'#Strenght': A critical investigation of the contemporaryrepresentations of men and women in fitness communities on Instagram

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Contemporary linguists seek to describe and analyse all manifestations of language, includingthose occurring on the Internet (see Crystal 2011:1). Investigating visual and linguisticrepresentations on the Internet can offer insights into the ways in which individuals view andparticipate in particular social practices. It can also highlight dominant ideologies about aparticular social practice, ideologies which can limit participation amongst particular groupsof people (van Dijk 2003:96). In light of this, this thesis explores the visual and textualrepresentations of one aspect of social life (sport) on one Internet genre (Instagram). Theanalysis is limited to representations which include the hashtag '#strength'. Limiting theanalysis in this way necessarily means that the data is representative of ideologies related togender, strength and power in a sporting context.In line with more contemporary research into language and discourse, this thesis adopts theview that the visual and linguistic features of a text are not removed from the social contextbut can offer researchers a deeper understanding of the context in which the text is produced,circulated and read (Breeze 2011:521). By drawing on Fairclough's (2003) method ofCritical Discourse Analysis (CDA), genre studies (Jones 2012), Kress and Van Leeuwen's(2006) framework for multimodality as well as feminist theory (Bordo 2004), the researcherensures that the text is analysed and understood on multiple levels.An initial thematic analysis of one hundred Instagram posts with the hashtag 'strength'reveals that male and female users are still limited to traditional gender binaries that separatesport types as appropriately 'male' or appropriately 'female'. This initial analysis also revealsthat online representations of sport are still restricted by masculine hegemonic norms, asfemale users are overwhelmingly represented in individual, non-contact or aesthetic sporttypes. A detailed CDA and multimodal analysis of twenty purposively selected Instagramposts reveals the presence of shared visual and linguistic markers that perpetuate maledominance and female subservience. By drawing on social theoretical understandings ofcontemporary life, this thesis eventually argues that the narrow representations of masculinityand femininity present in the data set work to limit or even exclude both men and womenfrom participating in certain aspects of social life.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University