Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Online Dating Profile Analysis: The Intersection Of Identity, Gender & Religion, Sarah-Rose Marcus

Proceedings of the New York State Communication Association

According to standpoint theory, individuals experience the world based on the social groups that they belong to. Using this theoretical lens, my content analysis compared how gender and religion were conveyed on the user profiles of three online dating sites: JDate.com, ChristianMingle.com and OkCupid.com. In my initial reading of data, I used inductive thematic analysis to distinguish 7 categories of words and 7 categories of photographs that were relevant to portrayals of gender and religion. These categories were then analyzed through frequency counts by adding the total number of word types and photograph types used by men and women …