Young Men’s Online Lives - Cultivating Critical Digital Dispositions for Gender Justice

This Palgrave Pivot offers insight into the factors that influence, motivate and inform young men’s online experiences. In Australia and globally recent media and public discourse has expressed strong concerns about the gender-based harms arising from young men’s online behaviours – these concerns have prompted renewed scrutiny on boys and masculinity and produced a sense of urgency around addressing these online harms. They have provided a strong warrant for research that seeks to better understand how young men are navigating their online worlds. This book presents findings from a qualitative study of 117 young men in Australia. In foregrounding a diversity of young men’s voices, the book responds to calls for more nuance and care in how we debate the gendered impact of social media on young men’s lives. As such we highlight the tensions and complexities in how young men navigate negative and positive online experiences including their critical engagement with harmful content. Against this backdrop, the book presents a case for fostering young men’s critical digital dispositions towards more gender just engagements online. It provides a conceptual framework and series of activities for fostering these dispositions. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in critical masculinity studies, sociology, psychology, public health, and media and internet studies, as well as practitioners who work with young men.
Amanda Keddie is Professor of Education at Deakin University, Australia. Her research examines the processes, practices and conditions that can impact on the pursuit of social justice in education settings. Her work in the masculinities space is focused on developing educative approaches to realising the goals of gender justice.
Michael Flood is a professor in the School of Justice at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia, and an internationally recognised researcher on men, masculinities, and gender, violence against women, and violence prevention. He has made significant contributions to scholarly and public understandings of men’s involvements in preventing violence against women and building gender equality, and to scholarship and programming regarding violence and violence prevention.

List of contents

Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Navigating leisure, work and identity online.- Chapter 3: Connection, community and conflict.- Chapter 4: Being led astray or misinformed.- Chapter 5: Sex, intimacy and privacy.- Chapter 6: Cultivating critical digital dispositions for gender justice.

About the author

Amanda Keddie is Professor of Education at Deakin University, Australia. Her research examines the processes, practices and conditions that can impact on the pursuit of social justice in education settings. Her work in the masculinities space is focused on developing educative approaches to realising the goals of gender justice.
Michael Flood is a professor in the School of Justice at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia, and an internationally recognised researcher on men, masculinities, and gender, violence against women, and violence prevention. He has made significant contributions to scholarly and public understandings of men’s involvements in preventing violence against women and building gender equality, and to scholarship and programming regarding violence and violence prevention.

Summary

This Palgrave Pivot offers insight into the factors that influence, motivate and inform young men’s online experiences. In Australia and globally recent media and public discourse has expressed strong concerns about the gender-based harms arising from young men’s online behaviours – these concerns have prompted renewed scrutiny on boys and masculinity and produced a sense of urgency around addressing these online harms. They have provided a strong warrant for research that seeks to better understand how young men are navigating their online worlds. This book presents findings from a qualitative study of 117 young men in Australia. In foregrounding a diversity of young men’s voices, the book responds to calls for more nuance and care in how we debate the gendered impact of social media on young men’s lives. As such we highlight the tensions and complexities in how young men navigate negative and positive online experiences including their critical engagement with harmful content. Against this backdrop, the book presents a case for fostering young men’s critical digital dispositions towards more gender just engagements online. It provides a conceptual framework and series of activities for fostering these dispositions. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in critical masculinity studies, sociology, psychology, public health, and media and internet studies, as well as practitioners who work with young men.

Product details

• Authors: Michael Flood, Amanda Keddie
• Publisher: Springer International Publishing
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 05.09.2025
• EAN: 9783031999796
• ISBN: 978-3-031-99979-6
• Illustrations: Approx. 100 p. 1 illus., schwarz-weiss Illustrationen
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Women's and gender studies; Klinische Psychologie, Gender Studies, Social Media, Gender, Geschlechterpsychologie, Mental Health, Psychology of Gender and Sexuality, Young Men, Masculinities, online lives