Masculinities Made Visible: A Critical Discursive Psychology Study of Instagram Photos

摘要

We addressed the lack of empirical work leveraging visual materials within the masculinities literature using Instagram photos to understand contemporary masculinity performance. By engaging in a detailed analysis of a social media context, we aimed to reveal some of the current mechanisms by which people are making meaning of the social world in the present-day, bringing to light new ways of identifying how people "do" gender. We used a visually informed, critical discursive psychology approach to explore how masculine identities were visually constructed on Instagram. The 10 most liked posts from 2018 at the time of data collection were selected from two celebrities' Instagram accounts. These images were coded and subsequently analyzed to identify possible visual interpretative repertoires. Three visual interpretative repertoires were located. These repertoires, sexy glaring, leisurely gentlemen, and nothing to hide, were repeatedly used in photos prominently displayed on the users' Instagram feeds to craft masculine identities that were physically and "biologically" supported by their appearances. These identities were associated with constructions of toughness, agency, masculine interests and privileged, leisurely lifestyles. An analysis of a deviant case provided support for the existence of visual hybrid masculinities among young, White individuals that largely functioned to reproduce power and privilege. Our study filled a gap in the psychology of men and masculinities by investigating constructions of gender in the visual realm. We additionally put forth that critical discursive psychology offers generative possibilities for analyzing the increasingly visual-centric world, wherein identities are being performed.