Date

4-7-2026

Department

School of Communication and the Arts

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Strategic Media (PhD)

Chair

Robert K. Mott

Keywords

Social construction, body image, self-esteem, social media, Nigerian young women

Disciplines

Communication

Abstract

This study examines the communicative construction of body image and self-esteem among young female adults in Fiditi and Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, within the context of contemporary social media use. Although a substantial body of scholarship has explored social media’s relationship with body image, much of this research is situated in Western contexts and framed predominantly through psychological or effects-based paradigms. Addressing this gap, the present study adopts a qualitative interpretive approach grounded in social construction theory and the sociocultural communication tradition to investigate how meanings surrounding beauty, self-worth, and identity are produced and negotiated through mediated interaction in a non-Western setting. Data were generated through 60 semi-structured interviews with young women aged 18 to 29, comprising 30 participants from the rural community of Fiditi and 30 from the urban center of Ibadan. The study employed reflexive thematic analysis, supported by MAXQDA software, to examine participants’ lived experiences of social media engagement, including visual self-presentation practices, appearance-based comparison, peer validation, and emotional self-evaluation. The analysis conceptualizes social media as a symbolic communicative environment in which beauty norms are circulated, interpreted, internalized, and, in some instances, resisted. Findings indicate that body image and self-esteem are not experienced as fixed psychological attributes, but as dynamic, relational constructs shaped through ongoing communicative processes. Participants across both sites described encounters with globally circulating beauty ideals; however, notable rural–urban differences emerged in how these ideals were negotiated. These differences were mediated by factors such as family influence, cultural expectations regarding modesty, peer networks, and varying levels of digital access. The study demonstrates that social media operates as a site of continuous meaning-making, where self-perception is co-constructed through visual discourse, feedback mechanisms, and sociocultural context. By foregrounding communication as central to the construction of body image and self-esteem, this study contributes to Communication Studies by extending social construction theory into a digitally mediated African context. It offers a contextually grounded understanding of how young Nigerian women navigate aesthetic norms in everyday life and underscores the value of culturally sensitive, interpretive approaches to studying media, identity, and self-perception in the Global South.

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