ABSTRACT
Taking the media response to pro-anorexia online spaces (also pro-ana) as a starting point, this introductory chapter puts forward some definitions of pro-ana and presents the key literature on the subject. It explores the challenges in researching a controversially received phenomenon, before outlining the book’s theoretical frameworks and the author’s motivations for undertaking this project. Pro-ana, which operates across a raft of websites, forums, and social media, emerged towards the end of the twentieth century and has been the subject of media vilification and societal consternation ever since; however, it has altered considerably since its inception. This book captures it during its tipping point where it shifted from discussion-based forums and websites to more image-centric social media, all the while being subject to censorship and deletion by Internet moderators. Rather than positioning it as either pathological or to be celebrated, the author argues that pro-ana culture is exemplary of the contradictory demands on twenty-first century femininity perpetrated by postfeminism.
