Exploring Disabled Girls' Self-representational Practices Online

Author: Sarah Hill
Date: Summer 2017
From: Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal(Vol. 10, Issue 2)
Publisher: Berghahn Books, Inc.
Document Type: Report
Length: 6,395 words
Abstract :

Recently, the field of girlhood studies has witnessed a growing body of research into girls' self-representation practices, but disabled girls are largely absent from this work. In this article, I intervene in this area by asserting the need to explore how disabled girls represent themselves online in order to consider the intersections between girlhood and disability. I attempt to move away from discourses of risk that circulate around girls' digital self-representation practices by demonstrating how these practices provide disabled girls with visibility in a postfeminist mediascape that renders them invisible, and also act as a form of social advocacy and awareness raising. I then explore how disabled girls represent themselves online in a postfeminist cultural landscape through a case study of a severely sight-impaired blogger, looking at how they must be seen as both motivated and motivational. KEYWORDS disability, Instagram, motivation, postfeminism, selfie, social media
Source Citation
Hill, Sarah. "Exploring Disabled Girls' Self-representational Practices Online." Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 10, no. 2, summer 2017, pp. 114+. link.gale.com/apps/doc/A536152491/AONE?u=gale&sid=bookmark-AONE. Accessed 26 Feb. 2026.
  

Gale Document Number: GALE|A536152491