Total Frat Moves: Assessing Enactments of Masculinity on Fraternity Instagram Accounts

Society has expectations that dictate “acceptable” gender portrayals for men and women. Societal expectations are often produced and reinforced by the media. Using content analytic methods, the present study examined masculinity as gender performance among fraternity Instagram pages. A total of 393 Instagram posts were analyzed across five dimensions of masculinity. Our results indicated that more than two-thirds of the posts had at least one dimension of hegemonic masculinity. Furthermore, there were dimensions of hegemonic masculinity that occurred more frequently than other dimensions. Additionally, there were significant differences between the number of the likes received for posts with specific indicators of masculinity. Future research and theoretical implications regarding these dimensions of masculinity are discussed.