Engl. transl.: Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all? Gender and visual self-representation on Facebook

The paper examines the identity construction of Hungarian secondary school students from the perspective of gender. It focuses on their visual self-representation performed through their Facebook profile photos. In line with previous international research, the detailed analysis of 362 Facebook profile photos originating from a representative survey shows that visual self-representations are typically conform and meet social expectations and stereotypical meanings attached to gender. Experimentation, norm breaking and boundary crossing, often thought to be characteristic of this age group, were not at all typical of the profile photos, especially with girls. Visual representations were rooted in traditional representations of femininity and masculinity, and reconstructed stereotypical meanings attached to gender.

The main result of the research is that Hungarian teens' self representation is on Facebook profile pictures generally shows high level of conformity with social values and gender expectations. Rebelling and trying out the boundaries what is usually characteristical for teenagers is not a typical element on these visual self-representations. "A fent bemutatott eredmények alapján tehát nem azt állítom, hogy a fiatalok viselkedése általában (gender)konform, hanem azt, hogy a kutatás számára hozzáférhető profilképek elemzése arra utal: a Facebook mikrovilága alapvetően a (gender)konform önreprezentációknak kedvez. " 'I am not suggesting that the above detailed results prove that the behavior of teenagers are generally (gender)conformist, but that by the profile pictures which were analyzed by the study suggest that the micro environment of Facebook is rather favors (gender) conformist self-representations.' Schleicher N. : Tükröm, tükröm mondd meg nékem! Gender és vizuális önreprezentáció a Facebookon, Médikutató, 2019/Ősz, p: 35