The interplay of (semiotic) technologies and genre: the case of the selfie

ABSTRACT

The selfie is one of the most widely publicized, criticized, and debated visual phenomena of our time. However, formulating a definition of the selfie is not straightforward, as visual clues – be they representational or compositional – alone are not sufficient for identification. Recognizing an image as a selfie, rather than a portrait, often requires viewers to interpret the image in relation to the technological and sociocutural context in which the photo was taken and shared. In this paper, we consider the technological conditions that have shaped the evolution of the selfie as a visual genre. Central to our discussion is the premise that the selfie is not simply a genre for self-representation, but means of generating various perspectives: that of the selfie maker, the represented visual participant, and the viewer identification. This unique perspective-generating affordance of the selfie is both facilitated and constrained by the various technologies involved in selfie practices. On the one hand, the technological and physical constraints of the smart phone camera give rise to a specific form of “distorted” look which makes certain types of selfie possible. On the other hand, social media platforms facilitate the sharing of selfies, which results in increasingly stylized and creative ways in which perspectives of the self can be represented, negotiated, and, in the case of selfies manipulated via apps, augmented.

KEYWORDS:

• Selfies
• social semiotics
• genre
• photo-editing application
• social media platforms
• and phone camera

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Sumin Zhao is a Carlsberg Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Southern Denmark and the book review editor for Discourse and Communication. She publishes in the area of critical multimodal discourse analysis, mobile technologies and digital literacy. Her edited books in this area include Critical Multimodal Studies of Popular Discourse (Routledge, 2014) and Advancing Critical Multimodal Studies (Routledge, 2017). Her most recent book is The social semiotics of book apps: Redesigning meaning for a digital childhood (Bloomsbury, forthcoming).

Michele Zappavigna is a senior lecturer in the School of Arts and Media at the University of New South Wales. Her major research interest is the discourse of social media. Recent books in this area include: Discourse of Twitter and Social Media (Bloomsbury, 2012), Researching the Language of Social Media (Routledge, 2014) (with Ruth Page, Johann Unger and David Barton) and Searchable Talk: Hashtags and social media metadiscourse (Bloomsbury, 2018).

ORCID

Sumin Zhao http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9134-1895

Michele Zappavigna http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4004-9602

Notes

1 Snapchat lenses are different from the color filters in Instagram. As the former alters the face of the represented participants, while the later alter the “ambience” of the whole image.

2 We have permission to reproduce this user’s images.