Men will be Men? : Masculinities on display in the Facebook communication practices of Pakistani men

Abstract

In the past decade, the popularization of social media in Pakistan has greatly influenced the way in which people communicate and interact with each other. The rapidly evolving nature of online social media communication in the country when viewed against the backdrop of the country’s socio-cultural characteristics and religion is particularly significant. Facebook, being the prime social media platform in Pakistan has been revolutionary and liberating because while acting as a medium of communication, which transgresses the traditional manner of gendered social interactions, it has at the same time enabled the users to perpetuate and reinforce the existing gender ideology. As a result, Facebook in Pakistan has evolved into a space where individuals construct gender identities discursively. Using Multimodal Discourse Analysis, I investigate the ways in which Pakistani men multimodally construct their gender identities on Facebook. I show how Pakistani men are not only upholding the existing socio-cultural norms and discourse but also there are subtle signs of digression from the established models of masculinity.