Scholarly record

THE IMAGE OF A MOTHER WITH MANY CHILDREN: A SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENT OF SOCIAL NETWORKS AND THE MEDIA

G. Bannykh, E. Zaitseva, Sv. Kostina

Abstract

During all the times of destruction of social institutions and socio-cultural norms, there is a split in common social values and those which are reflected in social networks and electronic media. There are few meaningful values for modern women that could be identified: the value of kinship, the value of marriage, the value of motherhood, the value of career and self-made behavior, the value of leisure and hedonistic values. In the article the authors propose models (variants) of the images of mothers with many children, which are formed in the web. The purpose of the article is to describe the existing image of a mother with many children with a pronounced attitude toward large families on the basis of content analysis of materials from social networks and electronic media. Methodology. The research is based on the structural and functional approach (the typology of images and behavior patterns of mothers with many children), situational and psychological approach (especially the perception of information, the processes of influence, including imitation and infection) and status-role approach (influence the social-demographic characteristics). Methods: content analysis of media of Internet resources, social networks, structural analysis of electronic communities and their variations, analysis of statistical data. Findings. There were found more than 70000 references to resources containing materials about large family and status of mother with many children, more than 1500 vlogs and videos on YouTube on the same theme. The results of the research show the formation of the image of a happy woman: in order to fit it, a mother must be active in the network, lead a blog \ vlog \ diary \ group \ community \ page, do something interesting to realize herself through life, to earn with the help of the Internet. The image of a mother with many children, formed in social networks and the media, is not connected with difficulties and daily cares, the mother of many children in the network is well-groomed, slender and happy with her life. Discussion. On the Internet, the image of a mother with many children appears distorted, not affecting the daily aspects of her life. Behind the virtual images in general we see women who do not belong to the basic stratum of Russian society, but she is at least belongs to the middle class. In reality, to be successful, a mother with many children needs support: of a husband, or parents, or nanny. There are images of fathers with many children, but in Russia there are very few of them and these images are formed mainly at the expense of women. Abroad, you can meet several successful versions of the images and patterns of behavior of fathers with many children, who were made popular only due to the Internet and its total coverage of the audience.

Publication details

Back to publication list