The seasons are changing, and so are we. We felt some strong winds coming from the disaster/social media direction and have since realigned our compass in our favour, heading in a northerly direction.
Our new aim is to look at how women participate in different media online and what the medium affords them, in terms of anonymity and representation. The fourth lecture 'Brand me and the death of privacy', in particular the reading 'Meat, Mask, Burden' has been a really interesting spring board for our idea. We're interested in the way the self is consciously constructed online, an idea that Hearn examines in detail. We're interested to see what the implications are for branding online through gender.
Here we will be able to draw on the work and concept of peforming gender; an idea expoused by Judith Butler as performance (1990). She suggests it is something that is constantly being re-enacted and contingent on social norms.
For example, the hyper feminine ideals that are aspired to in in beauty blogs and taught in tutorials on YouTube (and god there are plenty, this list goes on!!). Normative notions of what beauty should be globally are reinforced and these bloggers are implicit in its production.
This idea has been documented by the likes of Samara Anarbaeva who comments on this YouTube phenomenon. She says "when we go online, we bring our offline experiences and learned values with us"; changing the "meaning users derive through creating and commenting on videos on YouTube'.
This interplay between the online/offline self has implications that we want to explore in more breadth in the coming months. We hope you enjoy the subject change from disasters to women. We certainly have.
Until next time,
Editor Zed
References:
- Anarbaeva, S M (2011), 'YouTubing Difference: Performing identity in online do-it-yourself communitiees http://etd.ohiolink.edu/send-pdf.cgi/Anarbaeva%20Samara%20Mamatovna.pdf?bgsu1304102745
- Butler, J (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity, New York, Routledge, 1990
- Hearn, A (2008) excerpt from 'Meat, mask, burden'; Probing the contours of the branded self. Journal of Consumer Culture, vol 8
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