Gender-Based Narratives in the Social Network VKontakte

Personal narrative reflects the self-perception of the narrator. In this respect, it is a reliable means of self-cognition and self-explanation. Telling about themselves, the narrator renders the narrative with their own concepts of the past, present, and future. Its modality and themes reveal the values and beliefs behind the narrator’s identity. Narrators explain themselves and the world through linguistic constructs that incorporate personal experience. A self-narrative is a self-image that affects the dynamics of the narrator’s life in the self-created context. Identity is a complex construct where gender intersects with personal (values, beliefs, talents), physical (attitude to one’s own body and what it does), and other social identities, e.g., nationality, profession, race, social status, etc. Gender is the language through which people communicate with the world. In digital communication, it manifests in various ways, e.g., choice of content, style, emotionality, profile features, social interactions, public accounts, comments, etc. It may radicalize the user’s attitudes, influence their role choices or behavior patterns in real life, and act as a means of manipulation or a marketing tool. Sometimes, it is camouflaged and blurs into a vague androgynous mode of digital interaction. Social media shape public opinions and reflect dynamic gender-related processes. Online narratives either affirm gender stereotypes, or challenge gender-related social norms, in which case the physical and digital selves may overlap. Gender studies in digital narratives cast light upon the mechanisms of self-identity, their manifestations, functions, patterns, and awareness. This research featured the gender aspects of narratives published in the social network VKontakte. It relied on content analysis, discourse analysis, and narrative psychology. The sampling covered ten male and ten female VKontakte accounts with 20 recent posts from each page, i.e., a total of 400 posts. The narratives demonstrated a clear gender polarization in the categories of Criticism and social issues and Family, children, relations.