Men have to be competent in something, women need to show their bodies. Gender, digital youth cultures and popularity

ABSTRACT

Social media represents a significant part of digital youth culture, providing young people with models, symbolic resources, and space for self-presentation and reputation management. This study explored how the ideal of entrepreneurialism, which marks the social media logic of attention and visibility, is appropriated by young people in ways that allow them to challenge or reaffirm traditional gender and sexual norms. This research was based on empirical material collected through online workshops involving 12 Italian schools (42 classes and about 900 students), in which we asked participants to join in an activity to create fictional accounts that could become popular with their peers. Our analysis shows that young people discursively construct gender and sexual norms, frequently reproducing dominant cultural discourses on gender and heteronormativity. Young people’s discourse focuses on the apparent feminization of the internet and a perception of social media platforms as belonging to the female sphere. The feminization of the internet leads to a discourse that concerns men’s need to link technical competence, professionalism, and masculinity in order to perpetuate the stereotypical portrayal of women as bearers of an innate sexual power that compensates for their perceived lack of digital skills.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• social media logic
• young people
• popularity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Manolo Farci

Manolo Farci, PhD, is Associate Professor at the Department of Communication Sciences, Humanities and International Studies of the University of Urbino Carlo Bo (Italy). His main research interests are in the field of media and internet studies. In recent years he has been studying the impact of digital communication in the processes of social construction of gender identity, with reference to the experience of networked masculinities. His last publications: Italian men’s rights activism and online backlash against feminism (Il Mulino, 2019), “Remember who your real friends are”. Suburra: Blood on Rome and the Performative Nature of Young Italian Masculinity (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019).

Cosimo Marco Scarcelli

Cosimo Marco Scarcelli, is Associate Professor at department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology of the University of Padua (Italy).His research deals with: sexuality, gender and digital culture; intimacies; pornography; masculinities; love and emotions; young people. He is particularly interested in qualitative and participatory research.He has been the principal editor of the book Gender and sexuality in the European media (Routledge, 2021) and associate editor of The International Encyclopedia of Gender, Media and Communication (Wiley, 2020).Cosimo Marco is the author of essays for international journals such as Porn Studies; Journal of Gender Studies; Information, Communication & Society; Mediekultur and Italian Journal of Sociology of Education.From 2016 to 2021 he served as vice-chair and then chair for ECREA’s Gender, Sexuality & Communication section.