ATTITUDE AND GRADUATION AS RESOURCES OF MASCULINITY CONSTRUCTION IN YOUTUBE VLOGS.

The present study examines stance-taking resources engaged in the performance of branded masculine YouTube identities. It aims at determining the role of Attitude and Graduation, two aspects of Martin and White's (2005) Appraisal framework, in the construction of branded masculinity on popular American YouTube vlog channels. The paper also presents adjustments to Appraisal system, which enable its applicability to gender identity analysis in terms Anderson's Inclusive masculinity theory (2009), namely a developed Affect:Dis/inclination subcategory and a new category of Ironic heterosexual recuperation, which prove to be of considerable importance for determining the resources for the construction of blended masculinities in YouTube vlogs. The quantitative and qualitative analyses of the Appraisal resources employed in the speech of male vloggers has shown that branded masculine identities predominantly rely on the hybridization of orthodox and inclusive masculinities construed by means of evaluative stances targeted at a range of activities, people, objects, concepts indirectly indexing the either of the two types of masculinities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]