Based on selected cultural and communicational theoretical literature, the Authors try to relevantly conceptualize: 1) the media construction of social reality i.e. mediatization, which they define as a meta-process of a complexly organized and already deeply mediatized society/culture of the 21st century; and 2) an individually and socially eccentric, and culturally already processed (male) body, with an explicit emphasis on the historical and elusive variable of (hegemonic) masculinity. With the help of the above theoretical extensions, they tentatively semiotically analyze 100 profiles and 429 photographs of male users of the mobile dating application Tinder, with an emphasis: 1) on their country of origin (Slovenia, Ljubljana or Portugal, Lisbon, which amounts to 50 Slovenian users and 50 Portuguese users; and 2) on their sexual orientation, which amounts to 50 heterosexual users and 50 homosexual users. Based on the semiotically analyzed photographic material, they comparatively presents the key variables of masculinity in young (aged from 20 to 30 years old), urban (located in capital cities) and mediatized bodies of male users. In the discussion, they identify key findings and highlight the issue of subjectivity of semiotic analysis. They conclude, that we can talk about the mediatization of masculinity and male bodies, but these bodies rarely (from 8 to 17 %) correspond to the hegemonic ideal of male beauty.
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