Onlyfans – Prostitution or a Pornrevolution? : A Discourse Analysis of Medias Representation of the Platform Onlyfans and its Creators.

This study aims to examine the ongoing debate about the content subscription service Onlyfans and its creators. This is to make visible which discourses may be the basis for the reasoning in the Swedish media today and what consequences this may have for our understanding of the phenomenon. The study was conducted via discourse analytical theory and method based on a selection of 13 web articles published in Swedish media during the current period 2020 - 2021. The material has been updated with the help of previous research, and analyses based on discourse analytical concepts, social constructionism, Gayle Rubin theories of sexuality, Julia Long's ideological framework and with support in Winther Jørgensen's discoursive relationship of structure and agent. The results of this discourse analytical study show that, based on our material, it has been possible to distinguish two overarching positions in the debate. A pessimistic position and an optimistic position which emerge in the discoursive construction of Onlyfans and its creators, as the reasoning can be thought to be based on different worldviews. While the pessimistic position associates the phenomenon with discourses such as sexnegative discourse, pornografisation discourse, generationdiscourse, radikalfeminist discourse, heteronormative diskurs, victimized discourse, the optimistic position has instead associated the phenomenon with discourses such as sexworkerdiscourse, heteronormative discourse, empowerment discourse, entrepreneur discourse. The result also shows that the two positions converge at certain points. This is because it is possible to distinguish between what it applies to call the platform as a site which distributes sexual material as well as there is a consensus in the discoursive construction of creators as women and fans as men