Techniques and Data
Research Matter
Within my initial browsing of Tumblr, We realized that there is a really active, open, and vocal LGBTQIA community that challenged even my personal notions of gender and sex. Therefore, whenever conceptualizing this research, I was many enthusiastic about the ways Tumblr bloggers openly build their identities—often through labeling practices—and the implications of the construction that is open of identities. Consequently, we desired to resolve the next question that is guiding “In exactly what methods do LGBTQIA Tumblr bloggers build and discuss their sex and intimate orientation identities? ”
Test Selection
To be able to examine identification construction on Tumblr, We selected an example of Tumblr bloggers by choosing 10 hashtags that are community-defined of this LGBTQIA spectrum: #gay, #girlswholikegirls, #bi, #ace, #queer, #lgbtq, #nonbinary, #gender fluid, #genderqueer, and #trans. These hashtags were plumped for as they are commonly discovered whenever LGBTQIA that is browsing content Tumblr. Although we selected tags in line with the LGBTQIA acronym, there’s absolutely no label for “lesbian” but instead “girlswholikegirls. ” Whenever I first attempted to get information beneath the #lesbian hashtag, we noted that, since Tumblr comes with an active Not Safe/Suitable for Work (NSFW) community (Tiidenberg, 2012, 2013, 2014a, 2014b), this search returned primarily pornography in the place of articles created by users who defined as lesbian. Probably in reaction for this, articles compiled by people who recognized as lesbian utilized #girlswholikegirls to tag articles instead than #lesbian. Furthermore, in my opinion it is imperative to make use of community-defined hashtags and terminology since this knowledge gender that is regarding sexuality, specially on SNSs, is socially built, defined, and developed, and, frequently, these self-identified hashtags are another kind of sex and intimate orientation labeling practiced by bloggers. Additionally it is well worth noting that search phrases in English mainly discovered English-speaking united states of america bloggers, though there have been some English-speaking bloggers situated in other nations such as for instance Japan, holland, and Ireland. As all given information collected from all of these blog sites is voluntary, it absolutely was usually the instance that the blogger’s location had not been disclosed.
Finally, considering that the item with this research is always to examine specific identification construction, I created exclusionary criteria so that you can garner an example of individual LGBTQIA blog sites: as an example, blog sites moderated by a number of individuals usually do not well express an individual’s NBG&SO identity construction. Exclusionary requirements are the following:
The writer is underneath the chronilogical age of 18.
Tags on search engine results that included #lovewins or #love victories. These articles had been excluded due to the fact United states Supreme Court ruled that bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional during information collection (Obergefell et al. V Hodges, 2015), and bloggers from not in the LGBTQIA community frequently utilized LGBTQIA tags in event with this ruling together with #lovewins or #love victories.
Duplicate blogs (the blogs that are same arrived under various keywords).
It absolutely was perhaps not just a blog that is personal as an example, your blog had been run by a number of moderators, this content for the web log had been mainly submissions of pictures as well as other LGBTQIA content, or had been a promotional web log ( e.g., for films or clothes lines).
Your blog content is mainly pornography or other intimately explicit product. Note: This failed to exclude blog sites with periodic content that is sexually explicit nudity.
Under each term search, the initial sex toys porn 20 blog sites that didn’t meet with the exclusionary requirements had been gathered. Since Tumblr will not consist of an explanation that is official plus some Tumblr themes usually do not consist of timestamps on posts, it is hard to state if search engine results are presented chronologically or if an algorithm impacts the outcomes. In either case, the blog sites included in this research had been active at that time the info ended up being collected. These information had been gathered throughout the months of June and July in 2015. These processes lead to a total that is initial of blogs gathered. An additional 14 blogs met the exclusionary criteria for a total sample of 186 blogs upon closer inspection.
