Isabel Liu (she/her) is a junior at Georgetown University pursuing a BA in Computer Science, Ethics, and Society with a minor in Philosophy. She is interested in the intersections between technology, gender, and labor.
Investigating Reproductive Health Misinformation Encountered by Teenage Girls on Social Media
Reproductive health misinformation has become increasingly prevalent on social media, posing risks to the health and bodily autonomy of young users, especially teenage girls. Much of the research on online misinformation follows a top-down model, in which researchers combat misinformation through assuming the types of social media content teenage girls consume. This project proposes a bottom-up approach grounded in the real life experiences of teenage girls to identify patterns within misinformation and guide more effective, youth-centered strategies to combat misinformation. The methodology of this project involves a content analysis of at least 100 Instagram posts that contain reproductive health misinformation, collected over a one-month period. Each post will be coded for pattern identification, such as the account that posted the misinformation (i.e. influencer, commercial, anonymous page), the reproductive health topic (i.e. contraception, menstruation, abortion), and the post format (i.e. meme, video, infographic). Findings will be compiled into visual data representations and discussed in an analytical report. Teenage girls are not a monolith; their identities significantly shape their experiences online and vulnerabilities to misinformation. I hope to thoughtfully address the intersectionality of teenage girlhood, considering the diverse experiences of girls across racial minority, LGBTQ+, and low-income backgrounds.