Assembling The Digital Girl/girl: Making Meaning Through Social Media

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dc.contributor.advisorvan Daalen-Smith, Cheryl
dc.contributor.authorLentz-Marino, Eleni Christina
dc.date.accessioned2025-04-10T10:52:47Z
dc.date.available2025-04-10T10:52:47Z
dc.date.copyright2024-12-06
dc.date.issued2025-04-10
dc.date.updated2025-04-10T10:52:47Z
dc.degree.disciplineGender, Feminist and Women's Studies
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation explores the digital becoming of girls through the various ways in which they are (re)made on social media. By using the thoughts and experiences of real girls, we explore together how we “make the Girl/girl mean” in our collective North American culture and society. Through interviews and focus groups with 23 girls located in the Greater Toronto Area, I developed six themes that outlines how the Girl (hegemonic discourses) is currently defined. Throughout my exploration of these themes, I critically analyze these definitions through an extensive review of girlhood, feminist, and social science literature. I bring into conversation previous research and theory with the emerging knowledge produced by the girls in this study and myself. My research creates a context specific roadmap, or what we might call an “assemblage” of the Girl as she exists in this current moment. Further, I think through how these Girl/girlhood subjectivities and discourses work in service to oppressive systems. I then think critically about what the Girl means to the girls in my study and real girls in general. In thinking through the lived, material realities of girls, I offer recommendations that can help us chart paths for the future, in which girls can be supported to safely exist in and explore this one wild and precious life.
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10315/42835
dc.languageen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subject.keywordsFeminism
dc.subject.keywordsGirls
dc.subject.keywordsGirlhood
dc.subject.keywordsIntersectionality
dc.subject.keywordsQualitative research
dc.subject.keywordsFeminist theory
dc.subject.keywordsSocial science research
dc.subject.keywordsGender
dc.subject.keywordsWomen's studies
dc.subject.keywordsIdentity
dc.subject.keywordsDiscourse
dc.subject.keywordsSocial media
dc.subject.keywordsDigital media
dc.subject.keywordsMedia studies
dc.subject.keywordsMedia and communication
dc.subject.keywordsOnline
dc.subject.keywordsInternet
dc.subject.keywordsTechnology
dc.subject.keywordsInstagram
dc.subject.keywordsNeoliberalism
dc.subject.keywordsPostfeminism
dc.subject.keywordsAssemblage
dc.titleAssembling The Digital Girl/girl: Making Meaning Through Social Media
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

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