Pinning for leisure or labor?: unveiling constructions of wedding planning via Pinterest
Date
2017
Authors
Johnson, Emily, author
Champ, Joseph, advisor
Knight Steele, Catherine, committee member
Martey, Rosa Mikeal, committee member
O’Donnell-Allen, Cindy, committee member
Thompson, Deborah, committee member
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract
Pinterest, a digital bulletin board website where users can create digital visual collections of meaningful content (i.e., pins), has been criticized for "killing feminism" (Odell, 2012), promoting "tight gender boundaries" (Pynchon, 2012), and encouraging "female cyber-exhibitionism" (e.g., promotion of images that perpetuate female domesticity) (Sandler, 2012). Further, the site has been critiqued as being a place for "wedding-obsessed" women who passively consume content and fantasize about a dream life (Tekobbe, 2013, p. 384). In an effort to investigate such criticisms more fully, this study examined an alternative understanding of Pinterest—one that describes the site as a digital structure that enables women to construct versions of the current and/or aspired self. The purpose of this study was to explore why and how the women interviewed use Pinterest as a tool for wedding planning. Specifically, this research examined how the site may contribute to identity construction, with focus devoted to how women construct a current and/or aspired self (with attention to an aspired bride identity). Using theoretical and conceptual frameworks of third-wave feminism, creativity, and structuration theory, it also explored how using Pinterest as a wedding planning tool connects to broader ideological discourses about feminism, cultural hegemony, and cultural consumption. The overarching question this study sought to address is whether using Pinterest as a wedding planning tool extends the traditional feminine role of wedding preparation (i.e., contribute to specific behavior determined by a patriarchal society) or provides an opportunity for women to engage in user-controlled behavior (i.e., offer an avenue to find voice and agency)? To investigate this complex digital phenomenon, 20 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with white, heteronormative, cis-gender, predominately middle to upper-middle class women who used Pinterest as their primary wedding planning tool (with the exception of one participant who was interviewed because she purposely chose not to use Pinterest as a planning tool). Analysis of interview transcripts and select pin boards was completed using constant comparison (Glaser, 1965). From this analysis, four key themes emerged: (1) The Labor of Wedding Planning and Pinterest; (2) Pinterest as a Place for Digital Collecting; (3) The Power of Pinterest: Escaping, Dreaming, and Visualizing; (4) Pinterest as an "Ideology of Personal Confidence." Within each of these themes, notions of user control and determinism were examined using Giddens' (1984) structuration theory. Further, repowered feminism and cyberfeminism (third-wave feminist theories) were used to analyze if and how user control can be experienced within the wedding planning experience both on and off Pinterest. Additionally, the concept of "little c" creativity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996) was found to be present in how many of participants used Pinterest to find, appropriate, and actualize ideas in a physical sense (i.e., engage in meaning-making, which is argued to be user [or consumer]-controlled behavior). Drawing from the interpretations formed through interviews and analyses of exemplar pin boards, it was found that using Pinterest as a wedding planning tool facilitates both user-controlled and deterministic behavior. Although structural constraints such as patriarchy, hegemony, and economic factors play a role in how women experience determinism in using this platform, this study also found that user control occurs through meaning-making in the online and offline sense, as well as through wedding planning itself. For example, all 20 interview participants reported that they were the primary wedding planner within their relationship. Though it can be considered stereotypical in nature, holding this role allowed participants to experience control in making decisions that helped them to enact their wedding day vision (which oftentimes was formed through using Pinterest). Thus, in response to the overarching questions, it appears that Pinterest, as a form of "feminized popular culture" (Levine, 2015, p. 7), is perhaps best located somewhere in between—the experience is neither entirely deterministic nor is it entirely controlled by the user. Importantly, Pinterest also affords its users the opportunity to blend the offline and online wedding planning experience. The 'labors' associated with wedding planning are integrated as aspiring brides engage in planning via offline and online contexts and create meaning through the act of constructing wedding-oriented Pinterest boards. Ultimately, it seems that building one's wedding identity is dependent on processes in both spheres (online and offline). Further, findings from this study point to the need to re-address the definition of feminism in today's digitally-driven world. Although Pinterest has been criticized for its ability to contribute to the perpetuation of stereotypical gender roles (i.e., determinism), participants interviewed for this study reported feeling in control of and empowered by how they use the platform (i.e., agency). As a relatively new form of social media, Pinterest is unique in that it, at least to an extent, places power in the hands of the user. Rather than 'framing' an aspiring bride to think about weddings in a particular way, Pinterest enables users to create their own 'frame.' In other words, users exercise control by pinning content that resonates with the type of bride they want to be and the type of wedding they want to have (influenced by various identity factors).