Abstract
Dobson argues for an orientation of research into intimate and sexual media practices around power and social justice. She frames intimate and sexual media practices in terms of their potential social and economic value, rather than in terms of risks and pathologies. Dobson, however, points to the limits of understanding sexting and other kinds of intimate media practices as ‘agentic media production’, through a careful consideration of research into girls’ and young women’s digital media cultures. To understand self and media production as an individual act is to ignore the ways in which it is socially and technically conditioned, she argues. A social justice orientation becomes imperative in a techno-social context where personal relations have been rapidly monetised through digital media platforms in ways that work to propose a new version of ‘the social’ centred around quantified hierarchies of visibility and status.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
One possibility I have suggested elsewhere is to critically question further the articulations of girls ’ ‘sexual attention seeking’ that seem to arise repeatedly in discussions with young people about sexting and other kinds of digital sexual media and self-production (Dobson 2015, p. 92). Seeing as this is one of the limited ways it appears girls ’ desire and sexual agency is discussed, could sexual and appearance-related ‘attention seeking’ be further explored, and reframed somehow in our discussions with youth and adult stakeholders as normal/acceptable/positive rather than shameful or ‘slutty’?
References
Albury, K. (2015). Selfies, Sexts, and Sneaky Hats: Young People’s Understandings of Gendered Practices of Self-Representation. International Journal of Communication, 9(2015), 1734–1745.
Albury, K. (2017). Just Because It’s Public Doesn’t Mean It’s Any of Your Business: Adults’ and Children’s Sexual Rights in Digitally Mediated Spaces. New Media & Society, 19(5), 713–725.
Albury, K., & Byron, P. (2014). Queering Sexting and Sexualisation. Media International Australia, 153(November), 138–147.
Albury, K., Crawford, K., Byron, P., & Mathews, B. (2013). Young People and Sexting in Australia: Ethics, Representation and the Law: ARC Centre for Creative Industries and Innovation/Journalism and Media Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Australia.
Andrejevic M. (2011). Social Network Exploitation. In Z. Papacharissi (Ed.), A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites. New York, NY: Routledge.
Athique, A. (2017). The Dynamics and Potentials of Big Data for Audience Research. Media, Culture & Society, 40(1), 59–74.
Attwood, F. (2006). Sexed Up: Theorizing the Sexualization of Culture. Sexualities, 9(1), 77–94.
Baker, J. (2010). Claiming Volition and Evading Victimhood: Post-Feminist Obligations for Young Women. Feminism & Psychology, 20(2), 186–204.
Berlant, L., & Warner, M. (1998). Sex in Public. Critical Inquiry, 24(2), 547–566.
Bucher, T. (2012). Want to Be on the Top? Algorithmic Power and the Threat of Invisibility on Facebook. New Media & Society, 14(7), 1164–1180.
Bucher, T. (2017). The Algorithmic Imaginary: Exploring the Ordinary Affects of Facebook Algorithms. Information, Communication & Society, 20(1), 30–44.
Burkett, M. (2015). Sex(t) Talk: A Qualitative Analysis of Young Adults’ Negotiations of the Pleasures and Perils of Sexting. Sexuality & Culture, 19(4), 835–863.
Burkett, M., & Hamilton, K. (2012). Postfeminist Sexual Agency: Young Women’s Negotiations of Sexual Consent. Sexualities, 15(7), 815–833. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460712454076.
Burns, A. (2015). Self(ie)-Discipline: Social Regulation as Enacted Through the Discussion of Photographic Practice. International Journal of Communication, 9, 1716–1733.
Carah, N., & Angus, D. (2018). Algorithmic Brand Culture: Participatory Labour, Machine Learning and Branding on Social Media. Media, Culture & Society, 40(2), 178–194.
Carah, N., & Dobson, A. (2016). Algorithmic Hotness: Young Women’s “Promotion” and “Reconnaissance” Work via Social Media Body Images. Social Media + Society, 4(2).
Cheney-Lippold, J. (2017). We Are Data: Algorithms and the Making of Our Digital Selves. New York: New York University Press.
Coffey, J., & Farrugia, D. (2013). Unpacking the Black Box: The Problem of Agency in the Sociology of Youth. Journal of Youth Studies, 17(4), 461–474.
Couldry, N. (2012). Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Couldry, N., & van Dijck, J. (2015). Researching Social Media as if the Social Mattered. Social Media + Society, 1(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115604174.
Cover, R. (2018). Chapter 7, this volume.
Croeser, S. (2016). Thinking Beyond ‘Free Speech’ in Responding to Online Harassment. Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, 10. https://doi.org/10.7264/n35q4tc4.
Dahlberg, L. (2015). Expanding Digital Divides Research: A Critical Political Economy of Social Media. The Communication Review, 18(4), 271–293. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2015.1085777.
De Ridder, S. (2017). Social Media and Young People’s Sexualities: Values, Norms, and Battlegrounds. Social Media + Society, 3(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305117738992.
Dobson, A.S. (2015). Postfeminist Digital Cultures: Femininity, Social Media, and Self-Representation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Dobson, A.S., & Ringrose, J. (2016). Sext Education: Pedagogies of Sex, Gender and Shame in the Schoolyards of Tagged and Exposed. Sex Education, 16(1), 8–21.
Duguay, S. (2016). Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Queer Visibility Through Selfies: Comparing Platform Mediators Across Ruby Rose’s Instagram and Vine Presence. Social Media + Society, 2(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305116641975.
Gill, R. (2012). Media, Empowerment and the ‘Sexualization of Culture’ Debates. Sex Roles, 66(11), 736–745. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-011-0107-1.
Gill, R., & Donaghue, N. (2013). As if Postfeminism Had Come True: The Turn to Agency in Cultural Studies of ‘Sexualisation’. In S. Madhok, A. Phillips, & K. Wilson (Eds.), Gender, Agency, and Coercion. Houndsmill, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hart, M. Chapter 11, this volume.
Harris, A., & Dobson, A. S. (2015). Theorizing Agency in Post-girlpower Times. Continuum, 29(2), 145–156.
Harvey, L., & Ringrose, J. (2015). Sexting, Ratings and (Mis)recognition: Teen Boys Performing Classed and Racialized Masculinities in Digitally Networked Publics. In E. Renold, J. Ringrose, & R. D. Egan (Eds.), Children, Sexuality and Sexualisation. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hasinoff, A. (2015). Sexting Panic: Rethinking Rethinking Criminalization, Privacy, and Consent. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Hobbs, M., Owen, S., & Gerber, L. (2016). Liquid Love? Dating Apps, Sex, Relationships and the Digital Transformation of Intimacy. Journal of Sociology, 53(2), 271–284.
Kanai, A. (2015). Thinking Beyond the Internet as a Tool: Girls’ Online spaces as Postfeminist Structures of Surveillance. In J. Bailey & V. Steeves (Eds.), eGirls, eCitizens (pp. 83–106). Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press.
Kanai, A. (2017, e-first). On Not Taking the Self Seriously: Resilience, Relatability and Humour in Young Women’s Tumblr Blogs. European Journal of Cultural Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549417722092.
Karaian, L. (2012). Lolita Speaks: ‘Sexting,’ Teenage Girls and the Law. Crime, Media, Culture, 8(1), 57–73.
Keller, J. (2016). Girls’ Feminist Blogging in a Postfeminist Age. New York: Routledge.
Lamb, S., & Peterson, Z. (2012). Adolescent Girls’ Sexual Empowerment: Two Feminists Explore the Concept. Sex Roles, 66(11), 703–712.
Lambert, A. (2016). Intimacy and Social Capital on Facebook: Beyond the Psychological Perspective. New Media & Society, 18(1), 2559–2575.
Madhok, S., Phillips, A., & Wilson, K. (Eds.). (2013). Gender, Agency and Coercion. Houndsmill, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
May, R. (2013). Cybersexual Violence Series Part 3: “Respect Yourself”. Retrieved from http://jhruoftmag.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/cybersexual-violence-series-part-3-respect-yourself/.
McClelland, S., & Fine, M. (2008). Rescuing a Theory of Adolescent Sexual Excess: Young Women and Wanting. In A. Harris (Ed.), Next Wave Cultures: Feminism, Subcultures, Activism (pp. 83–102). New York: Routledge.
McGlotten, S. (2013). Virtual Intimacies: Media, Affect and Queer Sociality. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Mulholland, M. (2013). Young People and Pornography: Negotiating Pornification. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Petchesky, R. (2000). Sexual Rights: Inventing a Concept, Mapping an International Practice. In R. Parker, R. M. Barbosa, & P. Aggleton (Eds.), Framing the Sexual Subject: The Politics of Gender, Sexuality and Power (pp. 81–103). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Pitcan, M., Marwick, A. E., & boyd, d. (2018). Performing a Vanilla Self: Respectability Politics, Social Class, and the Digital World. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmy008.
Powell, A., & Henry, N. (2017). Sexual Violence in a Digital Age. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Race, K. (2015). Speculative Pragmatism and Intimate Arrangements: Online Hook-Up Devices in Gay Life. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 17(4), 496–511.
Ringrose, J., & Harvey, L. (2015). Boobs, Back-Off, Six Packs and Bits: Mediated Body Parts, Gendered Reward, and Sexual Shame in Teens’ Sexting Images. Continuum, 29(2), 205–217.
Ringrose, J., Harvey, L., Gill, R., & Livingstone, S. (2013). Teen Girls, Sexual Double Standards and ‘Sexting’: Gendered Value in Digital Image Exchange. Feminist Theory, 14(3), 305–323.
Rubin, G. (1984). Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality. In C. Vance (Ed.), Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality. London: Kegan and Paul.
Rubin, J., & McClelland, S. (2015). ‘Even Though It’s a Small Checkbox, It’s a Big Deal’: Stresses and Strains of Managing Sexual Identity(s) on Facebook. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 17(4), 512–526.
Salter, M. (2016). Privates in the Online Public: Sex(ting) and Reputation on Social Media. New Media & Society, 18(11), 2723–2739.
Salter, M. (2017). Crime, Justice and Social Media. London: Routledge.
Salter, M. (2018). Chapter 3, this volume.
Scharff, C. (2012). Repudiating Feminism: Young Women in a Neoliberal World. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate.
Skeggs, B., & Yuill, S. (2016). Capital Experimentation with Person/a Formation: How Facebook’s Monetization Refigures the Relationship Between Property, Personhood and Protest. Information, Communication & Society, 19(9), 380–396.
Thiel-Stern, S. (2014). From the Dance Hall to Facebook: Teen Girls, Mass Media, and Moral Panic in the United States, 1905–2010. Amherst: Boston University of Massachusetts Press.
Tolman, D. (2002). Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk About Sexuality. London: Harvard University Press.
Van Dijck, J. (2013). The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Acknowledgements
Sincere thanks to Nicholas Carah and Michael Salter for reading and providing astute suggestions on this chapter.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dobson, A.S. (2018). Sexting, Intimate and Sexual Media Practices, and Social Justice. In: Dobson, A.S., Robards, B., Carah, N. (eds) Digital Intimate Publics and Social Media. Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97607-5_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97607-5_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-97606-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-97607-5
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)