Negotiating gender scripts in mobile dating apps. Between affordances, usage norms and practices
The paper explores the perception and negotiation of gender representations and scripts among Italian dating app users. Adopting a gender perspective and a socio-technical framework, it describes how dating app affordances support the performance of gender scripts and explores how users negotiate gender scripts. We conducted 8 focus groups involving 39 dating app users from a variety of gender and sexual orientations. The results show how shared usage norms and practices disclose dominant gender scripts at play, and illustrate how some users try to subvert them.