Gender in face emojis: a representation to be taken into account in media literacy

Abstract

Of the ten most used emojis worldwide, from a total of 3790 existing ones (version 16.0), seven represent faces in which emotions and feelings are expressed.  Although they are defined as non-binary, this study arises from the need to analyze whether this is indeed the case or, on the contrary, these emojis express not only non-binary gender, but also feminine and masculine gender. Through a mixed quantitative and qualitative research methodology, in which a young population has been asked, mainly Generation Z, for being a digital native generation that is not subordinated to gender representations in cultural products in the same way as older generations, it is concluded that emojis representing human faces have not only been designed according to male models, but we also found that the universal representation is given to the male gender. As a main result, the study concludes that a symbolic imaginary is being generated that, in a subliminal way, projects the construction of an unequal world in terms of the representation of male and female genders in a universe where the concept of «ambiguous» gender apparently reigns. We believe that this reality should be taken into account  by Media Information Literacy (MIL) in terms of the historical and cultural context that must be observed in digital education in order to detect biases and attitudes towards gender.