This registration page is for those wanting to attend IN PERSON. Please note, we will be overbooking the event to allow for no-shows . You will be required to wear a mask when inside the building and during the lecture.

If you would like to attend online (open to all), please register here: https://lse.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIkcuisqT4pHNR2WGDPElRTdvisfnAmD5A4

In this talk, Professor Sarah Banet-Weiser will explore ideas of authenticity and gender on social media:

The idea of authenticity has been applied unquestionably as a valued attribute of the self: it is through our “authentic” selves that we inspire trust, loyalty, believability. The appearance of authenticity remains central to how individuals organize their everyday activities and craft their very selves. In the 21st century, as personal and professional identities are increasingly created, curated and manipulated in digital and social media, the concept of authenticity seems to carry even more weight, not less, so that one of the central questions in the age of digital media is whether and how successfully one can perform authenticity in order to claim visibility and identity. Social media amplifies this tension, as it is often positioned as a kind of open space, where one can be “oneself,” while at the same time it is also structurally designed as constantly manipulable. This has particular relevance for young cis-gendered women who perform authenticity on social media, because normative hetero-femininity is always constructed in terms of its artifice, where femininity is defined as a necessary contrived performance, from make-up to bodies to behaviours. Unlike the performance of authentic masculinity, which emphasizes its unfiltered quality, the performance of authentic femininity is always already suspect, always already a contradiction in terms.

Speaker and Chair

Sarah Banet-Weiser is Professor of Media and Communications and Head of the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. Professor Banet-Weiser earned her PhD in Communication from the University of California, San Diego. Her research interests include gender in the media, identity, citizenship, and cultural politics, consumer culture and popular media, race and the media, and intersectional feminism.

Dr Polly Withers is LSE Fellow in Media and Communications, and Associate Programme Director of the Global Media and Communications MSc, at the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. She is also a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow in the LSE Middle East Centre (2021–).

To celebrate the first Summer School Lecture, all in person attendees will receive a free Summer School t-shirt!

This is a hybrid event – you can attend on campus or join online.

PLEASE NOTE:

To attend in person you must be an LSE staff or student, and be able to show security proof of a negative test taking within the last 4 days and your LSE ID card.

If you are a Session 2 or 3 student, but you are already in London, you are welcome to attend this event in person. You will need to show your Summer School acceptance letter, as well as proof of a negative test result (e.g. NHS email) taken within the last 4 days.

To register to join online (open to all), follow this link: https://lse.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIkcuisqT4pHNR2WGDPElRTdvisfnAmD5A4

'Ruptures in Authenticity: Gender and Vulnerability Online’