Gendered selves in platformed spaces: Identity, affect, and community talk in Indonesian social media

Noval Maliki

doi:10.67490/ijlc.v1i3.1010

Authors

Noval Maliki Institut Studi Islam Fahmina Cirebon Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.67490/ijlc.v1i3.1010

Keywords:

affective publics, gendered identity, Indonesian social media, platform governance, performativity

Abstract

Background: Indonesian social media has become a contested communicative arena where gendered identity is performed, evaluated, protected, and disciplined through visibility, affect, and community interaction. Objective: This study examines how gendered selves are constructed in Indonesian platformed spaces by analysing the relationship among identity performance, affective community talk, and platform governance. Method: This study applies qualitative-dominant digital discourse analysis to a purposive public corpus of 22 verified items, including institutional statements, media articles, scholarly studies, advocacy materials, and platform policy documents, with 18 identity-bearing items coded for identity, affect, and visibility configurations. Results: The findings show that gendered selves are most frequently articulated through legal-rights subjecthood, risked gendered selfhood, and marginalised identity labelling. Affective community talk is organised through solidarity, protective care, hostility, critique, moral anxiety, and institutional urgency, indicating that emotion functions as a mechanism of recognition and boundary-making. Platform visibility operates ambivalently, enabling campaign affordance and counterpublic formation while also intensifying exposure, harassment, and governance uncertainty. Implication: This study demonstrates that gendered digital identity in Indonesia should be understood as performative, affective, and infrastructural rather than merely expressive or individual. Novelty: This study advances communication scholarship by integrating gender performativity, affective publics, community talk, and platform governance into one Indonesian social media framework

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