A Ngaruahine doctoral student says there is a lot of concern among young Maori females and their parents about the way they portray themselves on social networking sites, such as Facebook.
Acushla Dee O'Carroll who is affiliated to Te Atiawa, is a PhD candidate at Massey University, and is about to submit her thesis about the way rangatahi or young Maori people are using Facebook.
She says young wahine Maori are cautious about what kind of photos they are tagged in.
Ms O'Carroll says their parents are also worried about the way they represent themselves on the internet, and how that reflects the rest of their whanau.
She says most young people are using the technology to represent a certain image of themselves, or people they aspire to emulate.
Ms O'Carroll says young women told her they were very critical about the photos that were posted of themselves, and wanted to ensure the images portrayed them in a positive light.
She admits that many of the things she has written about won't surprise readers, but she has found no academic literature written about this topic - particularly about the way Maori between the ages of 18 and 25 - are using social media.
