How Else Would You Take a Photo? #SelfieAmbivalence

Abstract

Popular discourse describing selfies as the “narcissistic”2 practice of teenagers or a tool of personal empowerment, minimize the structural constraints under which selfies operate as a ubiquitous mode of sociality. Based on focus group discussions in two Canadian cities, we explore how young adults describe their selfie experiences and explore three discursive tensions expressed in the transcripts. First, how questions of “control” were taken up; second, how “visibility” was understood as fragile, and animated by an anxiety of invisibility; third, the nature of “fun” that selfies generate. We conclude by exploring some of the epistemological shifts that these practices indicate.

Selfie Narratives Made by Young People

“…In other countries, there is more scientific production on the subject, and the search for the descriptors "selfie" and "youth" brings relevant results from the last five years. However, it was found only one Canadian sociological study in which young people were asked to talk about their experiences with selfies, from which were extracted three types of relationships with the images: the relationship of control, the relationship of visibility and the relationship of fun (Cambre & Lavrence, 2019).…”

“Do I Look Like My Selfie?”: Filters and the Digital-Forensic Gaze

“…We situate this study in relation to a growing body of critical literature exploring the tensions and contradictions within selfie practices (Barnard, 2016;Cambre & Lavrence, 2019;Kedzior & Allen, 2016;Vivienne, 2017). We also engage literatures on post-feminist subjectivities (Gill's (2007(Gill's ( ), 2016(Gill's ( , 2017Gill & Scharff, 2011) to explore gendered practices of looking linked with "the construction of a visual cyber-mediastudies.press • Social Media & the Self: An Open Reader "Do I Look Like My Sel e?…”

“…In this article, we reflect on filter use and the aesthetic and affective labor of selfies, production processes, ambivalence and anxiety about authenticity, and the intense looking practices aimed at decoding the legitimacy of images. We posit that filters are part of a digital ecosystem 3 that demands an intensification of looking practices, which produce and enhance specific forms of objectification directed toward selves and others within digital environments. Animating this looking is the intent to decipher the authenticity 4 and artifice at play in the image, which pulses throughout the transcripts mediastudies.press • Social Media & the Self: An Open Reader "Do I Look Like My Sel e?…”

“…We position selfies relationally and processually as quasi-immediate networked social practices enacted between people within mediating ecologies involving online/offline intersections and tensions. Selfies are a distinctive genre from traditional selfportraiture produced through various media (Cambre & Lavrence, 2019), which we now operationalize as inclusive of the plandid 5 because our participants discussed plandids as selfies. That is, they did not specifically differentiate between images that were plandids and those that were selfies.…”

“Do I Look Like My Selfie?”: Filters and the Digital-Forensic Gaze

“…We position selfies relationally and processually as quasi-immediate networked social practices enacted between people within mediating ecologies involving online/offline intersections and tensions. Selfies are a distinctive genre from traditional self-portraiture produced through various media (Cambre & Lavrence, 2019), which we now operationalize as inclusive of the plandid 5 because our participants discussed plandids as selfies. That is, they did not specifically differentiate between images that were plandids and those that were selfies.…”