社群媒體上的女性凝視：以Instagram為例

Abstract

網美經濟已成為顯著的消費現象，這種以女性為主要消費者的商業操作是在社群媒體時代的新興凝視框架下所形成的。本研究由凝視的角度出發，探究社群媒體上的女性凝視如何運作、其中的凝視與自己所協商出的意義如何展演在日常生活中及社群媒體上，以及何種權力關係蘊藏其中。本研究使用深度訪談法，探討女性在Instagram上的凝視與展演經驗。研究結果顯示，女性凝視確實存在於日常生活與社群媒體中，並與男性凝視有所差別。除此之外，女性凝視所建構出的認同是不同於過往大眾媒體時代的幻想功能，而是使女性閱聽人能投射在現實生活中並投入更多不同的情感。而在展演建構上，女性閱聽人除了受到凝視的客體影響，也會受到想像的觀眾及實際的觀眾回饋所塑造。女性在凝視與展演的過程中一直進行著作為主體與客體的掙扎，也因此不斷對自我與他人進行監控與協商。本研究發現了在新興世代中的年輕女性群體裡已有一種新的凝視標準，這種標準融合了部分的男性凝視標準、消費主義、後女性主義的理想女體等標準，並藉由在社群媒體上的凝視和展演進行監控。

The economy of “internet beauty celebrity” (Wangmei) has become a significant consumer phenomenon. Compared to celebrity in the mass media era, internet beauty celebrity is subject to a new mode of gaze on social media. Drawing on the theories of gaze, this study explores how women gaze and are gazed upon on social media. In-depth interviews are conducted to explore women’s experience of gaze and performance on Instagram. The results show that female gaze is largely different from male gaze. Identities constructed through gaze on social media are different from those in the mass media era. On social media, female audiences project ideal images onto their real lives and invest more interpersonal emotions. Women’s performance of their daily lives on social media is shaped by the performance of internet beauty celebrity and by other imaginary and actual audience of their social media accounts. In the process of gazing and performing, women constantly switch between the position of being a subject and an object. They monitor themselves and other women. Overall this study finds that there is a new mode of gaze among women of younger generations. This mode of gaze integrates certain logics of conventional male gaze, consumerism, and ideal female body of post-feminism.