摘要:Instagram, with its ever-increasing number of users, is a social network that carries the digital culture in which the parameters of daily life are readjusted. Users voice and spread their thoughts, view-points, judgements, and attitudes on this social platform via visual posts and captions, tags, and comments that support these posts. This study aims to understand, detect, and assess the means by which the posts classified under hashtags (#) related to masculinity on Instagram represent the different types of masculinity, and categorize the types of users. In accordance with this aim, the types of users with posts (n=878) classified under the masculinity hashtag have been categorized and the visual and textual contents of the posts have been explained. The emerging themes have then been compared to literature. Eight user types (Personal Accounts, Anonymous Accounts, Promotional Accounts, Announcement/Informative Accounts, Accounts of Civil Society Initiatives, Accounts Sharing Religious Teachings, and Online Publishing Accounts) have been identified as a result of the study. The thematic analysis done on the visual and textual content has produced four main themes, these being: The properties and qualities of dominant types of masculinity, the properties and qualities of critical masculinity, the properties and qualities of feminism and women’s rights, and other. These four main themes have then been described and explained with a total of 24 sub-themes. The study has reached the conclusion that the properties and qualities by which the masculinity on Instagram positions masculinity are similar to those of common culture. However, it has discovered that critical types of masculinity and feminist discourses that are critical of dominant masculinity have found spaces for themselves in the digital field. In this light, Instagram seems to be a candidate for a place that allows the criticism of dominant masculinity, and where voices that cannot find a place to be heard in traditional modes of communication can find their places.
其他关键词:Communication Studies, Gender Studies, Masculinities, Digital Culture, Instagram, Hashtag