Youth Digital Cultures and Gender: A Comparative Mixed Method Analysis of Algerian Influencers’ Discourses and Performances on YouTube in a Multi-thematic Context

This research investigates digital cultures of youth and the role of gender in shaping their content on YouTube in Algeria. Youth in this research, are young influencers who create content on YouTube. The study investigates how they are adopting several linguistic devices and communicative strategies to represent themselves and ordinary people. This thesis examines how they create multi-thematic content, and the impact of socio-cultural background, addressing any probable gender inequalities on public online spaces. There is scarce research about influencers in the Arab world, especially Algeria, a shortcoming this thesis addresses. The research is conducted using explanatory sequential mixed-method approach. The first phase is based on quantitative analysis of influencers’ digital activities and indicators of audience engagement using descriptive statistics. However, the second phase is based on qualitative analysis of influencers’ videos, using Bradley’s social constructivist view of gender, Fairclough’s dialectical-relational approach to Critical Discourse Analysis, and Goffman’s performance theory. The significance of this investigation is to provide insightful data about influencers’ YouTube analytics and how gender shapes and dictates the discourses and performances of Algerian male and female influencers, highlighting the role of the Arab sociocultural background in shaping multimedia texts. The findings demonstrate significant differences between male and female YouTube analytics and content creation. Algeria-related entertainment and political videos are among the favourite videos on males’ channels. However, lifestyle, and home-based content is preferable for females. Overall, the results revealed that males’ content features power, populism, and unboundedness. Whereas females’ content features submissiveness, self-centredness, and boundedness. This thesis contributes to our understanding of male and female influencers’ use of social media and audiences’ preferences, especially on YouTube, in the Arab world, explaining how digital cultures are formulated according to gender and societal standards.