A Study Of Female Graduate Students’ Self-presentation In Social Media From An Empowerment Perspective

Based on the era of self-media,this paper focuses on the self-presentation of female graduate students in Xiaohongshu.This paper mainly applies self-presentation theory,gender and media theory,and empowerment theory,etc.Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods,this paper takes empowerment theory as the perspective and takes female graduate student users in Xiaohongshu as the research object to study their media images and media participation presented in Xiaohongshu.In traditional media,news reports have always portrayed female graduate students in a singular,faceless and stereotypical way,and some media even label and stigmatize the group of female graduate students in their reports in order to cater to the hidden sexism in society.The emergence of the Xiaohongshu platform has provided a stage for female groups,including female graduate students,to present themselves freely,and female graduate students can gather highly in the community and construct their own images from a first-person perspective,and are given great rights of communication and participation.This study aims to investigate what kind of media image the empowered female graduate students present through Xiaohongshu.What factors drive the self-presentation of female graduate students? What are the dilemmas and problems in the self-presentation of female graduate students?Therefore,this study investigates the self-presentation of empowered female graduate students on the Xiaohongshu platform,and analyzes the self-presentation of female graduate students using a combination of content analysis and in-depth interview methods.First,the content analysis method was used to analyze the "performance foreground" of female graduate students,including the settings of their personal homepages and the content tendency of text,pictures and videos,and concluded that female graduate students in Xiaohongshu present several images,including positive and sunny,loving life,focusing on themselves and improving their strength,independent and confident,and attaching importance to their feelings.Second,combined with the in-depth interview method to analyze the motives and dilemmas faced by female graduate students’ self-presentation,it was concluded that relieving their own pressure,expectation of socialization,value feedback,as well as the lure of capital and media environment drive female graduate students’ self-presentation in Xiaohongshu,and it was found that currently female graduate students in Xiaohongshu face the dilemma of unawakened female consciousness,restricted discourse space,and irresistible commercial codification.Synthesizing the above findings,the researcher believes that new media technology and the Xiaohongshu platform have objectively given female graduate students the possibility to communicate and participate in the media,allowing them to use resources in a comprehensive way to escape from the traditional media image,but the study shows that the self-presentation of female graduate students still cannot escape the influence of patriarchy.Feminist consciousness has not yet awakened,so that female graduate students cannot escape from the shackles of traditional media image;the patriarchal gaze that always exists in society prevents female graduate students from truly examining themselves objectively and independently;the collusion between capital and platforms induces female graduate students to abandon their sense of social responsibility,and ultimately women cannot change the social stereotypes and their inferior position in the communication structure by virtue of their presentation on social platforms.