Selfies beyond self-representation: the (theoretical) f(r)ictions of a practice (original) (raw)
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Towards a Sociology of Selfies
Towards a sociology of selfies: The Filtered Face, 2023
This book examines selfies as a relational and processual networked social practice, performed between people within digital contexts and that involve online/ offline intersections and tensions. It offers an analysis of selfies through a rich and interdisciplinary framework that explores the ritualized and affective engagements selfies provoke from others. Given that selfies by definition are shared and posted through networked platforms, they complicate notions of traditional photographic selfportraiture. As such, this book explores how selfies invoke broader, stratified patterns of looking that are occluded in discourses of "empowerment" and "visibility," as well as the subjectivities these networked practices work to produce. Drawing on extensive qualitative research conducted over a period of three years, this book questions not only what selfies are but what they do, the worlds they create, the imaginaries that organize them, and the flows of desire, affect, and normativity that underpin them, questions that can only be addressed through research that closely attends to the experience of selfie-takers. It will be of interest to those working in the fields of Sociology, Cultural studies, Communications, Visual studies, Social Media studies, Feminist research, and Affect Theory.
A poststructuralist review of selfies: Moving beyond heteronormative visual rhetoric
Mobile devices can instantly create and distribute a digital self-portrait, or ‘selfie’ across a myriad of social networks. The word ‘selfie’ summarises a particular kind of cultural and photographic practice that is motivated by a combination of the agency and aspirational biases of the selfie producer and where they prefer to share on social networks. With a specific focus on gendered selfie production, this paper aims to explore the relevant theories for gender identity within online communities in which selfies are shared. From a theoretical starting point, firstly this paper employs the poststructuralist theories (Deleuze and Guattari, 1980) as interpretative filters for a decisive understanding of the inner “rhizome” of an individual’s ideal of “becoming”. This paper argues that the embodied human subject is transformed by self-exploration with the production and distribution of their selfies.
2016
This chapter examines the revolution in self-representation across the cyber-space engendered by the advent of new interactive social medias. It argues that in the attempt to face the challenges of self-imaging in everyday life and in an era where discourses of “identities in flux” have become the norm, photographic trends on Facebook usage seek to portray a sense of coherence of the self through popular media practices. In this dimension, the new media spaces have provided a propitious space of autobiographic self-showing-narrating through a mixture of photos/texts in a way that deconstructs the privileges of self-narration hitherto available only to a privileged class of people. The self (and primarily the face) has thus become subject to a dynamic of personal and amateurish artistic practices that represent, from an existentialist perspective, the daily practices of self-making, un-making and re-making in articulating one’s (social) being.
#selfie: Digital self-portraits as commodity form and consumption practice
Although selfies may appear to be the latest fad, their popularity has had a transformational influence on contemporary culture. Selfies invoke important issues in communication, photography, psychology, self-expression, and digital media studies – as they bring up a host of concerns about identity, privacy, security, and surveillance. This article provides an interdisciplinary overview of the selfie as both an object and a practice, and offers theoretical reflections on how the selfie can be seen as an important commodity form and consumer behaviour. The selfie is connected to concepts of authenticity, consumption, and self-expression, as well as practices of art history, media forms, and self-portraiture. Strategic use of the selfie reveals shifts in the traditional functions of the advertising photograph, from sources of information, persuasion and representation to emblems of social currency. We position the selfie not as a postmodern anomaly but as a type of image with a history.
Self-Representation in an Expanded Field. From Self-Portraiture to Selfie, Contemporary Art in the Social Media Age, 2021
The image-related self-thematization using digital communication technologies is a central cultural pattern of postmodern society. Considering these assumptions, this paper raises the question of whether, and in what way, practices of identity construction are changing, as part of the development of new digital and interactive media. The continuous change in media, society and technology in present visual cultures has led to the perception that images should be seen as an essential contribution to the formation of society and subjectivity. Along these lines, this submission analyses selfies as formats of communication and clarifies media-specific aspects of online communication. In this context, the paper focuses on the recurring features of selfies on the level of conventions of visual aesthetics, semantic encodings, media dispositives and stereotypical structures of interaction. With this perspective, it is possible to acquire a more detailed understanding of this relationship once it becomes clear in which way the visual practice and the aesthetics of photographic self-representation collaborate with the networking culture of social media.
Selfie: Reflections of the Self… The Resurgence of Self-Portraiture in the Digital Age
Contra Costa College. California, 2023
In the digital age, the act of taking selfies has evolved into a complex and multifaceted form of self-expression, akin to the historical tradition of self-portraiture. While psychologist Jean Twenge argues that selfies can promote narcissism, their responsible use can foster self-esteem and personal creativity. Selfies, like the intricate self-portraits of past artists, allow individuals to capture and convey their identities, emotions, and experiences through a modern lens. This digital self-representation, enhanced by the accessibility of social media, transforms selfies into a legitimate art form, bridging personal narratives with broader cultural and social contexts. By meticulously selecting environments, lighting, and filters, individuals use selfies to document significant moments and engage in a deeper exploration of self, fostering connections and preserving memories. In this light, selfies emerge as intimate time capsules, embodying the enduring legacy of artistic expression and the contemporary quest for identity and belonging.
Looking At Ourselves Looking At Ourselves: Self-Portraits in the Digital Age
Digital technology has revolutionized contemporary society. Mobile devices are the main medium through which individuals understand and experience the world around them. Selfies are representative of this societal shift. They are an entirely new medium, and one that must be understood within the context of digital media. The selfie offers a useful lens through which to understand the broader impact of digital media on society and our sense of self. My MRP is a exploration of the relationship between technology, identity, and self-expression in the digital age. The selfie is located at the intersection of many complicated forces: the relationship between the body and technology, the smartphone as mode of both archive and exhibition, social media as location of identity formation, and the relationship between seeing and being seen. Selfies function as a mirror through which we understand ourselves and each other. Selfies are about projecting a desired identity to the world — you are creating an image of who you are, and how you wish to be perceived. My paper will take up issues of visual culture, media theory, structuralism, and post- structuralism to explore these fascinating intersections. I have combined the object-oriented theory of Marshall McLuhan and Vilém Flusser with the cultural studies of Stuart Hall and Michel Foucault in order to situate the selfie within its broader socio-cultural meaning. Feminist theory is crucial to my project of understanding the selfie as a radical act of self-expression. I argue that the selfie’s largely negative reception in popular culture reveals a deeply entrenched cultural misogyny that punishes women for taking up space in public.
2015
Mobile devices can instantly create and distribute a digital self-portrait, or 'selfie' across a myriad of social networks. The word 'selfie' summarises a particular kind of cultural and photographic practice that is motivated by a combination of the agency and aspirational biases of the selfie producer and where they prefer to share on social networks. With a specific focus on gendered selfie production, this paper aims to explore the relevant theories for gender identity within online communities in which selfies are shared. From a theoretical starting point, firstly this paper employs the poststructuralist theories (Deleuze and Guattari, 1980) as interpretative filters for a decisive understanding of the inner "rhizome" of an individual's ideal of "becoming". This paper argues that the embodied human subject is transformed by self-exploration with the production and distribution of their selfies.
2019 - Semiotics of the Selfie: The Glorification of the Present
Punctum
After anecdotic evidence providing biographic background for the author's interest in selfies, the semiotic question of their meaning is tackled, distinguishing between the signification of taking selfies and the meaning of selfies thus taken. Both entail authorial, reception, and structural meaning, to be studied in the long period of the cultural history of self-representation and in the context of a specific semiosphere. Selfies can, hence, be interpreted as symptoms of an emerging and increasingly hegemonic temporal ideology in which escape from both traumatic past and anguishing future gives rise to a valorization of the present expressing itself also in the new visual format of the selfies: they attempt at bestowing an ontological aura to the insignificance of the postmodern present.
Selfie-taking: A key semiotic practice within the ‘show of the self’
Punctum, 2018
During the last couple of years, the action of taking selfies has emerged as a common everyday life practice, mainly among young people, but not limited to them. Selfie-taking is a meaningful practice that requires a semiotic analysis. In this paper I reflect on the semiotic character of selfie-taking, particularly by discussing its nature and a possible segmentation in smaller units. Moreover, I argue that in the current scenario of extended online exhibition that anthropologist Paula Sibilia calls ‘show of the self’, selfie-taking plays a key role as a way of making evident the presence of the ‘real’ offline author in the identity narrative that is being constructed online. Within the dynamics of online self-representation and in line with the idea that online identities are actively constructed, I discuss why selfies should be regarded as heterogeneous and semiotically complex devices, and particularly how they contribute to the creation of the online identity of its authors.