Construction of Gender in Social Media Free Essay Example, 1750 words

Herring (2008) attempts to bring ideas on computer-mediated discourse as a way to show that the study of the language used in social media is of great concern. Being that most social media sites are modern, Herring acknowledges that human-human communication via computer networks is a recent thing. In her ideas, she focuses on computer-mediated language and argues that is less correct, coherent and complex. Also, she states that the language that is used on social media differs according to the cultural and social context. A careful study of this computer-mediated discourse shows that language use can reveal the identity of the user whether he is educated or not, while he is trying to mask himself. Moreover, on media, especially social media the age of user can be revealed by the content of the message (namely, life experiences) that the user post. Herring assumes that the identity of the gender in social media can be expected easily by the stereotypical behaviors that are attached to each gender (viz. , shame for females and verbal abuse and insults for males). In addition, gender differences can be revealed by the linguistic behavior as the assertiveness, length, and politeness that appeared in the content of the message. We will write a custom essay sample on Construction of Gender in Social Media or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/page In Saudi Arabia, nearly 85% of men use Instagram because they have more accessibility towards mobile apps than women (Abouzeid, 2008). In fact, most women tend not to be interested in the photo-sharing services. Other countries in the Middle East also have mainly male Instagram user bases. An example is Iran, where 82% of its male population uses the site (Eid, 2004).