ALGORITHMIC AMPLIFICATION OF GENDERED CONTENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

Abstract

The present paper discusses the multifaceted and two-way relationship between social media platforms and the reconfiguration of gender norms in modern society. It builds on the theory of gendered performativity presented by Butler and Foucaultian analytics of disciplinary power, and critical platform studies to assert that social media both deconstructs the gender binary and produces novel and commodified modes of normative femininity and masculinity. This paper is an analysis of Instagram, TikTok, Twitter/X and YouTube as the locations of gendered self-representation, community organizing and political struggle. It takes into account future opportunities of queer and feminist online communities and reactionary gender politics of the manosphere and algorithmic prioritization of gender-normative media. Social media is not a place of gender liberation or even blatant patriarchal reinscription, but a battlefield upon which contrary gender projects are played out, negotiated and monetised.