Global Research Society Publisher

Digital Gender Performatives: A Cross-Platform Study of Language on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp


Sr No: 3
Page No: 10-25
Language: English
Licence: CC BY-NC 4.0
Authors: Gyang Dorcas Luka*
Published Date: 2025-11-06
Abstract:
The present study explores how gender identity is linguistically constructed across Meta's integrated Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp ecosystem. Drawing on the theory of Judith Butler's gender performativity and the sociolinguistics of computer-mediated communication, this research will be based on a qualitative, multi-case study methodology. By means of digital ethnography, content analysis, and semi-structured interviews, it examines how platform affordances shape gendered linguistic performances. The emergent taxonomy is rather clear: Facebook's context collapse fosters generalized, collaboratively-policed scripts; Instagram's visual-centricity promotes aesthetic, citational performances with hashtags and emojis; and WhatsApp's privacy enables intimate, dialogic identity negotiation by means of code-switching and conversational pragmatics. This study concludes that digital gender is not a monolithic expression but a fluid, context-dependent accomplishment. Thus, the platform itself acts as a co-author in an active manner to shape the "stylized repetition of acts" that constitute gender online, commanding a platform-sensitive approach toward understanding identity in the digital age.
Keywords: Gender Performativity, Computer-Mediated Communication, Platform Affordances, Cross-Platform Analysis, Digital Identity

Journal: GRS Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Studies
ISSN(Online): 3049-0561
Publisher: GRS Publisher
Frequency: Monthly
Language: English

Digital Gender Performatives: A Cross-Platform Study of Language on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp