Date of Award
8-26-2025
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Discipline
Social Sciences
First Advisor
Prof. OLIVOS RAVÉ Francisco Javier
Second Advisor
Prof. PREDA Alexandru-Codru
Abstract
This thesis investigates mediated self-presentation in online dating and the sociocultural construction of attractiveness through visual practices. It examines how online dating users anticipate and perform attractiveness through visual themes, and how these constructions differ across geo-cultural regions, gender, and sexuality. Building on practice theory and poststructuralist theories, the study introduces a knowledge-based framework that conceptualizes self-presentation as the performative reproduction of socio-cultural orders of knowledge. The study employs a novel mixed-methods design, combining computational techniques such as image and data clustering and dimension reduction with reconstructivequalitative analysis. A distinctive methodological innovation lies in analyzing the entirety of each user’s profile rather than isolated images. The dataset comprises 13,000 Tinder profiles and 73,206 images collected from 13 locations across five continents. This large-scale empirical basis supports both cross-cultural comparison and the identification of recurrent socio-cultural logics of attractiveness. The analysis identifies ten distinct discursive constructions of attractiveness, conceptualized as self-presentation tactics. These tactics are empirically observed to cluster into fifteen dominant self-presentation strategies, empirical observable and recurrent configurations in which users combine tactics across their profile images to perform and anticipate attractiveness. The findings show that geo-cultural proximity positively influences similarity in self-presentation, with locations within the same cultural region, such as Western, East Asian, or Eastern European, exhibiting stronger internal resemblance than those across regions. Gender is found to exert a stronger influence on selfpresentation than sexuality, with gender differences in tactic and strategy use being moderated by location. For example, locations like South Korea, the USA, Denmark, and Hong Kong show greater convergence between self-presentations of men and women, whereas Poland, Brazil, and Serbia exhibit more pronounced gender-based distinctions. While sexuality also moderates self-presentation, these effects are less consistent across locations. This thesis makes an original theoretical contribution by advancing the understanding of the self as a socio-cultural construct embedded in and constituted through visual and digital practices. It conceptualizes self-presentation as a situated performance structured by culturally situated forms of embodied knowledge and shaped by power/knowledge relations. By focusing on images as visual artifacts rather than narrative rationalizations, the study foregrounds the performative and tacit dimensions of self-presentation, offering a framework for analyzing how broader cultural discourses are reproduced, negotiated, and embodied in everyday visual practices. Within this framework, self-presentation is further understood as a form of embodied cultural capital through which users cue and performatively claim various forms of capital to position themselves within the social field of courtship and desirability.
Language
English
Copyright
The copyright of this thesis is owned by its author. Any reproduction, adaptation, distribution or dissemination of this thesis without express authorization is strictly prohibited.
Recommended Citation
Kamelski, T. (2025). Visual self-presentation and the socio-cultural construction of attractiveness in image-based online dating: A cross-cultural analysis of gender, sexuality, and cultural context in online dating profiles (Doctoral thesis, Lingnan University, Hong Kong). Retrieved from https://commons.ln.edu.hk/otd/259/