Social Media as Sites of identity negotiation: Methodological Approaches and Challenges in the analysis of non-binary gender self-representation

Over the last decades, social media have become significant spaces for identity construction and negotiation. Particularly for gender identities, social media platforms have played a central role enabling individuals to freely explore and express themselves while finding a sense of community. As social media, practices, and communities continue to evolve, a diverse range of strategies has emerged. Therefore, analyzing such discourse presents significant challenges: social media platforms are dynamic, and characterized by constantly evolving linguistic practices (Khosravnik, Unger, 2016); moreover, the concept of identity itself is called into question by the mediated nature of communication, especially in the context of non-binary discourse, thus necessitating a more nuanced methodological framework. In this context, various methodologies have been employed to investigate the linguistic features of identity performance. Corpus Linguistics, for instance, has been used to uncover the overarching patterns and themes within the discourse (McEnery et al., 2019). Multimodal Discourse Analysis has also been extensively resorted to, as it recognizes the visual and textual elements of social media platforms, and is especially suited to investigate how staged authenticity (Riboni, 2020) and community building practices are performed and represented through various communication modes, including images, videos, and text. On a more linguistic level, Systemic Functional Linguistics can provide a lens to explore discursive strategies used to negotiate identity, power dynamics, and foster community engagement within the discourse (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014). This study aims to outline a comprehensive repertoire of methodological approaches that can be used for the analysis of identity negotiation on social media, with special regard for genderqueer identities. Through a literature review and comparison of relevant methodologies employed in various case studies, this research will identify the aspects of identity and/or identity performance and negotiation that each methodology is most suited to explain.