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Dr. Rosanna Guadagno

Social Media, Gender, and the Future: An Interview with Dr. Rosanna Guadagno

By Morgan Lyons | November 9, 2018

I had the honor of sitting down with Dr. Rosanna Guadango, a professor of Social Psychology who is
currently conducting research at the Peace Innovation Lab at Stanford University. Dr. Guadango’s
research interests focus on three main areas: Social Influence and Persuasion, Social Behavior and
Mediated-Communication, and Gender Roles.

Tell Me About Your Research

My background is in social psychology studying human social behavior, in terms of what’s typical for
interpersonal interactions, such as our thoughts, behaviors, and beliefs.

My particular area of expertise is in social influence and persuasion which looks at how people change
their attitudes and how they get others to change their attitudes and behaviors. So, what processes and
tactics might work.

I grew up in the Bay Area of San Francisco and I grew up around the same time the personal computer
industry started emerging in the 80s and 90s. When I got into grad school to study social influence with
my advisor, I told him I wanted to study email. Email was a fairly new concept at the time and my advisor
agreed to let me take it on.

I’m so glad he did because everyone else I told about my study of social influence and persuasion, their
reactions was “Why would you want to study that? Email is a passing fad!” Well, turns out, it’s not. But it
took time to demonstrate that.

After living all over the country thanks to my career, I’ve found that when it comes to technology, the Bay
Area very much lives in the future. All the new incoming technologies get developed and tested there. I
was forward looking in a way I didn’t realize at the time.

So that’s how I ended up studying social influence and technology. Over the years that has broadened a
bit … eventually different technologies morphed and evolved until we ended up in today’s world of social
media and the app economy.

As technology has changed, I’ve continued to study these processes. I’ve broadened a bit to study
individual differences such as personality and gender and how that affects the way we use technology,
sometimes in concert with social influence and persuasion, sometimes separate. I’ve built my career
studying how human psychology and social interaction desires and motives affect the way we use and
consume and interact over technology.

What Did You Study to Get Here?

All of my educational background is in psychology. I have bachelor’s and master’s in psychology.

Because I grew up in the Bay Area before I went to grad school, I actual ended up working in the
software industry in the mid-90s at 2 different corporations: Silicon Graphics (which is now defunct) and
then later at Oracle. I also worked at a few startups as well, which is how I learned about technology.
When I was going to college we didn’t have classes on social media or classes that looked at the
intersection between psychology and technology. It’s cool to see now that we’re finally getting those
classes and students interested in looking at that intersection.

Is Social Media Gendered?

Social Media is gendered, and there are so many different ways you can layer that.

I’ll give you an illustration of that. If you look at the type of social media and break it down by gender, it
becomes quite clear how gendered it is. Social media platforms like Reddit are majority male users.
When you look at social media that is more image focused, like Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram … it is very
heavily female.

There are now so many different social media options now we find that men and women engage in
different types of social media they also use and consume different types of social media as a function of
gender.

Is There a Reason Why Those Platforms are Geared Towards Certain Genders?

I don’t know the exact answer to that, but I can certainly speculate why that is.

My early research looked at gender and persuasion over email. What I started looking at was gender
differences in linguistic style and how that plays out online. Unfortunately, how it plays out online is
when it comes to text based social media (Reddit, Twitter) where everyone can see what you say and
react instantly to what you say, it seems to be male dominated. Early researchers speculated that it
might be something about the technology and the affordances of technology that were consistent with
masculine socialization.

I think part of it is that men are more willing to argue online with people, and argue to the point that it
drives women away. I’m not the only one who has expressed that opinion, other scholars have as well. I
think part of it is when a platform is more text based and argumentative, it’s almost a turn off for women
because women aren’t socialized to argue in that manner.

It reminds me of a statistic that I saw on Twitter. Among academic Twitter, if you look at who talks and
participates, the majority are men. Even if the specific subfield in academia is more female dominated.

On the more image-focused side of things, I think it’s based on the fact that women get evaluated more
on their appearance. If you think about who’s taking selfies and trying to perfect their online image, it
tends to be more female-dominated because, in part, that’s how we’re socialized. We’re socialized to
consider how our appearance matters in ways men just aren’t.

It also has a negative downside. The women who use these image-based forms of social media – it hurts
them. They compare themselves to other women, even though they don’t realize those other women
are spending an exorbitant amount of time taking these pictures. Some of them get funded by different
manufacturers of cosmetics and clothing to basically advertise these services.

What it does is create a comparison that is so unrealistic that no real person can meet these
expectations that is set. But young women don’t realize this which affects their body image and self
esteem.

How Do You See Communication Changing Due to Social Media?

When you take a step back and look at social media, it doesn’t matter what the platform is. We need to
look at who’s developing these platforms, and it is largely men. In fact, one of the shifting trends from
the mid 90s to today: there are actually fewer women in technicals roles today. I can’t speak as to why
that is, but the technologies that are being made today are being made based on the ideas of men and
the expectations of men.

In some respects, the communication processes are more consistent towards male gender roles. But also
I think one solution to this is creating a space for more diversity in technology. That includes more
people of color and more women in technical roles. That’s something that needs to change so that we
can level out these issues.
I’ve done a little research looking at how men and women use social media. Something that is consistent
with these socialized gender roles is that men are socialized to be more independent and focused on
specific tasks.

So when you look at how people spend time online, my research, as well as others, has shown that men
are more interested in making new connections online, finding people to date, finding new job
opportunities, consume news and information. Most of what they do is very independent and focused
on their intellectual needs.

When you look at women using social media, they tend to use social media and the internet more
broadly for relational aspects. They use communication technologies to maintain existing relationships
rather than create new ones. Their social networks look different than mens social networks do but also
what they spend time doing is more communicative and less information-seeking than men.

Where Do You See The Psychology of Social Media Going in the Future?

I’m very concerned about our dependence on social media. I think the way technology is being
developed now is oriented towards using people not as the customer but as the data point. We are the
data. We are what brings in the advertising revenue for social media companies. So when they develop
their products, they focus heavily on keeping us on their sites and keeping us engaged. But we’re not
questioning whether it’s good for our well-being.

My biggest concern is that if this model continues, that the customer is the advertising agency and not
the individual. What kind of affect does that have on us? It’s turning us into social media addicts, which
is unhealthy.

My hope is that at some point enough people will tune out of social media that it might actually
convince the people who are creating the technology and making money off their ad revenue, to
consider a different kind of business model where maybe we, the people, get to be the consumers.
I would pay Facebook to not have to worry about advertising or worry about them using my data in ways
that I would be uncomfortable with. I don’t have a Facebook anymore, but I liked communicating with
my friends and family through the service. But I became very concerned after seeing scandal after
scandal that showed a total lack of regard of people.

What I worry is going to happen is very different than what I hope is going to happen. What I worry is
going to happen is this trend is going to continue. It’s not healthy for individuals or healthy for society.

One of the things I’m doing at Stanford right now is studying information warfare. Information warfare is
effective in part because these different hacking groups have figured out how to leverage our networks
through social media to spread information that causes discord and disagreements about what we
accept to be real and factual as a culture. It’s already becoming destructive and it’s going to get worse
unless we stop it.

What Do You Hope to See for the Future of Social Media?

My hope is that this technology morphs and changes.

What I would like to see is a shift of social media towards being more interactive with people.
Technology is a great bridge for that, if done right. Examples of this could be more video chats, higher
bandwidth, and synchronic interactions. I think a lot of the negatives aspects of social media will go away
if we do that.

The other issue is sometimes with social media we intend to say something that is meant to go to only
one or two people but it ends up being broadcasted to hundreds. A suggestion for this is having a
narrowing or a stratification of our networks so that we have more control over what we say and who
sees it.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Morgan Lyons
Morgan Lyons

Morgan is the currently a Student Editor for InfoSpace. She is majoring in Information Management and
Technology with a concentration in Digital Retail strategies an a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies.
She is an iSchool Peer Advisor and a brother of Phi Sigma Pi, The National Honors Fraternity.

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Share Download full-text PDF

Gender roles on social networking sites: investigating reciprocal relationships between Dutch
adolescents’ hypermasculinity and hyperfemininity and sexy online self-presentations

Article (PDF Available) in Journal of Children and Media 11(2):1-20 · March 2017 with 322 Reads

DOI: 10.1080/17482798.2017.1304970

Cite this publication

Johanna van Oosten at University of Amsterdam

Johanna van Oosten

21.22University of Amsterdam
Laura Vandenbosch at KU Leuven

Laura Vandenbosch

28.95KU Leuven

Jochen Peter at University of Amsterdam

Jochen Peter

36.27University of Amsterdam

Abstract

Previous research has suggested that adolescents play out stereotypical gender roles in their self-
presentations in social media. However, longitudinal research on the relationships between (sexy) online
self-presentation and adolescents’ gender role orientation is lacking. The present study investigated
whether endorsing a stereotypical gender role orientation (i.e., hypermasculinity for boys,
hyperfemininity for girls) predisposes adolescents to engage in sexy self-presentation or to look at
others’ sexy self-presentations in social media. In addition, we investigated whether engaging in sexy
self-presentation and looking at others’ sexy self-presentation predicted an increased hypergender
orientation over time. Using a three-wave short-term longitudinal panel survey among 1467 Dutch
adolescents with six-month time intervals between waves, we found that adolescents’ hypergender
orientation predicted more frequent sexy self-presentation and exposure to others’ sexy self-
presentations in social media. Hypergender orientations were not predicted by these online behaviors
and no gender differences were found.

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 This is a pre-print version of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Children and Media,
available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2017.1304970 Gender Roles on Social
Networking Sites: Investigating Reciprocal Relationships Between Dutch Adolescents’ Hypermasculinity
and Hyperfemininity and Sexy Online Self-Presentations Johanna M.F. van Oosten (PhD)1, Laura
Vandenbosch (PhD)2 & Jochen Peter (PhD)1 Correspondence concerning this article should be
addressed to Johanna M.F. van Oosten, The Amsterdam School of Communication Research, ASCoR,
University of Amsterdam, Postbus 15791, 1001 NG Amsterdam, phone: +31 625571785, email:
j.m.f.vanoosten@uva.nl 1 Amsterdam School of Communication
Research (ASCoR) University of Amsterdam, Postbus 15791, 1001 NG Amsterdam, the Netherlands 2
Research Foundation Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen) associated with School for Mass Communication
Research, KU Leuven, Parkstraat 42, 3000 Leuven, Belgium and MIOS (Media, ICT, and Interpersonal
Relations In Organizations and Society), University of Antwerp, Sint-Jacobsstraat 2, 2000 Antwerp,
Belgium

1 Abstract Previous research has suggested that adolescents play out stereotypical gender roles in their
self-presentations in social media. However, longitudinal research on the relationships between (sexy)
online self-presentation and adolescents’ gender role orientation is lacking. The present study
investigated whether endorsing a stereotypical gender role orientation (i.e., hypermasculinity for boys,
hyperfemininity for girls) predisposes adolescents to engage in sexy self-presentation or to look at
others’ sexy self-presentations in social media. In addition, we investigated whether engaging in sexy
self-presentation and looking at others’ sexy self-presentation predicted an increased hypergender
orientation over time. Using a three-wave short-term longitudinal panel survey among 1,467 Dutch
adolescents with six-month time intervals between waves, we found that adolescents’ hypergender
orientation predicted more frequent sexy self-presentation and exposure to others’ sexy self-
presentations in social media. Hypergender orientations were not predicted by these online behaviors
and no gender differences were found. Keywords: Teenagers; youth; media effects; Facebook;
Snapchat; Instagram;

2 Gender Roles on Social Networking Sites: Investigating Reciprocal Relationships Between Dutch
Adolescents’ Hypermasculinity and Hyperfemininity and Sexy Online Self-Presentations The past years
have seen a growing interest in adolescents’ behavior on social networking sites (SNSs) (e.g., boyd, 2007;
Lenhart, Purcell, Smith, & Zickuhr, 2010; Livingstone, 2008; Livingstone & Brake, 2010; Shafer, Bobkowski,
& Brown, 2013). In particular, adolescents’ sexual behavior on SNSs, in the form of visual sexy self-
presentation, has received increasing attention by scholars (e.g., Crescenzi, Araüna, & Tortajada, 2013;
Kapidzic & Herring, 2014; Moreno, Parks, Zimmerman, Brito, & Christakis, 2009). Sexy self-presentation
on SNSs consists of posting pictures in which one engages in seductive or sexy gazing (Kapidzic &
Herring, 2014), suggests sexual readiness in one’s pose (Crescenzi et al., 2013; Hall, West, & McIntyre,
2012), and has a sexy appearance or is scantily dressed (e.g., Crescenzi et al., 2013; Hall et al., 2012;
Moreno et al., 2009; Peluchette & Karl, 2009). Such sexy self-presentations may allow adolescents to
explore their (sexual) identity and to learn about what is appropriate when it comes to sexual matters
(e.g., Ringrose, 2011; Ringrose & Eriksson Barajas, 2011). However, we still know little about which
adolescents are more or less likely to engage in sexy self-presentations on SNSs. Similarly, it is largely
unknown what predisposes adolescents to look at the online sexy self-presentations of their peers. Such
knowledge is important as it sheds light on the gratifications that adolescents seek from the use and
production of content on SNSs (Perloff, 2014) and is timely given the high use of SNSs among
adolescents (e.g., Lenhart et al., 2010). Some scholars have started to investigate predictors of
adolescents’ own sexy self-presentation (e.g., subjective peer norms, Baumgartner, Sumter, Peter, &
Valkenburg, 2015; gender, sexual experience and sexual interest, Doornwaard, Moreno, van den Eijnden,
Vanwesenbeeck, & Ter Bogt, 2014), as well as of adolescents’ exposure to sexy self-presentations of
others (e.g., sexual objectification of women; instrumental attitudes towards sex,

3 and sexual experience, van Oosten, Peter, & Boot, 2015a). However, one particularly relevant
predisposing factor has still been overlooked in the literature, namely adolescents’ endorsement of
stereotypical gender roles. In this study, stereotypical gender roles entail hypermasculinity for boys and
hyperfemininity for girls. Hypermasculinity refers to men’s tendency to engage in macho and dominant
behavior (Mosher & Sirkin, 1984). Hyperfemininity is defined as an “exaggerated adherence to a
stereotypic feminine gender role,” which, among other things, includes the use of physical attributes and
sexuality to attract men and to maintain relationships with them (Murnen & Byrne, 1991, p. 480). Initial
evidence suggests that young people take over stereotypical gender role messages from traditional
media and society (Manago, Graham, Greenfield, & Salimkhan, 2008; Stokes, 2007; Tortajada, Araüna, &
Martinez, 2013) and play out typical masculine or feminine gender roles when they post sexy pictures of
themselves on SNSs (Kapidzic & Herring, 2011; Manago et al., 2008; Renold & Ringrose, 2011; Ringrose,
2011; Siibak, 2010). However, longitudinal research on the relationship between hypergender
orientation and adolescents’ sexy self-presentations on SNSs is still lacking. Based on gender role
development theories (i.e., Gender Schema Theory, Bem, 1981), and media effect theories (i.e., Media
Practice Model, Steele & Brown, 1995; Reinforcing Spiral Model, Slater, 2007), the present study had two
main aims; 1) to investigate whether adolescents’ endorsement of hypergender roles predicts
engagement in sexy online self-presentations and exposure to others’ sexy self-presentations over time,
and 2) to investigate whether adolescents’ sexy online self-presentations and their exposure to others’
sexy self-presentations predict their hypergender orientation over time. In addition, given the gender
differences in sexy self-presentation found in previous research (Hall et al., 2012; Manago et al., 2008;
Thiel-Stern, 2009), a sub-aim of the present study was to explore gender differences in the

4 reciprocal relationships between adolescents’ hypergender orientation and their sexy self-
presentations and/or exposure to others’ sexy self-presentations. Predicting Adolescents’ (Exposure to)
Sexy Self-Presentation from Hypergender Orientation Theories on gender role development and young
people’s media use suggest that hypergender orientation may predict adolescents’ (exposure to) sexy
self-presentations in SNSs. According to Gender Schema Theory (Bem, 1981), children learn what it
means to be a boy or a girl from an early age. This learning process also entails stereotypical messages
about gender, such as that boys are strong and girls are weak. During young people’s development,
gender schemas become increasingly linked to the self-concept and, thus, progressively guide future
perceptions, judgements, and behaviors including self-presentation behaviors (Bem, 1981). Gender
Schema Theory was developed to describe the process of organizing one’s self-concept and behavior on
the basis of gender (i.e., male versus female) and the extent to which individuals differ in this respect
(i.e., sex-typed versus non-sexy-typed individuals, Bem, 1981). In line with this theory, several studies
have shown that, from early childhood on, a greater adherence to (stereotypical) gender identities
predicts gender typical behavior, as well as greater attention to and memory of others engaging in
gender-typical (or stereotypical) behavior (for an overview, see Halim & Ruble, 2010). In the past
decades, scholars have started to focus on the sexualized and stereotypical nature of the gender roles
that adolescents develop (i.e., hypergender orientation). Tolman (2002), for instance, has argued that
girls are encouraged to look sexy, and are taught an adult form of sexuality that may suggest their sexual
availability. Similarly, studies have suggested that some women and girls have adopted the idea that
femininity is strongly about physical attractiveness and the male gaze (e.g., Liss, Erchull, & Ramsey, 2011;
Zurbriggen et al., 2010).

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Citations (7)

References (87)

... Second, young people might feel pressure to portray themselves and judge others according to these
very stereotyped standards (Banet-Waiser 2011). Hyperfeminine self-portrayals, at the same time, seem
to predispose adolescent girls to self-sexualization ( Oosten et al. 2017) and, at the same time, to sexting
(Oosten and Vandenbosch 2017) -which does not need to be harm- ful, except if sexual violence or
shaming towards women is reproduced in this context. According to Sarabia and Estévez (2016),
sexualization online might make young users more vulnerable, and yet our studies should focus on the
societal practices and beliefs that sometimes render young people defence- less. ...

... Children's peer culture and peer norms, for instance related to online disclosure (James 2009), are
also influential in the way they perceive and create a discourse about risks (Smahel andWright 2014,
McGovern et al. 2016). SNS and self-presentation strategies have been the focus of several researches
about young people's practices online ( Oosten et al. 2017). As SNS 'are spaces where increasingly
normalized hyper-sexualized and pornified discourses and visual imagery circulate rapidly' (Ringrose
2011: 101), teenag- ers try to obtain 'praise and recognition' while avoiding 'criticism and derision'
(Berriman and Thomson 2014: 595). ...

Historical, temporal and contemporary trends on gender and media

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... Cuando a esta ecuación se le añade la variable género, el impacto de unas sobre otras se hace aún
más visible. Dicho impacto entre medios de comunicación y estereotipos de género ha sido
extensamente estudiado (Tortajada, Araüna, y Martínez, 2013;Gallego, 2014;Brito y Capito, 2016), así
como el que tienen determinadas redes sociales sobre la conformación de una identidad de género (van
Oosten, Vandenbosch & Peter, 2017;Tortajada, Araüna y Martínez, 2013;Rose et al., 2012). Sin embargo,
cuando pensamos en las intersecciones, o más bien intra-acciones (Barad, 2007), que relacionan estos
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Gender-Specific Behaviors on Social Media and What They Mean for Online Communications

By Aleksandra Atanasova
Published Nov. 6, 2016

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Gender-Specific Behaviors on Social Media and What They Mean for Online Communications | Social
Media TodayHave you ever wondered why there are more women than men on Pinterest? Or that trolls
are more commonly male?

In this post, we'll look at some of the more gender-specific behaviors on social media, the motivations
behind such actions and what it means in our wider understanding of social behaviors.

News vs friendships

Research shows that men are more likely to use social media to seek information, while women use
social platforms to connect with people. Studies also show that when men do open social media
accounts to network, they're more often looking to form new relationships, while women are more
focused on sustaining existing ones.

An investigation conducted by Facebook found that female users of their platform tend to share more
personal issues (e.g., family matters, relationships), whereas men discuss more abstract topics (e.g.,
politics). Facebook's research team analyzed 1.5m status updates published on the platform, categorizing
them into topics. Each topic was then evaluated on the basis of both gender preferences and audience
reactions. The results showed that men and women not only prefer certain topics, but distinct 'female'
topics (e.g. birthdays, family fun) tend to receive more likes from other users, while clearly 'male' topics
(e.g. sports, deep thoughts) elicit more comments.

We can't infer, however, that women aren't interested in abstract topics enough as to share them. One of
the reasons why female users may be more reticent online is negative feedback. Indeed, women receive
more abusive comments when expressing their opinions. A telling example is this Twitter experiment
conducted by British journalist Martin Belam - Belam created a spoof account in which he pretended to
guest-tweet as different male and female celebrities. When he presented himself as a woman, the
account received significantly more offensive comments, and even blatantly misogynist ones.
Research conducted by The Guardian found similar - an analysis of 70 million readers' comments on their
website showed that 8 of the 10 most abused journalists were women.

Totally HerSelfie

Depending on what men and women like to talk about on social media, their platform of choice will also
vary. Female users generally prefer visual platforms, while men gravitate to more text-oriented mediums.
Indeed, Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram have a larger female user base, while online discussion
forums such as Reddit or Digg count more male users.

So why are women more drawn to producing and sharing visual content? Tallinn University sociologist
Katrin Tiidenberg believes the answer may lie in the traditional female role in the family - in all societies
mothers have been historically responsible for taking family photos. In this sense, Instagram is a modern
continuation of a female practice that began with the popularization of photography.

Maybe this can also help explain why women post more selfies than men: the Selfieexploratory project
for example analyzed 3800 Instagram selfies from 5 cities across the world and found that the number of
female selfies is always significantly higher. A recent study from the Ohio State University even suggests
that men who take a lot of selfies tend to have narcissistic or psychopathic personalities.

But it's not just a knack for photography that makes girls strike a pose.

Trimmed up for some likes

All content we post - photos especially - is motivated by a desire to make a good impression on others.

Women and men, however, differ in their self-presentation on social media. For example, women post
more portrait photos with direct eye contact, while men prefer more full body shots that include other
people. Male users are also more likely to post more outdoor photographs which present them in a
more adventurous light.
These differences are even more pronounced among younger users - several studies have shown that
teenagers often use gender stereotypes to build their social media personas. For instance, teenage girls
are more likely to post overtly seductive photos of themselves, while boys are more inclined to share
pictures related to risky behaviors, alcohol or sex. Girls also tend to share more 'cute' pictures, too (think
of those puppies).

A Northwestern University study also found that male users are generally more self-promotional on
social media and are more likely to show their creative work, like writings, music or videos, online.
Almost two-thirds of men reported posting their work online compared to only half of women.

She said: "OMG!!", he said: "Yeah"

Social media data also shows that men and women communicate very differently on social platforms.

Men are more likely to use authoritative language and more formal speech than women. Males respond
more negatively in interactions, as well, whereas women tend to use 'warmer' and more positive words.

Women also use words more emotionally. A recently study examined 15.4 million status updates made
by 68,000 Facebook users and found that words describing positive emotions (e.g., "excited", "happy",
"love"), social relationships (e.g., "friends", "family"), and intensive adverbs (e.g., "sooo", "sooooo",
"ridiculously") were predominantly used by women. By comparison, male topics were fact-oriented and
included words related to politics (e.g., "government", "tax"), sports and competition (e.g., "football",
"season", "win", "battle").

It's even possible to identify the gender of social media users solely based on their writing style.
Academics from John Hopkins University analyzed the language of Twitter users and found that women
use more emoticons and put increased emphasis on punctuation, included ellipses, repeated
exclamations (!!!) and puzzled punctuation (?!). The expressions "OMG" and "lol" are also predominantly
used by females, while the affirmation "yeah" is more strongly associated with men.
Congruent with this are the findings of a content analysis of 14.000 Twitter users. Researchers identified
the 10,000 most used lexical items (both individual words and word-like items such as emoticons and
punctuation) and discovered that female authors write with more personal pronouns (e. g. "you", "me"),
use non-standard spelling of words (e. g. "Nooo waaay"), and more hesitant words ("hmm", "umm").
Offensive and taboo words, on the other hand, were strongly among male users.

Men are also more likely to engage in trolling, or aggressive language, online. Psychology Professor Mark
Griffiths says that the prevalence of male trolling may be related to the fact that men use the Internet as
a way to vent their aggression, something they're not able to do in face-to-face communication, unlike
women.

Interestingly, male language also appears to be more possessive - male Facebook users include the
possessive pronoun 'my' when mentioning their 'wife' or 'girlfriend' more often than female users talking
about their husband or boyfriends, found another research team.

To sum up

Men and women communicate differently in real life, which naturally reflects how they use social media.
They post about different things, prefer certain platforms and even use language differently. Some
findings might appear obvious, others are unexpected: what strikes you as most intriguing?

Gender-Specific Behaviors on Social Media and What They Mean for Online Communications | Social
Media Today

The vector images used to create the visuals above are from Pixabay.com. Many thanks to all authors.

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Teens, Gender Roles, Socialization and Social Media

Zeynep Hancı

Zeynep Hancı

Gender Roles, Socialization and Social Media

An essay on the social construction of gender socialization and self presentation through social media

Figure. 1

Zeynep Hancı 6063195

Wild Years 200600056 Universiteit Utrecht Cha Hsuan Liu

Content

1.Introduction 2.What are gender roles, gender stereotypes and gender socialization?

3.Gender roles, gender stereotypes and gender socialization on traditional and social media 3.1 Gender
Socialization and Social Media Use 3.2 Gender Socialization, Social Media Profile and Self-Presentation
4. The Analysis of Gender Roles, Stereotypes and Socialization through Social Media 4.1 Social Learning
Theory 4.2 Social Constructivist Theory; Doing Gender Perspective 4.3 Identity Control Theory
5.Discussion 6.References

1.Introduction

‘’Hello everybody! Welcome to my channel! Today, I am going to show you my version

of no-makeup makeup for better Instagram selfies. If you are not still following me on Instagram, go
check

out my page and please don’t forget to comment and get subscribed on my channel!’’
(Youtube, 2017)

‘’Hi everyone! Today, I will play World of Warcraft which I also left the link in Twitter and if you like it
please don’t forget to click to like and subscribe button!’’( Youtube, 2017)

These lines are from only two of the many vlogs (video blogs) on Youtube that can be

found by simply writing ‘’boy vlog’’ or ‘’girl vlog’’ and that you are most likely to hear when

you randomly open one of them. Even they are just examples of average video blogs, they tell a

lot about today’s social media culture by using some keywords like better selfies, following,

commenting, getting subscribed and connectedness of different social networks like Instagram, Twitter,
Facebook and Youtube. Besides the general information given, these examples of vlogs also reveals some
information about gender socialization as well as how it consolidates gender stereotypes and gender
roles by leading us to makeup, shopping and fashion vloggers for girls and gaming or prank vloggers for
boys.

When children learn the content of society’s gender schema, they translate this content in

what boys and girls should be, should like or should do. Then, they apply this information to themselves
and take

over society’s gender schema. The gender schema which is referred in this case is a cognitive framework.
It’s a network of associations that organizes and guides an

individual's perception (Bem, 1983). Moreover, this gender schema becomes some sort of guideline for
children to learn about the differences between expectations of society towards females and males and
to apply this to themselves throughout their lives including their use of social media.

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Cognitive Science

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The Daily Campus

October 18, 2018

Effect of gender roles in the media on young women

By Keren Blaunstein Opinion

FILE - In this Feb. 3, 2017, file photo journalist Jemele Hill attends ESPN: The Party 2017 in Houston,
Texas. (Photo by John Salangsang/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 3, 2017, file photo journalist Jemele Hill attends ESPN: The Party 2017 in Houston,
Texas. (Photo by John Salangsang/Invision/AP, File)

Whether you played with Barbie dolls or action figures, watched Beauty and the Beast or Power Rangers,
you have been exposed to gender stereotypes at a young age. The entertainment and marketing media
inevitably use these stereotypes to attract consumers, and send misleading messages about sexual
identity that can easily influence young children. Designating toys or fictional characters specifically for
girls and boys inflicts gender roles and stereotypes upon young children and hinders the development of
their sexual identities.

The portrayal of women in children’s media is a major contributor to gender stereotypes because it
embeds a foundational misconception of gender identity during a young age. Society defines the
femininity and elegance in princesses and other female characters as the only desirable form of beauty.
This makes girls believe they need to exemplify that form of beauty to be considered attractive and
desirable in society. Implementing this notion into the minds of young girls substantially affects the
development of their gender identities because they fear that without conforming to the societally-
accepted definition of beauty, they will not be desirable in society. Even the image of masculinity
portrayed in the media affects the gender identity development of young women, because they are
guided away from behaviors and appearances that society considers masculine. The macho and heroic
image attached to masculine characters in children’s media illustrates desirable masculine behavior for
boys, and undesirable, non-feminine behavior for girls.
Gender stereotyping in marketing to children puts genders into defined boxes. By appealing to the
consumption behavior of most girls, the marketing media paints a picture that normalizes the
preferences of most young girls and abnormalizes the preferences of others that deviate from this status
quo. Labeling products as “boy-ish” or “girl-ish” limits the products girls consume because they are sent
the message that buying “boy-ish” goods will make them abnormal or less girly. Young girls who want to
explore interest in “boy-ish” toys will be less inclined to do so out of worry that they will not be as
feminine as they are expected to be.

The embedded ideas of desirable and undesirable behavior society expects from young girls hinders
their development out of fear or worry of not meeting societal expectations. Allowing children to
develop their gender identities without the influence of gender stereotypes is crucial to their self-
definition. The influence of gender stereotypes on this developmental process can be very abnormalizing
and discouraging, so learning to minimize this influence will enhance a child’s ability to define
themselves and their sexual identity. But avoiding or controlling the media’s influence on children is
difficult, especially since social media is central to mass communication in modern society.

You can’t control what children see online and how they interpret it, but you can explain to them the
overgeneralization of gender roles by the media that they will often come into contact with. For instance,
explaining to a young girl that it is okay to not look like Cinderella at the ball and that Cinderella’s
appearance doesn’t define what beauty is will lessen the effect that the image of princesses like
Cinderella have on that young girl. When unaffected by media portrayals of gender stereotypes, children
will feel more free to express what their interests are and not worry about falling into a category
illustrated by social norms. Embedding the notion that gender stereotypes are a societal norm conveys
the message that the media should not teach children what desirable behavior or beauty is. Teaching
kids to listen to themselves instead of the media, to consider their personal interests and ideas of beauty
rather than what the mass media portrays will be more beneficial to them.

Keren Blaunstein is a weekly columnist for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at
keren.blaunstein@uconn.edu.

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http://dailycampus.com/stories/2018/10/17/effect-of-gender-roles-in-the-media-on-young-women

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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences

Volume 180, 5 May 2015, Pages 1199-1206

Gender Representations and Digital Media☆

Author links open overlay panelDorinPopaaDeliaGavriliub

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.02.244

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Under a Creative Commons licenseopen access

Abstract

The construction of gender goes on today through various technologies of gender (e.g. cinema) and
individual discourses (e.g. theory) with the power to control the field of social meaning and thus
produce, promote, and ‘implant’ representations of gender. Digital media had and has even now an
immense growing through the media consumption. The need to study ‘whose voices are being heard in
digital media’ passes from typically portrayed media (especially advertising and television) gender-
specific items– men with alcohol, vehicles, or business products, women associated with domestic
products to the position of women as media professionals or news actors. Our research tries to identify
some of the new gender images in online media, by news content analysis. Being aware of the impact of
the news industries on our cultural, political, and social lives, we have chosen to focus our study on how
texts operate to produce meanings which reproduce dominant ideologies of gender in digital media
news.

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Keywords

media genderidentityonline medianews.

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Peer-review under responsibility of The Association “Education for tomorrow” / [Asociatia “Educatie
pentru maine”].

Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

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https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0196859912473777?journalCode=jcia

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Women/WRGS/Pages/GenderStereotypes.aspx