https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5616-765X
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ABSTRACT
Little is known about how everyday women self-present their outdoor adventure experiences, and how these compare to mainstream media, which often reinforces narratives of hegemonic masculinity. To better understand how everyday women portray their outdoor adventure experiences, we examine user-generated content on Instagram associated with the hashtags #womenoutdoors, #womeninadventure and #shewentwild. In total, 1154 posts were collected. Analysis revealed that Instagram facilitates a ‘DigiPlace’ that contributes to new understandings and ways of being outdoors for everyday women. More specifically, our work indicates that the ubiquity of social media helps to reshape the nature of female participation in outdoor adventure activities as well as giving everyday women greater visibility in outdoor landscapes.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The term outdoor media is used to signify media associated with outdoor and adventure recreation participation but may also include adventure tourism activities.
2 Within this study we understand everyday women to be women who are not professional adventures or influencers (>2000 followers), and do not own/work for businesses associated with the outdoors.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Tiffany Low
Dr Tiffany Low is a senior lecturer in tourism marketing at Swansea University. Tiffany is an experienced researcher, who specializes in critical tourism studies including luxury tourism, sustainable development, tourism marketing and outdoor and adventure recreation. Tiffany's research spans the fields of tourism, mobilities, psychology, marketing and gender studies. She co-edited The Encyclopaedia of Sustainable Tourism (CABI, 2015) and she is currently continuing her research in the field of adventure recreation, risk perceptions and gender representations.
Maggie Miller
Dr Maggie Miller is a senior lecturer in tourism at Swansea University, and holds a PhD in Recreation and Leisure Studies. Much of her work concentrates on critical explorations of the role of tourism and leisure in the development of communities. In particular, she takes up research to understand and enhance social justice and equity within these contexts.
Adele Doran
Dr Adele Doran is a senior lecturer of tourism management in the Sheffield Business School. Adele's area of study is in the experiences of adventure participants and she has published in this area. Specifically, her research investigates the constraints that can be encountered and negotiated when accessing and participating in adventure activities, and the benefits that are sought and experienced from adventure experiences. Adele is a member of the Adventure Tourism Research Association (ATRA) and the Outdoor Recreation Research Group (ORRG) at Sheffield Hallam University.
Louisa Hardwick
Louisa Hardwick is currently a Master’s student at Swansea University. She is studying Management, following a BA in European Languages. Her MSc dissertation explores adventure travel motivations of Generation Z. Upon completion, Louisa hopes to pursue a PhD in Tourism Studies.