Feminist logics of Instagram: activists navigating platform dynamics and feminist ideals

This article explores how Swedish feminist activists on Instagram navigate on a platform where they must balance between a social media logic as well as feminist logics. Drawing on José van Dijck and Thomas Poell’s understanding of how social media logic affects the interaction on social media platforms, in combination with Jenny Gunnarsson Payne’s concept of feminist logics and hybrid logics, this article aims to analyze how feminist activists’ digital strategies are influenced by not only the platform’s way of functioning but also by feminist principles, and how these logics can both clash and interplay. A thematic analysis building on data from interviews with eleven Swedish feminists on Instagram identified four key themes that represent areas in which the interviewed activists navigate between, sometimes constraining, logics, relating to: audience, monetization, self-moderation, and conflict. The analysis shows that even when social media logic and feminist logics contradict each other, feminist activists can employ a range of strategies to try to reconcile them—thus generating hybrid logics.