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ECREA Digital Culture WorkshopUniversity of Salzburg 26-27 November 2015
Antoni Roig, Elisenda Ardèvol, Gemma San CornelioUniversitat Oberta de Catalunya
Context of the research
Focus on personal narratives generated by users in social networks.
Selfie as object of study: current example of the modes of representation of self?
Mixed methods: quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis with a two-folded aim:
1) to foster the debate on the possibilities and limitations of “Data Analytics” in social research
2) to expand qualitative research on this issue, providing a framework of analysis from Big Data.
"Selfiestories and personal data" - Project funded by the BBVA - 12/2015- 12/2016
www.selfiestories.net
Some theoretical references
Selfie as ‘performed’ in different social contexts as part of a personal or collective narrative (Vivien and Burgess, 2013).
Selfie in a broader spectrum of images and narrative threads that emerge within and between images conforming larger narrative streams or feeds (Fallon, 2014).
Selfie understood as a cultural form beyond the ‘selfie tag’ (Gunthert, 2015)
Social and technological devices are key to the understanding of the practices of the selfie and constitute an ‘alternative genealogy’, along with chats and other ways of technology-mediated interaction (Gómez and Thornham, 2015)
Big data needs thick data (Wang, 2013)www.selfiestories.net
Selfie, a cultural standard?
Technical standards -> norms, values and conventions to facilitate communication across formats, platforms, etc.
Aesthetic standards-> Canon as normative concept related to conventionally accepted that it is following the ‘correct’, ‘normal’ or common form.
Photographic rules -> related to formal standards for portraiture.
www.selfiestories.net
Selfie as a visual standard
The “selfie” can be considered a visual standard as it is a formalized kind of media image and production, which is structured by a number of stylistic conventions. These include the conflation of photographer and subject, a framing in which the subject dominates the foreground of the image, and the subject typically looking directly into the lens, and a perspective that is generally front-view from above (Meese et al. p. 1820).
www.selfiestories.net
Formal analysis of selfies
From a formal perspective, selfies have some common traits that some authors have analysed, trying to find rules.
Manovich - Selfiecity (2013) They find some slightly different poses (such as the head tilt, or the tendency to smile) in the different cities where the selfies were extracted
Bruno et al (2014, 2015) look at photographic rules (thirds rule, the golden rule, eye centering, or choosing the right side of the profile). They are not applied mainly to selfies.
www.selfiestories.net
Thirds rule
The communicative nature of selfies
Selfies are more than visual standards, they are communicative objects (Gómez and Thornham, 2015) ---> cultural standard
Sel·fie: /ˈselfē/ noun (informal)
A photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media.
(Oxford dictionaries, 2013)
www.selfiestories.net
The double nature of the selfie
The selfie as a digital object and cultural standard is interpreted by different logics in digital narratives:
the database and the storytelling (Manovich,2001)
- Searching engines
- Folk taxonomies and hashtags
- Instagram streamline
www.selfiestories.net
Selfie narratives in database collections
Joan Fontcuberta (2010) Reflectograms - Through the mirror exhibition (self-portraits on the Internet, with a mirror)
Richard Prince (2015) exhibition on instagram selfies (appropriation and curation without permission)
Lev Manovich Selfiecity (2013) project collecting selfies from instagram in different cities
www.selfiestories.net
Selfie narratives: disrupting the standards
The disruptive selfies are based on the social conventions of the standard to be understandable.
Disruptive selfies enrich the conversation by telling different stories.
Its meaning is constructed by disrupting / playing with the social conventions of mass communication.
www.selfiestories.net
Selfies and the personal narratives of the body
Health, the body and lifesyle Personal stories of survival
www.selfiestories.net
Selfies and the personal narratives of the body
Selling a lifestyle Celebrities, authenticity and the feminized body
www.selfiestories.net
Digital celebrities and the selfie
Spanish Youtube Celebrities Selfie between parody and self-celebration
www.selfiestories.net
Digital celebrities and the selfie
spanish Youtube Celebrities Selfie between parody and self-celebration
www.selfiestories.net
Appropriations, critique and fakes
Abdou Diouf: a fake journey Amalia Ullman: a fake celebrity
www.selfiestories.net
Appropriations, critique and fakes
If Disney characters had Instagram accounts (Illustrator Simona Bofanini project)
Selfies and the banalization of tragedy (the Carlos Herrera case)
www.selfiestories.net
Conclusions
Formal canon is unable to grasp selfies meaning because of its communicative character: its meaning depends on context (streams, text, comments, filters, social media platforms)
Selfies: stories not only about the self, but about a self embedded in a socialized media world (don’t fit in the cultural standard).
Its standardization (through mass-media) produces normativity which is playfully/seriously contested through disruption practices.
Disruptive practices contribute to the enrichment of the communicative process (unlike in the case of technological standards)
www.selfiestories.net
Conclusions
KEEP CALM
&
TAKE A SELFIE
Thank You!
www.selfiestories.net
