Sandhu, M. S. (2023). Social Media Marketing Revolution in Pakistan: A Study of its Adoption and Impact on Business Performance. Journal of Business Insight and Innovation, 2(2), 67-77. Aziz, J. (2017). Social media and body issues in young adults: an empirical study on the influence of Instagram use on body image and fatphobia in catalan university students. Bashir, H., & Bhat, S. A. (2017). Effects of social media on mental health: A review. International Journal of Indian Psychology, 4(3), 125-131. Boske, C., & McCormack, S. (2011). Building an understanding of the role of media literacy for Latino/a high school students. The High School Journal, 94(4), 167-186. Braghieri, L., Levy, R. E., & Makarin, A. (2022). Social media and mental health. American Economic Review, 112(11), 3660-3693. Brown, Z., & Tiggemann, M. (2016). Attractive celebrity and peer images on Instagram: Effect on women's mood and body image. Body image, 19, 37-43. Burnette, C. Blair, Melissa A. Kwitowski, and Suzanne E. Mazzeo. 2017. “‘I Don’t Need People to Tell Me I’m Pretty on Social Media:’ A Qualitative Study of Social Media and Body Image in Early Adolescent Girls.” Body Image 23:114–25. Choudhury, N. R., & Reddy, V. N. (2021). Body image dissatisfaction in young adults: Impact of social media use. International Journal of Education and Psychological Research (IJEPR), 10(3), 15-18. Chu, J. (1997). Navigating the media environment: How youth claim a place through zines. Social Justice, 24(3 (69), 71-85. DeBraganza, N., & Hausenblas, H. A. (2010). Media exposure of the ideal physique on women’s body dissatisfaction and mood: The moderating effects of ethnicity. Journal of Black Studies, 40(4), 700-716. De Vries, D. A., Vossen, H. G., & van der Kolk–van der Boom, P. (2019). Social media and body dissatisfaction: investigating the attenuating role of positive parent–adolescent relationships. Journal of youth and adolescence, 48, 527-536. Dimitrov, D., & Kroumpouzos, G. (2023). Beauty perception: a historical and contemporary review. Clinics in Dermatology, 41(1), 33-40. Lubis, A. R., Fachrizal, F., & Lubis, M. (2017). The effect of social media to cultural homecoming tradition of computer students in medan. Procedia Computer Science, 124, 423-428. Eggerstedt, M., Rhee, J., Urban, M. J., Mangahas, A., Smith, R. M., & Revenaugh, P. C. (2020). Beauty is in the eye of the follower: facial aesthetics in the age of social media. American Journal of Otolaryngology, 41(6), 102643. Fardouly, J., & Vartanian, L. R. (2016). Social media and body image concerns: Current research and future directions. Current opinion in psychology, 9, 1-5. Fardouly, J., Diedrichs, P. C., Vartanian, L. R., & Halliwell, E. (2015). Social comparisons on social media: The impact of Facebook on young women's body image concerns and mood. Body image, 13, 38-45. Filice, E., Raffoul, A., Meyer, S. B., & Neiterman, E. (2019). The influence of Grindr, a geosocial networking application, on body image in gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men: An exploratory study. Body image, 31, 59-70. Franchina, V., & Lo Coco, G. (2018). The influence of social media use on body image concerns. International Journal of Psychoanalysis & Education, 10(1). Gillespie-Smith, K., Hendry, G., Anduuru, N., Laird, T., & Ballantyne, C. (2021). Using social media to be ‘social’: Perceptions of social media benefits and risk by autistic young people, and parents. Research in developmental disabilities, 118, 104081. Jiotsa, B., Naccache, B., Duval, M., Rocher, B., & Grall-Bronnec, M. (2021). Social media use and body image disorders: Association between frequency of comparing one’s own physical appearance to that of people being followed on social media and body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(6), 2880. Kleemans, M., Daalmans, S., Carbaat, I., & Anschütz, D. (2018). Picture perfect: The direct effect of manipulated Instagram photos on body image in adolescent girls. Media Psychology, 21(1), 93-110. Lee, H. R., Lee, H. E., Choi, J., Kim, J. H., & Han, H. L. (2014). Social media use, body image, and psychological well-being: A cross-cultural comparison of Korea and the United States. Journal of health communication, 19(12), 1343-1358. Liu, J. (2021, June). The influence of the body image presented through TikTok trend-videos and its possible reasons. In 2nd International Conference on Language, Art and Cultural Exchange (ICLACE 2021) (pp. 359-363). Atlantis Press. Nagar, I., & Virk, R. (2017). The struggle between the real and ideal: Impact of acute media exposure on body image of young Indian women. SAGE Open, 7(1), 2158244017691327. Naslund, J. A., Bondre, A., Torous, J., & Aschbrenner, K. A. (2020). Social media and mental health: benefits, risks, and opportunities for research and practice. Journal of technology in behavioral science, 5, 245-257. Nortje, A. (2020). Social Comparison: An Unavoidable Upward Or Downward Spiral. PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/social-comparison/ Pfeiffer, C., Kleeb, M., Mbelwa, A., & Ahorlu, C. (2014). The use of social media among adolescents in Dar es Salaam and Mtwara, Tanzania. Reproductive health matters, 22(43), 178-186. Plaisime, M., Robertson-James, C., Mejia, L., Núñez, A., Wolf, J., & Reels, S. (2020). Social media and teens: A needs assessment exploring the potential role of social media in promoting health. Social Media+ Society, 6(1), 2056305119886025. Pryde, S., & Prichard, I. (2022). TikTok on the clock but the# fitspo don’t stop: The impact of TikTok fitspiration videos on women’s body image concerns. Body image, 43, 244-252. Saghir, S., & Hyland, L. (2017). The effects of immigration and media influence on body image among Pakistani men. American Journal of Men's Health, 11(4), 930-940. Sanzari, C. M., Gorrell, S., Anderson, L. M., Reilly, E. E., Niemiec, M. A., Orloff, N. C., ... & Hormes, J. M. (2023). The impact of social media use on body image and disordered eating behaviors: Content matters more than duration of exposure. Eating behaviors, 49, 101722. Sekayi, D. (2003). Aesthetic resistance to commercial influences: The impact of the Eurocentric beauty standard on Black college women. Journal of Negro Education, 467-477. Shabir, G., Hameed, Y. M. Y., Safdar, G., & Gilani, S. M. F. S. (2014). The impact of social media on youth: A case study of bahawalpur city. Asian Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 3(4), 132-151. Siddiqui, A. (2021). Social media and its role in amplifying a certain idea of beauty. Infotheca—Journal for Digital Humanities, 21(1), 73-85. Siddiqui, S., & Singh, T. (2016). Social media its impact with positive and negative aspects. International journal of computer applications technology and research, 5(2), 71-75. Slade, P. D. (1994). What is body image?. Behaviour research and therapy. Tufail, M. W., Saleem, M., & Fatima, S. Z. (2022). Relationship of Social Media and Body Image Dissatisfaction among University Students. Pakistan Journal of Applied Psychology (PJAP), 2(1), 89-97. Tylka, T. L., & Wood-Barcalow, N. L. (2015). What is and what is not positive body image? Conceptual foundations and construct definition. Body image, 14, 118-129. Virden, A. L., Trujillo, A., & Predeger, E. (2014). Young adult females’ perceptions of high-risk social media behaviors: A focus-group approach. Journal of Community Health Nursing, 31(3), 133-144. Whyte, C., Thrall, A. T., & Mazanec, B. M. (Eds.). (2021). Information warfare in the age of cyber conflict. London & New York: Routledge. Yusop, F. D., & Sumari, M. (2013). The use of social media technologies among Malaysian youth. Procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 103, 1204-1209. Zulqarnain, W., & ul Hassan, T. (2016). Individual’s perceptions about the credibility of social media in Pakistan. Strategic Studies, 36(4), 123-137.

A Relational Approach to the Digital Self: Plus-Sized Bloggers and the Double-Edged Sword of Market-Compromised Identity

AimsThe primary aims of our study is to gather ideas from young people about developing an intervention for children who first started using social media. Our study also aims to investigate whether different types of social media use are associated with impact of social media on emotions and self-esteem.MethodsAn anonymous questionnaire was distributed to young people (16–25 years old), who were UK residents, through word of mouth, social media and university newsletters. We assessed participants’ baseline characteristics, including types of social media use (active, active-passive and passive), impact of social media. We also explored young people's idea on developing a social media intervention, including how it should be delivered, topics that needs to be covered. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics and ordinal regression analysis.Results90 young people completed the questionnaire. 37.8% of the participants started using social media before 13 years old. Analysis has shown that interacting with other users and creating social media content is associated with higher self-rated negative impact on self-esteem from social media, but there is no association between impact on self-esteem and reacting to other's social media content or browsing other's social media content. Types of social media use were not associated with a self-rated impact of social media on emotions. Regarding the co-development of an intervention for social media, young people believe the best ways to distribute information about social media is through an interactive session by professionals (36.7%) or teaching it in class (28.9%) while the least popular ways are poster/booklet (1.11%) and mobile phone app (1.11%). The majority of young people felt the following topics on social media to be useful to cover during interventions, including risks on social media (85.6%), emotional safety on social media (81.1%), social media hygiene (70.0%), coping strategies and finding help on social media (66.7%), communication on social media (58.9%).ConclusionAlthough types of social media use are not associated with impact on emotions from social media, those who create social media content are at higher risk of having more impact on self-esteem. Interventions should be developed to help protect or improve self-esteem while using social media. This could be done by focusing on different topics. Future interventions for young social media users should be interactive and led by experts. They should also start before children reaches the common legal age of social media use to make them more resilient to the digital world.

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