Women’s outdoor adventure experiences on Instagram: exploring user-generated content

Abstract

Little is known about how everyday women self-present their outdoor adventure experiences, and how these compare to mainstream media, which often reinforces narratives of hegemonic masculinity. To better understand how everyday women portray their outdoor adventure experiences, we examine user-generated content on Instagram associated with the hashtags #womenoutdoors, #womeninadventure and #shewentwild. In total, 1154 posts were collected. Analysis revealed that Instagram facilitates a 'DigiPlace' that contributes to new understandings and ways of being outdoors for everyday women. More specifically, our work indicates that the ubiquity of social media helps to reshape the nature of female participation in outdoor adventure activities as well as giving everyday women greater visibility in outdoor landscapes.

The Instagrammable outdoors – Investigating the sharing of nature experiences through visual social media

“…(2020) showed that Instagram also allows for more diversity and empowerment of voices. In their research on the portrayal of women in the outdoors, they found that the posts on Instagram showed diverse ways of being outdoors, where women portrayed themselves as active participants, emphasizing ‘exploration, strength and courage, and “growing” through achievement and self‐fulfilment through overcoming challenges’ (Low et al., 2020, p. 19). Our participants were sensitive to these diverse voices, keen on including different perspectives in the people they followed.…”

“…However, Low et al (2020) showed that Instagram also allows for more diversity and empowerment of voices. In their research on the portrayal of women in the outdoors, they found that the posts on…”

The Use of Developing Technology in Sports

“…Outdoor activities are generally considered a male-dominant type of activities. However, the study revealed that some participants aimed to present a meticulous outdoor identity as an active participant and challenge the gendered and heteronormative perception of the society (Low, Miller, Doran & Hardwick, 2022). So, the social media is here used as a motivation to have a voice the field which is considered masculine.…”