Self-Images and Selfies

The internet is perhaps one of mankind’s greatest milestones. It connects people from all over the world, thus eradicating traditional boundaries of land and sea. Along with this connectivity comes the availability of information and instant communication. This sort of digitalization of human interaction is evident in social media websites like Facebook. People are able to communicate with each other and share aspects of their lives constantly. A popular form of self-expression present across all social media platforms is the ‘selfie’: an informal photograph of oneself taken by that person either with a front facing camera or other form of unprofessional photography. It has become such a phenomenon that it was named Oxford English Dictionary’s

Journalist Anna Hart argues this is the new era of people sharing selfies on a daily basis, that society has reached into “the age vanity, the digital vanity, you can argue no generation is immune from the selfie craze” (Hart,2014). A selfie has a variety of audiences from children capturing their best look to The Pope, it’s the new way of capturing evidence of your interaction with different people, better than asking for an autograph. However, in Hart’s (2014) article she argues that the idea that there is a need to look a certain way all of the time, especially when you are posting a selfie on social media, it almost has to be perceived in a positive way, showing the best selfie. Hart (2014) said “I need to look healthy, glossy and polished

“No one is forced to take selfies, but the preponderance of selfie culture inspires a heightened self-consciousness of our personal images online.” This is apart of the Times Article, and how peer pressure is the cause of people being self-consciousness about what they post online.

Minh-ha raises the point that now; women in particular have the potential to be “co-creators” in regards to their body image. She argues that the images of women – particularly those previously marginalized – have been radically transformed and that they now have agency to portray themselves wherever, however and if they chose. Gone are the days where the object of an image was controlled and objectified. Now, one may control how and if they are to be objectified and to what audience. She muses over Giroux promoting the idea that selfies (and thus other forms of self-presentation on social media, inclusive of reality TV shows) are simply

Many young girls have to go through life being bombard with ads telling them they should look a certain way. Ads, music videos, TV shows, movies, and billboards all present one body type for woman to have. Photography has been used to preserve historical moments and to capture snap shots of life. Why now is it being used to give young girls a negative view point about their bodies? Several studies have been done to see if there is a connection between social media and negative body stereotypes. This paper will go over a handful of those studies to prove photography is being used to harm girls’ mental wellbeing.

In 2013, the Oxford Dictionary crowned ‘selfie’ as the word of the year due to the overwhelming popularity of taking selfies at the time (The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2013 is ‘selfie’, 2013). Similar to many other media trends, selfies have created several controversial topics for the world to argue about. Among these controversies, selfie shaming is one of the subjects that have been talked about most. One notable case of selfie shaming was when sorority girls from Arizona State University were publicly mocked by sports announcers for taking selfies at an Arizona Diamondbacks baseball game (O’Neil, 2015). Through an analysis of selfie shaming, one can find that the social norms of new media culture clash with the social norms of

Today, many support the idea that the growing prevalence of such technologies has led to “an increase in body dissatisfaction and body concerns” (McLean). In allowing others to determine how we should feel or see ourselves, we are more and more passive in our lives and as a result, less active members of our communities. All in all, there is certainly a growing concern amongst our society about self-image. We may be using external stimuli in creating these perceptions of ourselves but still, the fundamental topic of this conversation revolves around the individual, not the larger society they are a part of. Today, we are more self-conscious and in a way, as a result of the endless amount of time we allow ourselves to be preoccupied by our own self-image, each of us as individuals has become more self-centered. The more ubiquitous this technology becomes, the clearer it is that many members of our society today, live in a highly anthropocentric

Are you a Narcissus? In Greek mythology, Narcissus, son of the River God, loved to stare at his reflection in the water. However, these days you won’t find someone staring at their reflection in the pond at the park, right? You would rather find someone staring at themselves in their smartphone screens after taking a good selfie. I’m sure the self-absorbed Narcissus would’ve loved selfies just as much as we all do.

This behaviour has become so common amongst todays younger generations that it is expected to take a selfie with your friends as if it is a normal ritual that has been apart of society for centuries. It is also anticipated that this group photo, selfie or any photo taken at an event will most likely then be published on social media. “Visual media such as photography, film, television or painting” are all mediums that are constructed in codes and signs which allows texts to be broken into different elements through analysis, an artwork can be read as a text through these codes that we recognize and comprehend, this also allows us to note the meaning of its construction. (Sturken & Cartwright, 2009, p.464). Visual media is often read like text through its code, signs and symbols which allows the text to be read. This is also achieved through the denotative meaning of an image which is the “face to face meaning” which is interpreting was is visually presented in front of you (Sturken & Cartwright, 2009,

On 19th November 2013, the word ‘selfie’ was named Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year. In a society where images are constantly being circulated, and with applications such as Snapchat being popular amongst a number of generations, this isn’t surprising. According to http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/snapchat-statistics/ the expanded ramblings website, on 16th March 2014 it was recorded that Snapchat’s share of total selfies distributed on social media made up 5% of self-portraits shared worldwide. With 100 million daily users, and an average of 9000 snaps a second the app is one of the most popular ways of sharing ‘selfies’ through social media, amongst other website such as Facebook and Instagram. As well as every day communities using

Digital photography has been put together with social media applications much like Instagram. Instagram allows the user to instantly share their photographs on social media networking site. Hence, it provides the user with several digital photographic filters to use and possibilities for other manipulations. For example, cropping, cropping provides the user with user with easily used tools but it is also a constrained environment (Zappavigna, 2016) as there are restrictions, for example, on image dimension. The types of photographs made out that the selfie is the most common type of photo (Dinhopl & Gretzel, 2016). Dinhopl and Gretzel (2016) suggest that selfietaking, which is a social media related practice, has consequences for photography

A notable feature of narcissism is the selfie; the proliferation of selfies are an obvious illustration of narcissism. According to John Paul Titlow’s “#me: Instagram Narcissism and the Scourge of the Selfie,” there are more than 90 million self-portraits taken under #me, which is the third most frequently used hashtag on Instagram. There are images of varying quality, displaying faces of different people from different places. We are able to scroll through our feed and be able to access and view into the world of others. However, many people use selfies to seek approval from their friends, followers, and the larger community. For example, many young, teenage girls would post selfies up, showing some cleavage or arching their back so much to

This response assignment will provide a case study on a highly popular controversial selfie for critical discussion. The case study will examine this selfie by academically analyzing and arguing that this photo is an empowering form of self-expression. It will discuss and theorize the social significance of this selfie, and how it can build and dismantle local and global community. The paper will use academic sources for this case study as supporting evidence for these claims.

Throughout the world we see lots of teenagers posting their photos of themselves and sometimes they post of their friends and family on social networks, the photos that they post on media are called ‘selfies’. The most teenagers, who post lots of ‘selfies’ are likely to be narcissists. Some of the teenagers stand in front of a mirror while holding up their phones to best capture of them. Once Fox said; “the more interesting finding is that they also score higher on this other anti-social personality trait, psychopathy, and are more prone to self-objectification.”- This quote means that these young people believes that they are very attractive than other people and value themselves for their looks.

Snapchat, which is a social media platform that allows its users to send messages, pictures and videos to their friends or post the content on their ‘story’. Snapchat was launched about four years ago, in September 2011 and it has continued to grow ever since. Thinking back, many people started using Snapchat in late 2013. It was very new and not many people were active on the social media platform. It was an odd feeling to be taking selfies in front of other people because that wasn’t the norm. It grew quickly and by 2014, Snapchat was one of the most frequently used apps. Some people can shamelessly say that they were or are still addicted to Snapchat. The culture of Snapchat is a young audience where people use it to communicate with their