GENDER, INTIMACY, AND DIGITAL PRACTICES: INSIGHTS INTO ITALIAN TEENAGERS' EXPERIENCES

Abstract

The relationship between digital practices, gender, and intimacy in teenagers’ everyday life is gaining growing attention. We can look at digital media as environments that offer young people agency and spaces where they can construct and perform their identity (boyd 2014) through bricolage practices (Willett 2008) and by experimenting with their own selves, also with regard to gender and intimacy (Ferreira 2021; Metcalfe & Llewellyn 2020; Scarcelli 2015; De Ridder 2017; Livingstone & Mason 2015). Studies have also devoted attention to communicative interactions (e.g.,“sexting”), investigating both the incorporation of and resistance to specific gender and sexual ideologies (Ringrose et al. 2013; Scarcelli 2020). The aim of our paper is to analyse how Italian teenagers (aged 15-18) (re)define their understanding of gender and intimacy by engaging with digital media and incorporating it into their daily lives. In the first step of our research we are conducting six focus groups with students (15-18) from secondary schools in six cities located in three Italian regions. In the second step, we will carry out in depth semi-structured interviews with teenagers. The combination of these methods will allow to explore topics such as teenagers' digital practices in relation to performing gender identities and sexual orientation on different platforms; teens’ interaction with others in relation to intimate practices; the use of specific platforms for homosocial interaction; use of digital resources to seek information about gender; digital media representations. Results cover a wide set of digital practices, organised along three (interrelated) dimensions: gender, sexuality and intimate relationships.