{"title":"Hashtagging for Inclusion: Complex Identities in Singaporean Gay Men’s Social Representation on Instagram","authors":"Langcheng Zhang, Edson C. Tandoc","doi":"10.1177/20563051241269299","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Beyond indexing content and creating networks, hashtags can also convey social meanings. From the perspective of social representation, this article investigates how gay men in Singapore use various hashtags to represent their complex identities and create a shared meaning of being gay in Singapore. Through a textual analysis of identity-related posts generated by gay Instagram users in Singapore, we identified two patterns of using gay-related hashtags: habitual and contextual. Both patterns rely on and demonstrate the identity complexity of gay users. The patterns suggest the users’ identity management online while engendering different forms of social representation for Singaporean gay men. By using non-gay hashtags and juxtaposing them with gay ones, the users could disseminate outreach information, establish social connections, and improve the digital inclusion of their group. We also found unusual exclusions of gay hashtags, suggesting the potential conflict between gayness and some traditional values/roles in Singapore.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Social Media + Society","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241269299","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Beyond indexing content and creating networks, hashtags can also convey social meanings. From the perspective of social representation, this article investigates how gay men in Singapore use various hashtags to represent their complex identities and create a shared meaning of being gay in Singapore. Through a textual analysis of identity-related posts generated by gay Instagram users in Singapore, we identified two patterns of using gay-related hashtags: habitual and contextual. Both patterns rely on and demonstrate the identity complexity of gay users. The patterns suggest the users’ identity management online while engendering different forms of social representation for Singaporean gay men. By using non-gay hashtags and juxtaposing them with gay ones, the users could disseminate outreach information, establish social connections, and improve the digital inclusion of their group. We also found unusual exclusions of gay hashtags, suggesting the potential conflict between gayness and some traditional values/roles in Singapore.
期刊介绍：
Social Media + Society is an open access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal that focuses on the socio-cultural, political, psychological, historical, economic, legal and policy dimensions of social media in societies past, contemporary and future. We publish interdisciplinary work that draws from the social sciences, humanities and computational social sciences, reaches out to the arts and natural sciences, and we endorse mixed methods and methodologies. The journal is open to a diversity of theoretic paradigms and methodologies. The editorial vision of Social Media + Society draws inspiration from research on social media to outline a field of study poised to reflexively grow as social technologies evolve. We foster the open access of sharing of research on the social properties of media, as they manifest themselves through the uses people make of networked platforms past and present, digital and non. The journal presents a collaborative, open, and shared space, dedicated exclusively to the study of social media and their implications for societies. It facilitates state-of-the-art research on cutting-edge trends and allows scholars to focus and track trends specific to this field of study.
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