PERFORMATIVA SNUSDOSOR. En kvalitativ intervjustudie om hur unga kvinnor resonerar kring nikotinpåsar, femininitet och normalisering i en postfeministisk mediekultur

Abstract

This study examines how young women make meaning of nicotine pouches (tobacco-free nicotine products commonly known in Sweden as "vitt snus", distinct from traditional tobacco-based snus) in relation to identity, femininity, and social acceptance, and how their reasoning relates to processes of normalization in a postfeminist media culture. The study is situated within media and communication studies and addresses a gap in existing research, which has largely focused either on the marketing of nicotine products or on youth attitudes and behaviors, without empirically examining how young women themselves understand and negotiate these processes. The study draws on Judith Butler's theory of performativity as its primary analytical tool, complemented by Rosalind Gill's theory of postfeminist sensibility as a contextual framework. Together, these theories enable an analysis sensitive to both the cultural context shaping participants' reasoning and the ways in which gender norms are reproduced and negotiated in everyday practice. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with eight young women aged 22-25, all of whom were daily social media users with experience of nicotine pouches. The material was analyzed using thematic analysis, which identified nine themes organized across three analytical parts, each corresponding to one of the study's research questions. The first part addresses how young women use nicotine pouches as a resource in identity construction. Three themes were identified: the tin as a lifestyle object integrated into everyday aesthetic practice; nicotine pouch use as an active identity marker through which femininity is performed and communicated; and the gendered ordering of snus, including the construction of archetypes and the asymmetric enforcement of gender norms. The second part addresses social acceptability and context-dependence. Themes include the concealment of use in family contexts, the social mirroring mechanism through which use is triggered by a confirming audience, and the sharp norm contrasts that emerge in professional and institutional settings. The third part addresses normalization through social media. Themes include invisible exposure through everyday digital flows, the role of organic content and influencers as normalization agents, and the co-existence of critical awareness and continued use, as Gill describes as double entanglement. Taken together, the findings contribute an empirical insider perspective on how norms of femininity, consumption, and media culture intersect in young women's meaning-making around nicotine pouches. The study's central contribution is to show that normalization is not only a top-down phenomenon driven by commercial actors, but is reproduced from within by users themselves, a mechanism that prior content-analytic studies have not been able to reach.