Visibility and Vulnerability on Instagram: Negotiating Safety in Women's Online-Offline Fitness Spaces

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Toffoletti, Kim
Thorpe, Holly
Pavlidis, Adele
Olive, Rebecca
Moran, Claire
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2021
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Abstract

This article investigates how safety is experienced, navigated and cultivated by women on Instagram. Using qualitative interview data, we explore women’s understanding and practices of keeping themselves and others safe when sharing information-rich images about their exercising bodies and fitness activities. Drawing on literatures from feminist leisure, sport and media studies, this article advances discussions about exercising women’s negotiations of risk and safety by considering digitally-mediated fitness experiences and the uses of “visibility and vulnerability” for creating cultures and communities of physical and emotional safety online and offline. Findings identify that knowledge of Instagram’s platform affordances and audiences, along with personal ethics, contribute to exercising women’s decision-making when posting self-produced physical activity content. We extend current thinking about the operations of visibility and vulnerability for women online by identifying the significance of spatial and relational elements to generating women’s feelings of safety on Instagram.

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Leisure Sciences

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This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Leisure Sciences, 11 Feb 2021, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: https://doi.org/10.1080/01490400.2021.1884628

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This publication has been entered in Griffith Research Online as an advanced online version.

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Sociology

Social Sciences

Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism

Sociology

Social Sciences - Other Topics

Safety

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Toffoletti, K; Thorpe, H; Pavlidis, A; Olive, R; Moran, C, Visibility and Vulnerability on Instagram: Negotiating Safety in Women's Online-Offline Fitness Spaces, Leisure Sciences, 2021