Women’s outdoor adventure experiences on Instagram: Exploring user-generated content

Little is known about how everyday women self-present their outdoor adventure experiences, and how these compare to mainstream media, which often reinforces narratives of hegemonic masculinity. To better understand how everyday women portray their outdoor adventure experiences, we examine user-generated content on Instagram associated with the hashtags #womenoutdoors, #womeninadventure and #shewentwild. In total, 1154 posts were collected. Analysis revealed that Instagram facilitates a ‘DigiPlace’ that contributes to new understandings and ways of being outdoors for everyday women. More specifically, our work indicates that the ubiquity of social media helps to reshape the nature of female participation in outdoor adventure activities as well as giving everyday women greater visibility in outdoor landscapes.