Episode 107: Social Media & Visible Difference

About this episode

The episode discusses the impact of social media on individuals with visible differences, featuring insights from researchers and a PhD student.

Welcome back to Appearance Matters: The Podcast! In this month’s episode, Ella speaks to Research Fellow Dr Emma Waite and Visiting Professor Dr Amy Slater from the Centre for Appearance Research about their work on social media and visible difference as part of the VTCT Foundation Programme of Research at CAR. They are also joined by Laure Dedecker, a PhD student at the Media Psychology Lab at KU Leuven in Belgium who researches the role of social media in body image development among young individuals with a visible difference. They talk about the social media experiences of people with visible differences, how social media might be used in a positive way, and discuss Australia’s new social media ban for under 16s. The social media resources discussed will be coming soon to the Visible Difference Support Hub: https://visibledifferencesupporthub.com/ Journal article (Guest et al., 2025) exploring the experiences of adults with visible differences in relation to social media: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0324938 Journal article (Dedecker et al., 2025) examining content and responses to influencers with visible different…

People in this episode

Host: Ella

Guests: Dr Emma Waite, Dr Amy Slater, Laure Dedecker

Topics covered

• social media
• visible difference
• body image
• youth
• research

Keywords

• social media
• visible difference
• body image
• research
• youth

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Centre for Appearance Research, Media Psychology Lab at KU Leuven, VTCT Foundation Programme of Research, Visible Difference Support Hub

Books & works: Guest et al., 2025, Dedecker et al., 2025

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