How to Be a Military Spouse: Short-Form Video and the New Genre of Wife Content

Amy Johnson; Naomi Smith

doi:10.1177/15274764261415820

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How to Be a Military Spouse: Short-Form Video and the New Genre of Wife Content

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

How to Be a Military Spouse: Short-Form Video and the New Genre of Wife Content

Amy Johnson and Naomi Smith

Television & New Media, Vol.Advanced access

2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/15274764261415820

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Abstract

military spouse

social media

digital ethnography

identity

Military spouses have frequently turned to social media platforms to navigate the complexities of military life. As civilians who are connected to, but not formally part of, the military, they experience many of the impacts of service and can feel unseen and unsupported. This paper draws on a qualitative analysis of TikTok and Instagram content produced by military spouses to reveal how this social media content serves as both a performative space and an instructional network, where spouses navigate the tension between seeking visibility and community support while reinforcing the very normative expectations of military wifehood that contribute to their marginalization. Content creators navigate and reproduce this tension through humor, satire and candid revelations to both challenge their invisibility and produce constraining norms. This analysis contributes to broader social media discourses of how social media platforms mediate identity performance, transformed by the communicative affordances of short-form video platforms.

Details

Title: How to Be a Military Spouse: Short-Form Video and the New Genre of Wife Content
Authors: Amy Johnson (Corresponding Author) - Central Queensland University
Naomi Smith (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast
Publication details: Television & New Media, Vol.Advanced access
Publisher: Sage Publications, Inc.
Date published: 2026
DOI: 10.1177/15274764261415820
ISSN: 1552-8316
Copyright note: © The Author(s) 2026. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Organisation Unit: School of Law and Society
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991224530202621
Output Type: Journal article

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