Discovering self-presentation in gay male online personal advertisements.

摘要

This thesis examines self-presentation of gay males (http//www.craigslist.org) in personal advertisements on Craigslist.org. One hundred Greater Chicago, Illinois area personal advertisements were analyzed regarding long-term relationships, short-term sexual gratification and platonic relationship types involving disclosure and boundaries. A content and thematic analysis was used to examine personal ads. This study was conducted utilizing key words as described by Groom and Pennebaker (2005), Hatala, Milewski, and Baack (1999), Parrott, Lemieux, Harris, and Foreman (1997), and Phua (2002) in their respective studies of personal ads. Six areas of focus were analyzed utilizing the previous studies: relationships, physical information, demographic information, academic information, computer specific information, and miscellaneous information. Twenty-one subcategories were analyzed: age, age preference, height, weight, ethnicity, body parts, sexual orientation, marital status, sexual position, sex roles, fantasies, sexual health, year, school, major, Greek, homepage, emoticon, music interests, movie interests, and other interests. Results show that men seeking men on Craigslist.org are searching for sexual relationships more than any other type of relationship.