Heteronarrative analysis: examining online photographic narratives

Millions of young people are using personal web pages and social networking sites to 'deliberately create an identity to be presented to others'. One of the primary means of presenting oneself on these sites is through a collection of photographs. Photographic narratives can be critically analyzed for the gender and sexual stories they tell. Because the number of students creating their identity online is growing exponentially, and gender and sexuality are two of the most violently contested identity categories for adolescents, finding ways to understand how gender and sexual identities are shaped by students on these sites is imperative. The purpose of this paper is to discuss one method for examining online photographic narratives for the gender and sexual stories they tell.