젠더-미디어 생태학적 접근의 모색: 자기추적 기술 사례를 중심으로 = Gender–media ecology: Conceptual reflections through the case of self-tracking technologies

국문 초록 (Abstract)

본 연구는 젠더를 미디어 환경 속에서 지속적으로 형성되고 변형되는 관계적 과정으로 이해하며, 동시에 미디어 환경 또한 젠더 체계와 상호작용하며 구성되는 조건으로 바라본다. 이러한 상호구성적 관점을 바탕으로, 본 연구는 이 관계를 탐구하기 위한 이론적 시각이자 실천적 접근으로서 ‘젠더-미디어 생태학’을 시론적으로 제안한다. 기존 연구들이 미디어를 젠더화된 재현의 장 혹은 가부장적 체제의 도구로 간주하거나 젠더를 재현된 정체성이나 사회문화적 산물로 다뤄온 데 비해, 본 연구는 미디어를 환경으로, 젠더를 그 속에서 매개되고 형성되는 동적 관계로 접근한다. 이를 위해 미디어 생태학의 주요 이론, 즉 관계주의, 매개화, 편향, 확장과 구속 등을 미디어-젠더 관계 탐색을 위한 개념틀로 확장하고, 자기추적 기술(self-tracking technologies)을 사례로 삼아 젠더-미디어 생태학적 분석을 시도한다. 자기추적 기술은 웨어러블 기기, 앱, 알고리즘, 네트워크, 빅데이터 등으로 구성된 다층적 기술이 상호연결된 미디어 환경으로서, 신체 데이터를 수집·분석·시각화하며 사용자의 신체 실천과 감각 경험을 조정하고 재구성하는 복합적 기술 체계이다. 본 연구는 이러한 기술의 매개 과정이 젠더화된 주체성 및 신체 감각의 형성과 어떻게 결합하는지, 그리고 젠더 체계의 재생산과 변주의 과정이 미디어 환경의 구성과 어떻게 연동되는지를 탐색한다. 이를 통해 ‘환경으로서의 미디어’와 ‘미디어로서의 젠더’의 관계를 탐구하는 젠더-미디어 생태학적 접근의 이론적 함의를 논의한다.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study approaches gender as a relational process continuously formed and transformed within the media environment, while likewise understanding the media environment as a condition constituted through its interaction with gender systems. Based on this inter-constitutive perspective, the study proposes ‘gender–media ecology’ as a theoretical perspective and practical approach to explore how gendered embodiment is mediated, conditioned, and reorganized within technological environments. Unlike previous studies that have regarded media primarily as a site of gendered representation or a tool of patriarchal power—and gender as a represented identity or sociocultural construct—this study considers media as an environment and gender as a dynamic, mediated relation formed within that environment. To ground this theoretical inquiry, the study extends key ideas from media ecology, such as mediation, biases, extension and containment, and develops a gender–media ecological analysis using self-tracking technologies as a case study. These technologies—including wearable devices, apps, algorithms, networks, and big data—form a multi-layered media environment that collects, analyzes, and visualizes bodily data, thereby adjusting and reconfiguring users’ bodily practices and sensory experiences.
Rather than viewing such technologies as mere measurement tools, the study examines them as complex mediating environments that shape bodily perception and embodied experience. It focuses in particular on how self-tracking technologies act as environmental conditions that structure gendered bodily experiences. This approach enables an analysis of spatio-temporal, sensory, social, and epistemological biases—understood here as the media-ecological orientations and structuring tendencies that mediate bodily agency within technological environments—as they intertwine with gender systems. It also considers how these technologies are deployed in gendered ways while simultaneously reshaping existing gender dynamics. In such mediating dynamics, media technologies configure bodily experiences in particular ways, and gender systems are reconfigured or reinforced through their embeddedness in technological environments.
The study conceptualizes the body not as a fixed or bounded entity but as a ‘relational body’ constituted through its interaction with technological, gendered, and social conditions. Self-tracking technologies create conditions that extend or constrain the body, often internalizing norms of gendered femininity or ideal bodily standards. While such systems promote control and efficiency in bodily management, they may marginalize or exclude non-conforming bodies and experiences, thereby reinforcing gender norms. Yet, bodies that resist technological logic, question the datafication process, or seek alternative modes of mediation, can reveal the repressive mechanisms of containment within these technological forms while opening possibilities for reinterpreting the relations among gender, technology, and the body. Media technology acts as a constitutive and mediating condition through which all forms of gendered embodiment—whether normative, oppositional, or emergent—are shaped, negotiated, or constrained. Gender–media ecology, as a critical approach, interrogates these processes of mediation and explores the relationship between ‘media as environment’ and ‘gender as media.’