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Can The Female Body Ever Win?: A Postfeminist Analysis of TikTok Comment Sections Responding to The Documentary Smalast Vinner
Jönköping University, School of Education and Communication, HLK, Media and Communication Studies.
2025 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (One Year)), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Sustainable development
Sustainable Development
Abstract [en]

 This thesis explores how the female body and identity are discursively constructed on TikTok and in the comment sections of posts responding to the Swedish documentary Smalast vinner (Sveriges television, 2025), which critiques the thinness ideal and influencer-driven body norms. The study analyses how TikTok commenters reproduce or resist postfeminist norms around body image, empowerment, and responsibility. The thesis is guided by the method of the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) informed by Fairclough’s three-dimensional model (1995). Four TikToks and their comment sections by Swedish female-presenting influencers were analysed. The analysis reveals that commenters simultaneously reproduce and resist postfeminist ideals. Discourses of empowerment, emotional self-regulation, and bodily self-surveillance coexist with critical voices demanding accountability and exposing the contradictions. Commenters emerge as active participants shaping digital feminist discourse on TikTok. This thesis contributes to feminist media research by centering the comment section as a dynamic discursive space, revealing how commenters construct, contest, and negotiate feminist meaning on TikTok. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2025.
Series
Malin Martinsson
Keywords [en]
Postfeminism, TikTok, Comment culture, Body Image, Critical Discourse Analysis
National Category
Media and Communication Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-69149OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hj-69149DiVA, id: diva2:1979256
Subject / course
HLK, Media and Communication Studies
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2025-06-30 Created: 2025-06-30 Last updated: 2025-10-13Bibliographically approved

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
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Language
  • de-DE
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  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
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More languages
Output format
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