O corpo masculino em tela: masculinidades, hegemonia e dissidências nas redes sociais

Abstract

This dissertation aimed to understand the production, circulation, and contestation of meanings surrounding masculinities on digital platforms, with an emphasis on Instagram. It began with the understanding that digital social networks simultaneously function as spaces of (self-)representation, production of subjectivities, and arenas of visibility, in which bodies, images, and narratives are mobilized in the construction of gender performances. In this context, Instagram emerged as a territory where both masculinities aligned with hegemonic and normative models and dissident expressions become visible, challenging historical conventions about what it means to "be a man" in contemporary times. Anchored in contributions from the anthropology of gender and masculinities, as well as in debates on performativity, visuality, and digital platforms, the research problematized the role of algorithmic regimes and the political economy of platforms in the production of hierarchies of visibility. It is argued that, far from operating neutrally, Instagram's algorithms actively participate in the differential valuation of bodies, aesthetics, and performances, in line with neoliberal logics of commodification of image, self, and engagement. Methodologically, the research adopted digital ethnography as an anthropological investigation strategy, understood not only as a set of techniques but as an analytical stance attentive to the interactions, discourses, practices, and affects that permeate online environments. Through the mapping, monitoring, and analysis of profiles, posts, and interactional dynamics, the dissertation sought to understand how masculinities are constructed, negotiated, performed, and interpreted on Instagram, as well as the effects of these dynamics on the shaping of masculine subjectivities in the contemporary context.