Abstract
Unescapable homophobia in traditional patriarchal cultures of the global south, which makes up more than 80% of Instagram’s user base outside of the United States, requires lesbians to negotiate layers of visibility due to social factors, interpersonal relationships, and economic implications. These levels include self-authored representation and, more critical to the research, positive and affirmative images of lesbian materialities. The fear of prosecution often leads queer bodies to initially seek (visual) information and affirmation elsewhere rather than mainstream media. The trouble is that this ‘elsewhere’ is not there. This dissertation examines the intersection of lesbian materialities, Instagram’s censoring strategies and the design and techniques of digital interactive information technologies therein. Censoring information and visuals by and within sub-communities along with the digital interactive information technologies sets a dangerous precedent and disseminates strategies invisibly and unintelligibly. The stigmatisation of lesbians often results in violent hate crime against lesbian materialities, of which corrective rape is one of the biggest concerns. This is emblematic of social violence against women and sexual and embodied diversity outside the imperial, (hu)man-, phallo-, hetero-, cisgender-norm. These actions do not only cause harm and perpetuate invisibilities; it discredits bodies from debate. The vis-à-vis between the epistemic violence of communication technologies and the real-life brutality of lesbian actualities points to a more extensive system of visual ‘knowledge management’, which needs to be addressed in discourse, technology, and technique...
M.A. (Design)