This article explores the representation of women electric guitarists on Instagram. It examines the ways in which their practices as electric guitarists are represented and surveys the spectrum of gender expressions represented on Instagram. It also considers the interconnectedness between these representations and their significance. The research findings are based on textual analysis of the Instagram content of sixteen electric guitarists of varying ages, success levels, and career stages. The findings show that Instagram is a platform through which a multiplicity of representations of women electric guitarists can be observed that can contribute to a deeper, more nuanced understanding and narrative. This article demonstrates that Instagram is an important site of analysis in its ability to contribute to shaping the discourses around gender and the electric guitar and the normalisation of diverse individuals occupying this role.

Drawing on focus groups conducted with musicians based in England, we discuss how musicians with backgrounds in different genres evaluate the effects of a range of music-related digital platforms on musicians and music culture. Alongside criticisms, some of them familiar from recent public debate and academic research, we identify a number of more ambivalent and even positive perspectives on the platformisation of music. We analyse the divided responses of our focus group participants under three main headings: attitudes towards music streaming platforms and record labels; attitudes towards social media and short video platforms, in particular, their use as promotional and branding mechanisms; and attitudes towards the abundance of data available to musicians from these various kinds of digital platforms. In our concluding comments, we consider the possible objection that musicians’ ambivalent and sometimes positive appraisals might represent misguided or mistaken perspectives concerning the effects of platformisation.