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• Interviews with 10- to 14-year-old SNS users in Sweden and 10- to 12-year-old SNS users in Estonia were carried out to analyse how gender is created, expressed and normalized in online environments among young people and how girls describe and discover their gender identities when selecting profile images for SNS.
• The results show that on the one hand, young female SNS users try to combine the markers of their personal everyday lifestyle (e.g. hobbies, interests, choice of clothing and accessories) when constructing their visual self-representations. In that case, the profile images can be viewed as creative personifications of a profile owner, with an emphasis on the aspects that the person considers important. On the other hand, they try to imitate the posing strategies and facial expressions seen in traditional media; the photos used for visual self-representation can be perceived as a reflection of social ambiguities, especially about maturity and gender, that young women encounter daily, therefore reproducing beliefs about the gender order in society as a whole.
• The reproduction of norms and values is visible in the manipulated images, as, according to the perceptions of the interviewees, the girls seem to have greater interest and knowledge in the post-production of images. Despite their young age, they pay attention to cultural norms and values on gender and hence, these power differentials and identity markers are also reproduced in their SNS interaction. One important dimension of this gender work, however, is the fact that the girls develop a specific digital competence seldom mentioned by (or seen among) the boys.
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Relevant publications |
Siibak, A. & Hernwall, P. (2011). "Looking like my favourite Barbie" – Online gender construction of tween girls in Estonia and in Sweden. Studies of Transition States and Societies, 3(2), 57-68. http://www.tlu.ee/stss/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/erinumber_Siibak.pdf
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