University of Twente Student Theses

How toxic are we really? : To what extent are negative social media comments towards men showing feminine traits related to toxic masculinity and what other factors are influencing their opinion?

Richter, Anna (2022) How toxic are we really? : To what extent are negative social media comments towards men showing feminine traits related to toxic masculinity and what other factors are influencing their opinion?

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Abstract:	Introduction: Gender fluidity in men is on the rise, but not yet commonly accepted in society, and therefore often met with negative reactions that can lead up to toxic masculinity. Research relevance and objective of study: Many male celebrities are starting to show themselves more gender fluid on social media, and there are mixed reactions to this. In this study, the connection between gender fluidity and toxic masculinity on social media is established, as it is analyzed how much toxic masculinity exists in comments concerning men showing gender fluid traits online, and if these reactions stem from toxic masculinity only, or if there are other underlying concepts to these. Methods: 522 comments that were left on two individual tweets concerning Harry Styles’ Vogue cover in a dress were scraped from Twitter manually, and analyzed via a human coding content analysis, using an iterative coding approach. Results: Toxic masculinity does exist to a certain extent, and can even be classified into insults, prejudices, jokes and rumors, with insults being almost always being intentionally toxic, and prejudices mostly being unintentionally toxic. However, just looking at the number of statements containing toxic masculinity, there are a number of other factors that influence these individuals’ views of the situation, so this is not due to toxic masculinity alone. These are including the individual view of how masculinity should look like, or the affinity towards the person shown in the post that influence the commenters behavior. Conclusion: This study serves as a good start as to looking into the topic of toxic masculinity online, and where it might be coming from. Due to some selection bias and bias towards the topic in general, the results might look different in a different situation that includes another individual than Harry Styles. In general, toxic masculinity does exists online, and because it is not always the only concept that is behind negative comments, it is important to look more into where it is actually coming from. Keywords: toxic masculinity, gender fluidity, social media
Item Type:	Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:	BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:	05 communication studies
Programme:	Communication Studies BSc (56615)
Link to this item:	https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/91387
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