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ABSTRACT
Social media has given way to information and prosumption-oriented discursive fields wherein individuals construct their own social identities. Although interactivity, multimodality, user-centeredness and accessibility are the unique aspects of digital media but the fact that digital media as effective spaces for representing extreme self/other representation while being anonymous and free from following social norms, can cause dysfunctional social behaviours such as cyber hate. Mirroring the normative notions of femininity, masculinity and gender stereotype allows groups and individuals to connect and express similar manifestations of hate, which, often result in the emergence of a ‘discursive spiral of hate’, misogyny and sexism. This paper draws on the important caveats discussed around Social Media-Critical Discourse Studies understanding of the contemporary digital discourses to deconstruct the complex relations between gender, hate speech and celebrities’ discourses on social media. In particular, how Lena Dunham, American celebrity, portrays herself on her Instagram page by going against the hegemonic views and how the audiences, i.e. the digital prosumers perceive that portrayal. Analysing 2000 user-generated comments deconstruct how women are required to suppress their feeling and limit their authentic online presentation to maintain the outward countenance that matches the stereotypical gender roles in audiences’ state of mind.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Castells (Citation2015) introduced the term ‘mass self-communication’ to describe the many-to-many communication on online platforms.
2 According to McGonagle (Citation2012, p. 4), ‘Soft hate speech is lawful but raises serious concerns in terms of intolerance and discrimination, but hard hate speech comprises prosecutable forms that are prohibited by law’.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Soudeh Ghaffari
Soudeh Ghaffari has received her PhD in Discourse Studies at Lancaster University, UK. Her research interests lie at the intersection of discourse, culture, media and religion. She has been examining contemporary discourses of identity through symbolic apparatus of religion and media in the Shi’a majority contexts. Currently, Soudeh is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Newcastle University. Her project is on Muslim female refugees, rituals and digital media practices in the UK. At Newcastle University, she also teaches media studies, textual analysis, political communication and (digital) discourse studies while pursuing research on migration, gender and ethnic/religious minorities. Postal address: School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK.