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After participating in US elections, voters have begun to share "I voted" selfies, or networked self-portraits that display their political participation. "I voted" selfies exist at the intersection of competing ideals of citizenship, including dutiful citizenship, which centers civic duty and voting, and self-actualizing citizenship, which focuses on individualized and expressive forms of political participation. I argue that these images can be understood through historically resonant communication practices, namely, as a mediated manifestation of 19th-century political congregations that I term embodied mass communication. To trace how voters perform embodied visions of citizenship through shared practices of digital self-representation, I conducted a content analysis of "I voted" selfies posted to Twitter on US Election Day 2016. In these selfies, voters present their bodies as civic evidence, frame individual representations to signify visual collectives, and creatively contextualize their political participation. Their selfies suggest how representational rituals can reflect and reconstitute citizenship models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Naked loan selfies are a Chinese Internet phenomenon in which naked selfies taken by young women are used as a form of collateral in peer-to-peer loaning systems. Despite being the subject of sensationalised media coverage in China, naked loan selfies have so far received only very limited academic attention. Drawing on the new materialist ontologies of Karen Barad and Annemarie Mol, this article investigates naked loan selfies as techno-social entities that are enacted through specific online networks and practices. The article uses text-based research and online walkthroughs to trace the way naked loan selfies are constituted first as collateral, and second as pornography. As well as providing insight into an under-researched online phenomenon, this article contributes to the growing body of work on selfies as networked, lively and agentic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data selfies are representations of self through personal quantitative data: from graphs of Tinder dating outcomes, through to the story of brain surgery told through daily step counts. In this article, we explore practices around what we call 'confessional data selfies' shared on the reddit forum r/DataIsBeautiful, where more than 14 million subscribers – predominantly straight men – share often complex and intimate quantitative self-representations of their lives. We draw on an analysis of the top 1000 posts on r/DataIsBeautiful, and a sub-sample of 59 data selfies, to identify patterns in confessional data selfie practices. We identify three themes: families and relationships, routine management, and body rhythms. We argue that these data selfies generate opportunities for self-reflection, connection, discussions of mental health, grief and other personal experiences. Significantly, this occurs largely between men, modulating processes of gendered impression management and expanding the conceptualisation of selfie work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Selfie posting is now a well-established practice, particularly for young women. However, it is nevertheless much maligned in popular discourses. As a counterpoint to digital narcissism, selfie posting is also constituted as relational. This Q methodological study explored how young women make sense of selfie practices. Twenty-seven young women aged 18–23 sorted a set of statements about selfies into a quasi-normal grid. These sorts were factor analysed to identify shared patterns. Four factors were identified which were subsequently analysed qualitatively, producing a narrative for each. These included (1) 'Presenting... Me!', (2) 'I am what I am', (3) 'Sharing is caring' and (4) 'The In-crowd – beautiful and popular'. The complexity of identity curation evidenced in this study highlights the importance of moving beyond both polarised characterisations and the pathologisation of young women selfie takers in order to explicate the interplay between normative femininities and the digital self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Risky selfies are recent, but worrying phenomena in which adolescents take pictures of themselves during the act of risk behavior. By applying the principles of the prototype willingness model, the current cross-sectional study among adolescents (N = 686) aged 15–18 years old examined the relation between social media use and adolescents' risky selfie behavior. A structural equation modeling indicated that adolescents' general social media use was positively related to descriptive norm estimations of risky selfie takers and favorable prototype perceptions of risky selfie takers. Moreover, attitudes toward the taking of risky selfies and prototype perceptions of risky selfie takers were found to positively relate to adolescents' willingness to engage in risky selfie taking and their actual risky selfie behavior. Furthermore, no support was found for the moderating roles of gender, developmental status, narcissism, and sensation seeking in the reported relations with social media use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mass media systems play increasingly prevalent roles in our lives. However, the relationship between traditional mass media exposure and behavior on social media is unclear, particularly in the context of selfie-related behavior, which includes capturing, editing, and sharing images of oneself. In the tradition of social cognitive theory, we argue that reality television (RTV) models a value system focused on the self and competition with others, and hypothesize a model where self-worth based on competition mediates the relationship between RTV viewing and selfie-related behavior. Path analysis results from survey data (N = 334) support the mediation model. Selfie-related behavior was explicated and measured via novel instruments. Audience variables including online network size and diversity also played roles in selfie editing and sharing, as did specific social media platforms. Results are discussed in the context of evolving media systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How people with ostomies-a surgically created opening in the body that expels bodily wastes-use social media to challenge ostomy stigma represents a growing area of research, especially the creation, posting, and circulation of ostomy selfies within online health communities. This project contributes to this research by examining reactions by a mass audience to news stories about a viral ostomy selfie posted by ostomate Bethany Townsend to a Crohn's disease Facebook page. By analyzing the user-generated comments associated with this news coverage, this study illuminates how ostomy selfies are interpreted outside the highly sympathetic audiences that populate online health communities. Analysis reveals positive and negative reactions, posted by ostomates and non-ostomates alike, coexist within the comments. Implications of the conflicting reactions to ostomies, in general, and ostomy selfies, in particular, are discussed with regard to the effort to destigmatize ostomies in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an iconic image of our time, the selfie has attracted much attention in popular media and scholarly writing. The focus so far has been on the representation of the self or subjectivity. We propose a complementary perspective that foregrounds the intersubjective function of the selfie. We argue that the presence of selfhood is often an assumption. What distinguishes the selfie from other photographic genres is its ability to enact intersubjectivity -- the possibility for difference of perspectives to be created and this difference to be shared between the image creator and the viewer. Based on a social semiotic analysis of selfies on Instagram, we identify four subtypes of selfie, each deploying a combination of visual resources to represent a distinct form of intersubjectivity. Our analysis suggests that the potential for empowerment is inherent in the visual structure of the selfie, and that, as a genre, it is open for recontextualisation across contexts and social media platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from a subset of data from a multi-year connective ethnographic study with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth, this article explores the scriptural counter-economy of composing new media narratives across online/offline contexts. Combining theoretical constructs from "multi-" literacy studies alongside visual and textual analysis, this article describes the influences of Web 2.0 technologies and photo-based composing tools on contemporary configurations of LGBTQ youth identity making. Giving visuality a place of primacy, this article focuses on two larger thematic findings: snapping selfies as sedimentary identity texts and curating lifestreams as operationalizing community. Focusing on how youth use these material, embodied, and visual texts to reinforce, challenge, combat, and/or resist identities of difference, this article considers how the so-called visual vernaculars and material texts of youth lifestreaming offer alternative conceptions to contemporary new media writing and storying of the self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an exploration of what selfies and other images are and do in Not Safe For Work (NSFW) communities on tumblr.com. By analyzing ethnographic and interview data, images and blog outtakes, this article spotlights four kinds of conflicts that arise around how selfies and images are used. These are about: (a) reactions to photo-shopped images, (b) altering other people’s selfies and/or reposting them as your own, (c) misunderstandings from separating text from image (caption-stripping), (d) disrespecting the self-shooters’ way of curating their blogs. Boundary theory as well as concepts of social afterlife of content and assumed trust are used to illuminate that images, including selfies, have significant, yet different meanings to different people and play an important part in creating and maintaining meaningful relationships and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]