Goals, Goals, Goals! A critical discourse analysis of female empowerment in Bianca Ingrosso's YouTube vlogs

This qualitative study investigates the incorporation of female empowerment discourses in Swedish lifestyle influencer Bianca Ingrosso’s YouTube vlogs. The aim of the study is to gain a better understanding of what it means to be a feminist in the current Swedish media moment, where the influencer industry is a commonly found subject for debates concerning the tensions between feminism and postfeminism. By critically analyzing the postfeminist expressions of female empowerment in influencers’ social media presence, the study problematizes the neoliberal feminism embraced by influencers like Ingrosso, whose feminist alignment mainly appears in promotional content for beauty and fashion products. A critical discourse analysis is performed, utilizing Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional model, in order to examine the ways in which Ingrosso utilizes and reinforces postfeminist discourses in her role as influencer. The study is performed through a feminist perspective, supported by feminist and postfeminist literature, using feminist media theory and field theory complemented by theory on gender and erotic capitals to examine the material. The analysis show that Ingrosso, through the social and financial capital that she holds as an influencer in a feminized space, is empowered. The postfeminist discourse allows her to maintain an influential position, as her physical attributes and encouragement of hegemonic femininity through consumption align with the neoliberal gender norms and expectations that structure the advertisement field in which influencers function. However, as it is the capitalist structures that allow influencer like Ingrosso to commodify their social media presence, the female empowerment that she promotes is in no way contributing to the efforts of the feminist movement