(Sociological Futures) 1st Edition
by Frankie Rogan (Author)
Digital Femininities: The Gendered Construction of Cultural and Political Identities Online
examines the role of new media technologies in the production of girls’
cultural and political identities. The book argues that the varied and
complex spaces which make up our ‘social media’ should be conceptualised
as important terrains upon which neoliberal and postfeminist
subjectivities can be both reproduced and subverted. In doing so, the
book explores many key issues underpinning current debates around gender
politics and digital media, including gendered spatial politics,
visibility, surveillance and regulation, beauty politics, and civic and
political engagement and activism.
Over the last
decade, the position of girls and young women within the digital
landscape of social media has been a topic of much debate. On the one
hand, girls’ social media practices are presented as a key site of
concern, wherein new digital technologies are said to have produced an
intensification of individualised, neoliberal and postfeminist
identities. Conversely, others have championed access to social media
for young people as a potentially useful political tool, enabling
previously marginalised political subjects (such as girls) to access and
participate within new and exciting political cultures. Locating itself
at the intersection of these two approaches, this book offers a fresh
contribution to these debates. Based upon the findings from focus groups
with girls and young women aged between 12 and 18 in England, the book
offers an in-depth analysis of the digital cultures that emerged from
the study.
This timely book will be essential
reading for anyone interested in contemporary femininity and feminism
and the role of digital media in the production of cultural, political
and gendered identities.
