Postfeminist Digital Cultures Femininity, Social Media, and Self-Representation

by Dobson, Amy Shields

• ISBN13: 9781137408396
• ISBN10: 1137408391
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-09-17
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Postfeminist Digital Cultures explores some of the more controversial and contested social media practices engaged in by girls and young women, including sexual self-representations on social network sites, sexting, and self-harm vlogs. Informed by feminist media and cultural studies, Dobson delves beyond alarmist accounts to ask what it is we fear about young women's self-representation in networked publics, and unpacks the complexity of digitally mediating young femininity in the postfeminist era.

Author Biography

Amy Shields Dobson is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Queensland, Australia. She previously lectured in Sociology and Gender at Monash University, Australia. Amy has published several articles and chapters in international anthologies on young people's social media practices and gender politics. Her current projects examine sexting in schools, and female genital cosmetic surgery in Australia, including the role of social media.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Postfeminism, Girls and Young Women, and Digital Media
PART I: SEXUAL SELF-REPRESENTATIONS
3. Heterosexy Images on Social Network Sites
4. Girls, Sexting and Gender Politics
PART II: VALUABLE AND DEVALUED SELVES
5. Postfeminist Self-Making: Textual Self-Representation and the Performance of "Authentic" Young Femininity on Social Network Sites
6. Digital Girls in Crisis? Seeking Feedback and Representing Pain in Postfeminist Networked Publics
Afterword: Notes on Visibility and Self-Exposure