Social Media and Female Artist Representation

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Table of Contents

Literature Review
Research Methodology
Reference List

Historically, female artists have been facing discrimination and other effects of gender inequalities. According to Brown (2019), works from female artists are often valued less than that of their male counterparts. Various stakeholders have been making efforts to change this situation. For example, Girlgaze is a website founded in 2016 by Amanda de Cadenet, a prominent television personality (Looft, 2017, p. 892). Girlgaze was intended to be a social media project that sought to fund, promote, and exhibit work from female photographers. Such a project has been facilitated by the emergence of new media, characterized by the emergence of both the internet and social media. The success of these efforts needs to be examined, especially in an era where society believes in equal opportunity and women empowerment. In this case, exploring how the internet and social media revolutionizes the representation of female artists becomes an interesting discourse. This will be the focus of this research, specifically how the digital age and social media have changed the game for female photographers.

Literature Review

This literature review can be conducted from both social and critical theory perspectives, from which previous studies on the representation of female artists are shifting as a result of digital and social media. Ray (2020, p. 139) explains that both social theory and photographic aesthetics tend to engage with such issues as representation, validity, and realism. The argument presented by this scholar is that the new developments in the form of urbanization are a continual tension between individuation and being drawn into the external forms. Photography is considered to be a problematic and complex form of representation. Additionally, the early reception of photography revolved around permanence as opposed to the transition of experience. Today, this focus is slowly disintegrating as a result of digital and social media, platforms that have little to do with permanence. This transition illustrates how digitization has changed the game for the representation of female artists. Even though Ray (2020, p. 139) does not focus on social and digital media, his article illustrates changes taking place in modern photography. In other words, it is possible to trace the beginning of the shifts from permanence to transition.

One of the best examples of the transition is the case of Girlgaze. As explained by Looft (2017, p. 892), Girlgaze challenges the male-dominated industry and raises the question of privilege in the production of virtual image galleries. Additionally, Girlgaze can be positioned within the discourses of fourth-wave feminism, which focused majorly on empowering women and the use of internet tools and intersectionality. Therefore, digital media becomes a critical tool with which female artists can make their voices be heard, especially by highlighting the disparities between them and their male counterparts. The rationale is that the discourses of inequalities in the art may have failed to influence a positive social since the message may not have been widely received by the public. Through social media, the disparities can be exposed for everyone to see and for the relevant stakeholders to implement the changes necessary. Most importantly, female artists can have platforms of their own where they will not have to fight against male domination. In other words, digital and social media can be conceptualized as tools for empowering female artists.

With these developments taking place, there is a need to monitor the progress in women’s empowerment. Specifically, the question of the position of female artists in the industry can be explored to indicate how empowerment has helped overcome the disparities. A study by Hadland and Barnett (2018, p. 2012) seeks to contextualize the position of female photographers within the broader discipline of photojournalism. The foundation of their argument is that there is a wider body of labor literature backing the idea that women may not be suited to certain occupations, a belief that has been dubbed gender essentialism. This phenomenon can be used to explain the disparities in the recruitment practices in such areas as the military. Gender essentialism also explains that men and women make different levels of human capital investments, which include the skills and knowledge gathered through education and experience. However, these ideologies do not explain how women who make similar levels of human capital investments into their works of art will still be valued less than men. In the world of photojournalism, the patriarchal systems seem to be the main influence and barrier for women artists.

Critical theorists have a serious set of questions to answer regarding the lack of women photojournalists and the obstacles that they have had to face. This sentiment is expressed by Hadland and Barnett (2018, p. 2019), whose study finds that photojournalism is heavily dominated by males across the world. The industry is also perceived to be fully aware of these disparities and yet very few initiatives are put in place to address the situation. However, these scholars find that women photojournalists tend to be savvier with digital and social media as compared to men, often using the platforms for publicity and marketing. Personal websites are more common among the women, who also engage in Instagram more than males (19% versus 14% respectively), which implies that women are directly and indirectly benefiting from social media. These findings support the argument that digital and social media have changed the game in favor of female artists, especially female photographers who now have platforms that suit them more and give them better leverage than men.

Female participation in social media is arguably more dominant than men, which illustrates how these platforms have been a game-changer. Some communities and cultures have historically followed conservative practices, which make it impossible for women to gain exposure. With Instagram and other social networking sites, this is no longer the case as women in these cultures have become active media users. Saudi Arabia is one of such countries, and a case study of self-presentation and athlete branding among Saudi female exercisers presented by Basabain et al. (2021, p. 9) is proof of the paradigm shift. As mentioned earlier, social media is largely used as a tool for facilitating fourth-wave feminism. The study by Basabain et al. (2021, p. 15) presents a perfect case where the auto-ethnography shows women taking initiatives to share with the world their beliefs and practices, as well as to solicit support for fellow women and their needs. There is little connection between social media and female photography in this study. However, the game-changing role of social media is illustrated as it covers contexts beyond photography.

The case for female photographers in the aforementioned context of Saudi Arabia has been faintly explored. According to Basabain et al. (2021, p. 18), the auto-ethnography reveals the experiences of the female photographer and how social media has played a critical role in her life. The respondent expressed that male beginner photographers found her on Instagram and offered a collaboration with her to enhance her photographs. While such opportunities should be embraced, her experiences are different and they present a key obstacle that women face. She could not collaborate with the male photographers due to cultural issues and could not hire female photographers due to the expenses. However, her use of Instagram is evidence that despite the restrictions and obstacles, female artists have found a platform where their expression and representation do not have to face stiff competition from men.

Female photographers using social media often focus on self-representation, often discussed in popular media as either mundane or empowering practice. These sentiments have been expressed in a study by Caldeira, De Ridder, and Bauwel (2020, p. 1), who find the terms empowering and mundane to be polarizing. These scholars also seek to prove that these terminologies are indeed interwoven, which means that the use of social media as a platform for self-representation among women carries political themes and expresses self-worth. However, it is difficult to draw a line between ordinary Instagram users and female artists in photography, especially when much of the photos and content shared simply captures simple everyday life situations. However, the idea of boring and mundane fits this description as many photos are random, yet capture the essential aspects of life that are majorly overlooked. In this case, difficulties may arise in answering the question of how social media has changed the game for female photographers. It can only be argued that using these platforms allows them to chart unique pathways to their practice without having to adhere to the standards set by the male artists.

The growing use of social media may have allowed women to fully express their artistic work through free and uninterrupted display and exposure. The bottlenecks of the traditional exhibitions have been removed since the users of the platforms manage their exhibitions. As mentioned earlier, the work of female artists has been valued less than that of men. A lingering question after fruitful use of digital media tools is whether this value has gone up. This question has not been addressed in academic literature, which presents a huge scholarly gap that needs immediate attention. However, arguments can be made that many of the representation practices in social media have been dismissed as mundane (Caldeira, De Ridder, and Bauwel, 2020, p. 2). This is because most of what is captured in the essence of everyday life without showing any sense of creativity or imagination. Art is mostly about imagination as expressed by Ray (2020, p. 141), who argues that photographic representation goes beyond realism and conventionalism. Most arts shared social media users are real and often conventional, but mundane due to the lack of imagination.

If the value of artworks is based on achieving certain artistic principles, then it can be argued that the mundane nature of female photographers in social media does little to improve the value. Social media and digital technologies create platforms that improve the exposure of female works of art as in the case of Girlgaze (Looft, 2017, p. 892). However, does increasing exposure raise the value of the artworks to match that of the men? This question is unanswered in literature and it can only be assumed that at least one problem has been solved: that of exhibition disparities between the genders. With increasing difficulty in determining the differences between art and ordinary posts, it can be argued that the laissez-faire nature of social media possibly corrodes the value of many artworks. With the main problem being exposure, such scholars as Mitra, Witherspoon, and Creta (2022, p. 151) often study the disparities occurring in the international and transnational media. Such disparities are not present in social media since the artists themselves are in control of what is posted and shared with the world.

The question of value can be answered using the concept of branding as it applies to social media. According to Jacobson (2020, p. 715), social media management is becoming a critical tool for engaging in personal branding. The arguments made by this scholar can be used to make critical inferences for the context of female artists. In this case, personal branding can be conceptualized as a practice of creating and sharing one’s value proposition and positioning oneself within a particular market. The photography industry may face serious competition, which means that only constructive initiatives will help the female artists increase both exposure and value of their artworks.

Research Methodology

Non-Empiric Research

Research methods can be classified into two categories: empiric and non-empiric methods. Empirical methods often seek to attain objective and consistent findings and often adopts a positivistic sense that the social world is governed laws and principles that make it predictable. This research will be non-empirical, which means that both quantitative and qualitative collection and analysis of data will not be done. According to Dan (2017, p. 1), non-empirical methods fall under two categories. The first involves reviewing progress of certain fields of research (for example, meta-analysis, systematic reviews) and one that draws on personal observations, reflection on current events, and experience or authority of the author. In this case, personal observations will be the non-empiric method used since it allows the researcher to gather general insights regarding the research topic.

Exploratory Research Design

The use of social media in art is an emerging phenomenon, which means that there are massive gaps are yet to be filled. Such phenomena are best studied using exploratory design, which involves efforts to gain insights and familiarity with a phenomenon that is not fully understood (Swaraj, 2019, p. 66). The main purpose of exploratory research is to develop a background to a problem and to lay the foundation for future studies. In this case, social and digital media are conceptualized as game-changers for female artists. The review of literature presented above reveals that the issue is not fully studied and initial insights will still be needed to curve the path for future discourses. Currently, the available studies have explored such elements as factual details of how social media is used. However, addressing the disparities between male and female artists in terms of representation has been ignored. Calling social and digital media a game changer for female artists will require more extensive research to be accomplished.

Data Collection and Analysis

As mentioned earlier, the study will be non-empirical, which means that the collection and analysis of qualitative or quantitative data will not be needed. However, the researcher will still be able to gather primary and secondary data in the form of a personal observation and a systematic review of literature. The personal observation involves the collection of primary data regarding the social media use by female photographers. However, the aim is to generate critical observations regarding the trends to help the research formulate a narrative regarding the phenomenon. Therefore, the analysis part of the personal observation will simply be highlighting what is observable without deploying any empirical tools. This means that social media research will can be used to collect critical primary data regarding how female artists use social media. This will require exploration of multiple digital galleries and estimate the female presence. Additionally, gender-specific galleries, including Girlgaze, will be explored to understand how they help females with exposure. It is important to emphasize that the research will also include collecting data from several female photographers regarding their practices and how they use social media to build a career.

Another non-empirical method is reflection, which is also used in the collection of primary data. This method will allow the researcher to refer and reflect on the images found on the social media. The reflection can be used as a method on its own or jointly with personal observation. However, the focus will be on the images found on social media and what they depict regarding the use of the platforms by the female photographers.

A key emphasis is on the fact that the researcher seeks to gather as many details as possible to help achieve a comprehensive view of the subject. Therefore, another method used will be a systematic review of literature, which focus on secondary data gathered from previous studies. As a data collection tool, the systematic literature review entails identification, recording, understanding, transmitting, and making meaning of the concepts, ideas, and theories obtained from textual data. Significant efforts have been made to address the question of gender disparities in arts and how social media helps bridge the gap. The inclusion criteria for these studies will include that all studies will be less than five years old and have to address how social media helps female photographers with representation. Most importantly, the systematic review does not include any empirical analysis of the data. Therefore, the key themes in the secondary data will simply be identified and combined with the primary data to support the narrative made from personal observation. Any secondary data on female photographers and their use of social media will also be regarded as part of literature.

Ethical Considerations

Several ethical issues will be taken into account, especially with the survey research that uses human participants. First, the researcher will obtain informed consent from all respondents who agree to voluntarily engage in the research process. No coercion will be used to lure individuals to participate. Second, privacy and confidentiality will be strictly observed, which means personal data will not be collected or shared with anyone else. The researcher also ensures not to cause any form of harm to the participants, including emotional, physical, or psychological. Any participants who wish to withdraw from the process will be allowed to do so. It is also important to acknowledge that any secondary data gathered will be subjected to academic integrity procedures, including acknowledging all sources or seeking permission where the use of such data requires authorization.

Reference List

Basabain, W. et al. (2021) ‘Challenges of self-presentation and athlete branding among Saudi female exercisers: an auto-ethnography of a Muslim personal trainer Instagram user. Asian Social Science, 17(3), pp. 9-30.

Brown, T. (2019) Why is work by female artists still valued less than work by male artists?

Caldeira, S., De Ridder, S. and Bauwel, V. (2020) ‘Between the mundane and the political: women’s self-representation on Instagram’, Social Media and Society, 6(3), pp. 1-14.

Dan, V. (2017) Empirical and non-empirical methods. Hoboken, NJ. Willey.

Hadland, A., and Barnett, C. (2018) ‘The gender crisis in professional photojournalism: demise of the female gaze?,’ Journalism Studies, 19(13), pp. 2011-2020.

Jacobson, J. (2020) ‘You are a brand: social media managers’ personal branding and “the future audience,’ Journal of Product and Brand Management, 29(6), pp. 715-727.

Lester, J., Cho, Y. and Lochmiller, C. 92020) ‘Learning to do a qualitative data analysis: a starting point’, Human Resource Development Review, 19(1), pp. 94-106.

Looft, R. (2017) ‘#girlgaze: photography, fourth wave feminism, and social media advocacy’, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 31(6), pp. 892-902.

Mitra, S., Witherspoon, B. and Creta, S. (2022) ‘Invisible in this visual world? work and working conditions of female photographers in the Global South’, Journalism Studies, 23(2), pp. 149-166.

Ray, L. (2020) ‘Social theory, photography and the visual aesthetic of cultural modernity’, Cultural Sociology, 14(2), pp. 139-159.

Swaraj, A. (2019) ‘Exploratory research: purpose and process’, Parisheelan, 15(2), pp. 666-669.

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