- By the end of the semester, you should compile an annotated bibliography with at least ten sources that you believe will be central to your research projects.
Collins, Patricia H. 2004. Black Sexual Politics. New York, NY: Taylor and Francis.
This volume of critical social theory analyzes how relations of gender and sexuality within contemporary African American communities reproduce and/or resist new forms of racism. Collins uses a theoretical framework of intersectionality, emphasizing the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. Her approach conceptualizes heterosexism as a system of power that suppresses heterosexual and homosexual African American women and men in ways that foster black subordination. She claims that ideologies within the mass media are gendered and are used to defend the treatment of African Americans within contemporary social institutions. Collins acknowledges that her book examines just one local manifestation of a more general, global phenomenon and encourages non-African American readers to consider how the questions she raises in her book can inform their own social justice projects. Collins chooses to focus on African Americans because they are a distinct ethnic group with a unique history in the United States. Despite her specialized focus, Collins thinks that many of her arguments may be applied to other groups such as indigenous peoples, Vietnamese, Puerto Ricans, etc.
Christensen, MacKenzie A. 2020. ““Tindersluts” and “Tinderellas”: Examining the Digital Affordances Shaping the (Hetero)Sexual Scripts of Young Womxn on Tinder.” Sociological Perspectives 64(3): 432-449.
In this article, Christensen uses sexual scripting and digital affordance perspectives to examine whether Tinder has shaped the (hetero)sexual scripts of young women. Data for this study are from 25 semistructured interviews with women (n = 23) and nonbinary femme (n = 2) who swipe for men on Tinder. Christensen’s findings reveal the emergence of a hybrid hookup script. The digital affordances of a dating app like Tinder expand the boundaries of campus hookup culture. However, women are still expected to adhere to traditional gendered dating scripts while maintaining the sexual expectations associated with campus hookup culture. For womxn of color, navigating the sexism and racism embedded in the hybrid hookup script was an exhausting process and compromised their sense of safety. Christensen emphasizes that the findings presented in this study are not meant to be generalizable. Because participants were recruited from a predominately white city in the PNW, womxn of colors’ experiences with white men on Tinder may be location specific. Furthermore, due to a small sample size, her findings risk homogenizing the experiences of womxn of color.
Goffman, Erving. 1956. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh.
Goffman’s book considers how individuals presents themselves and their activity to others, the ways in which they guide and control impressions formed of them, and the kinds of things they may and may not do while sustaining their performances for an audience. He uses the perspective of the theatrical performance to describe a set of features which together form a framework for dramaturgical analysis. The research referenced in Goffman’s study are of mixed methods: some research is from reputable researchers with conclusions reached through reliably recorded patterns, some findings are taken from informal memoirs, and many sources fall somewhere in-between. Goffman justifies this approach, claiming that the research together fit into a coherent framework that connects the experiences of the reader and case studies of institutional social life. Goffman also includes research from societies other than Anglo-American society, but does not intend to imply that the framework he presents is applicable to non-Western societies.
Han, C. W. 2021. Racial Erotics: Gay Men of Color, Sexual Racism, and the Politics of Desire. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
In this book, Han argues that gay racial desire, rather than being an accident, is indicative of the ways that whiteness becomes central to the larger imagining of gayness. Gay racial desire differentiates the “good gay” and the “other” such that the desire for white men becomes normative while the desire for non-white men becomes exotified. Han takes an intersectional and critical approach to the study of sexuality and race, examining larger structural factors such as the radicalized nature of everyday sexual interactions between gay white men and gay men of color and the ways gay media construct gay white men in relation to gay men of color. He finds that sexual deviancy and gender nonconformity have been displaced onto men of color, allowing white men to claim normality. Han recognizes that his book does not address all the possible questions that might arise from the topic of sexual racism; however, by focusing on cisgender gay men and racialized desires, he offers a glimpse of those insights.
Hanson, Kenneth. 2020. “Becoming a (Gendered) Dating App User: An Analysis
of How Heterosexual College Students Navigate Deception and Interactional Ambiguity on Dating Apps.” Sexuality & Culture 25(1): 75–92.
Hanson’s research is centered around 27 interviews conducted with heterosexual college students at a midwestern university. The research question driving his study asks “how do heterosexual college students come to define dating apps as a normative dating practice?” Hanson’s findings suggest that dating apps are not initially viewed as normative because they violate the norm that people meet partners in-person. Initially, heterosexual men and women view dating apps as a fun activity/joke. Eventually, the fun of dating apps is redefined as students realize their efficiency and convenience. Most students did meet up with a match from the app in-person. Furthermore, hesitations surrounding in-person meet ups are gendered: men are skeptical of women lying about their bodies, women worry about the safety of these interactions. Hanson acknowledges that their sample is not representative as the participants were self-selecting college students who identify as heterosexual and reside in the midwest. While Hanson focuses on gendered differences, his analysis does not consider the role race plays in dating app experiences.
Lee, Jin. 2o19. “Mediated Superficiality and Misogyny Through Cool on Tinder.” Social Media + Society 5(3): 1-11.
Lee’s article presents her findings from an unobtrusive observation on /r/Tinder, a subreddit about Tinder in the online discussion forum Reddit. She asks the following questions: (1) what is the dominant reading of Tinder? (2) based on the reading, how do people establish Tinder norms related to hookup culture? and (3) how does this affect the shaping of Tinder culture? Her case study shows that Tinder’s visual centeredness reinforces the gender system and fuels online misogyny by interacting with the existing gender script intrinsic to cool discourse and hookup culture. On Tinder, women are pressured to be “women,” and simultaneously are deemed either superficial (when following the cool norm) or uncool (when not following the norm). Due to the anonymity of Reddit, it was difficult to identify redditor’s gender and race and associate those factors with Tinder culture and experiences. Also, topics other than heterosexuality were rarely found in the subreddit, so Lee’s article is only based on heterosexuality.
Peck, Alana J., Benton Johnson, and Donald A. Luidens. 2021. “Left, right, Black, and White: how White college students talk about their inter- and intra- racial swiping preferences on Tinder.” Sociological Spectrum 41(4): 304-321.
Peck et al. ask the research question “When prompted to confront their preferences, how do heterosexual white college-aged students talk about race in terms of their dating and hooking up preferences on Tinder?” The data from which this paper is based comes from peer-to-peer interviews with 137 white heterosexual students at two large universities in the southeastern United States. They use the theoretical framework of the white racial frame and colorblind racism to situate their findings. Peck et al. find that many heterosexual whites do not think deliberately about race when swiping on Tinder unless prompted to and when prompted, they are more likely to frame their racial preferences in veiled terms through colorblind discourses. The authors acknowledge that since this study was conducted at two large state schools in the South, the findings might not be in line with college students’ behavior at liberal arts colleges or in different geographical locations. Furthermore they believe the strengths of peer interviewing outweigh the weaknesses, but this method has its limitations (i.e. the relationship between the interviewer and interviewee affects the interviewee’s honesty).
Sawyer, Ashlee N., Erin R. Smith, and Eric G. Benotsch. 2018. “Dating Application Use and Sexual Risk Behavior Among Young Adults.” Sex Res Soc Policy 15(2): 183-191.
Sawyer et al.’s article presents the findings of a survey administered to students enrolled in psychology classes at a large public university in the Mid-Atlantic United States. Their data analyses were restricted to individuals who were 18-25 years old and heterosexual (N = 509). One third of the respondents reported using a dating app and within this group, over a quarter reported having sex with someone they met through a dating app. The results suggest that dating apps like Tinder may potentially serve as a means to connect with sexual partners and that a number of dating app users may being increasing their sexual risk by engaging in unprotected sex. Sawyer et al. recognize that the data for their study relied on self-reported behaviors, so it is possible that respondents over- or under-reported their dating app and/or sexual risk behaviors. The sample in this study was limited to college students and mostly female participants so caution should be taken when generalizing the results to other populations.
Stoian, Maria-Steluța. 2019. “‘Friends, dates and everything in between’: Tinder as a mediating technology.”Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology 10(1): 49-57.
This article reflects on dating apps using Verbeek’s technological mediation framework and choosing Tinder as a specific example. Tinder can be understood as a mediating technology as it mediates the process of meeting new romantic and/or sexual partners. Stoian raises concerns about Tinder’s gamified design, as it can create an overly superficial environment, and data collection, which raise questions of user security in case of a security breach. In her analysis, Stoian references research papers that study the ways in which users choose to use Tinder. In particular, she discusses Hobbs, Owen and Gerber’s 2016 research paper “Liquid love? Dating apps, sex, relationships and the digital transformation of intimacy” as she believes it to be the most relevant to her analysis. However, Stoian does not present any new data or research.
Ward, Janelle. 2017. “What are you doing on Tinder? Impression management on a matchmaking mobile app.” Information, Communication & Society 20(11): 1644-1659.
This article presents the findings from 21 semi-structured interviews with participants recruited via Tinder profiles and snowball sampling. Ward seeks to answer the research question “what are the pre-match impression management practices of Tinder users?” She uses Goffman’s theory of impression management to situate her findings. The results found that users’ main motivations for using Tinder are entertainment, ego-boost, and relationship seeking. Users select photos for their profile that present an ideal yet authentic self. Users oftentimes look at profiles they like as cues for how to present themselves in order to attract more matches like them. Ward recognizes that her interviewees were almost all white and highly educated, and their stereotypes and biases towards people different from them are in line with previous research. Also, Ward conducted her research in the Netherlands in 2014 so it (1) may not be generalizable to an American audience and (2) may be outdated for new versions of Tinder with updated functionality.