Let’s go girls: a content analysis of women in U.S. military Instagram accounts

A decade after the repeal of the Combat Exclusion Policy, the United States military continues to struggle with how women fit into their ranks. This study analyzes the use of Instagram by each of the six U.S. military branches’ primary organizational (e.g. @usarmy, @usnavy, @marines, @usairforce, @uscg, and @spaceforcedod) and primary recruiting accounts (e.g. @usnrecruiter, @usarec, @usmarinecorps, @usaf_recruiting, @gocoastguard, @gospaceforce) on the social media platform Instagram to communicate organizational identity of female service members. Qualitative content analysis reveals five themes: women are celebrated, women are unremarkable, women are experts but not operators, conventional attractiveness, and fortitude. These findings offer empirical evidence demonstrating the U.S. military branches’ use of social media to construct conflicting organizational identities for women in the military.