Algerian femininities on Instagram: a semiotic and multimodal analysis of gendered performances

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15847/OBS20262741

Keywords:

Feminity, social media, gender performativity, semiotics, cultural norms

Abstract

This work analyzes how women construct and express their femininity on Instagram within an Algerian context marked by conservative religious norms and modernist aspirations. Grounded in gender performativity (Butler), visual semiotics (Barthes), and digital identity theory (boyd), this study examines the visual and discursive strategies employed by Algerian female users to present themselves online. Instagram is approached as a stage for social performance, in the Goffmanian sense, where cultural norms circulate. By analyzing a corpus of Instagram posts selected according to qualitative criteria, the article explores how the femininity displayed online contributes to the negotiation of gendered identities in a digital space shaped by social and technological injunctions. A qualitative and multimodal methodology is adopted to understand the communicational mechanisms that contribute to the redefinition of cultural and social norms associated with femininity in the Algerian context. The results reveal the emergence of different expressions of femininity. By combining image and text, Algerian women on Instagram construct strategic self-representations to perform four types of femininity: traditional femininity, hypermediated femininity, hybrid femininity, and engaged femininity.

Author Biographies

Roumeissa Kerboua, Institut méditerranéen des Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication (IMSIC)

Roumeissa Kerboua is a PhD candidate in Language Sciences at the University of Biskra (SEPRADIS), Algeria, and in Information and Communication Sciences at Aix-Marseille University (IMSIC), France, under an international cotutelle agreement. Her research focuses on self-presentation, multimodal communication, and social recognition on social media, with particular emphasis on Algerian women’s digital practices on Instagram and the sociocultural contexts in which they are embedded.

Noudjoud Boukhennoufa, University of Oum El Bouaghi

Noudjoud Boukhennoufa is an Associate Professor of Language Sciences at the University of Oum El Bouaghi, Algeria. Her research focuses on digital communication, discourse analysis, pragmatics, and computer-mediated communication.

Marie-Pierre Fourquet Courbet, Institut méditerranéen des Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication (IMSIC)

Marie-Pierre Fourquet-Courbet is Professor of Information and Communication Sciences at Aix-Marseille University, a researcher at IMSIC, and a lecturer at the Aix-Marseille School of Journalism and Communication.

Her research focuses on media and digital communication, its reception, effects, and influences, as well as on the uses of media and digital media, within an interdisciplinary theoretical framework combining Communication Sciences, social cognition, social psychology, and marketing research.

Her research addresses three main themes:

- The relationships between the use of digital technologies ("screens": smartphones, digital social networks, television, etc.) and mental health and well-being, including both harmful and beneficial aspects. In particular, she has worked on social media use and emotion regulation during the reception of major socio-media events, such as the COVID-19 health crisis and the deaths of celebrities.

- The reception of persuasive media and digital communication and its conscious and non-conscious influences in the fields of public health, public interest, culture, and commercial communication. Her research has examined, for example, the long-term non-conscious effects of online advertising, the effects of persuasive public health messages, the processes underlying the use and influence of serious games, the influence of storytelling for sustainable products, and the influence of communication campaigns against violence against women.

- The psychological processes involved in the design and production of persuasive digital and media communication campaigns in the fields of public interest communication (societal benefit, public health, etc.) and marketing communication (online advertising, brand communication, etc.).

On these topics, she has published numerous articles in scientific journals and reference books.

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Published

2026-07-23

How to Cite

Kerboua, R., Boukhennoufa, N., & Fourquet Courbet, M.-P. (2026). Algerian femininities on Instagram: a semiotic and multimodal analysis of gendered performances. Observatorio (OBS*). https://doi.org/10.15847/OBS20262741

Issue

2026: Early Access

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Roumeissa Kerboua, Noudjoud Boukhennoufa, Marie-Pierre Fourquet Courbet

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This is an Open Acess article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits use, sharing and adaptation, provided appropriate credit is given to the original author and the journal.