Motherhood in social media: phenomena and consequences of the professionalization of mothers and their media (self-)representation

Social network sites allow users participation as sharing of information, exchange of ideas and presentation of themselves. In this process, the focus is on a wide range of formerly private topics that are now publicly negotiated. In recent years women who post content about their motherhood on Instagram are becoming increasingly popular. Thus, motherhood, both its individual negotiation and the associated structural conditions, increasingly takes place not only in private, but also in the public space of the new media. International studies deal more and more with this phenomenon and show that predominantly positively occupied motherhood-topics are published by so called mumfluencers, leading to a “positivity bias”. The article deals with motherhood in social media in the context of existing research and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of corresponding developments. It outlines a possible theoretical integration of the phenomenon from different perspectives and subsequently points out perspectives for further research.