Will the Real Digital Girl Please Stand Up? Examining the Gap Between Policy Dialogue and Girls’ Accounts of Their Digital Existence
Greg Wise & Hille Koskela (eds.) 'New Visualities, New Technologies: The New Ecstasy of Communication' (Ashgate Publishing: 2013)
Posted: 28 Aug 2013 Last revised: 16 Sep 2013
Date Written: 2013
Abstract
Many have suggested that online media would enhance girls' agency, empowering them to redefine the meaning of "girl" through their online performances. This paper examines social science findings with respect to girls' online experiences, with particular attention to the empowering benefits that girls report. It then examines two constraints on that performativity: commercialism and surveillance on websites targeting youth, and criminal policy dialogue relating to online issues (with a focus on Canada). With respect to commercialism, the authors argue that a sexualized surveillant gaze works to limit the empowering potential of online performance for girls who have incorporated online media into their social worlds. The authors further suggest that criminal policy dialogue has largely failed to disrupt that constraining gaze, in some cases ignoring it and in others uncritically incorporating its themes into the dialogue itself. As a result, policy responses tend to reinforce paradigms of surveillance and control over individual behaviour and responsibility (including of girls themselves), while leaving intact the business logics the promote media stereotypes and the commodification of girls' sexuality.
Keywords: online media, girls, empower, online experiences, women, benefits, commercialism, surveillance, websites, youth, criminal policy dialogue, Canada, sexualized, policy, behaviour, stereotypes, commodification, girls sexuality
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