The Lonely Selfie King: Selfies and the Conspicuous Prosumption of Gender and Race
Date
2015
Authors
Williams, Apryl A.
Aldana Marquez, Beatriz
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
Abstract
Taking selfies has become an integral part of the social media experience. As discussed in the introduction to this special issue, selfies are internationally pervasive and evoke strong reactions from those that encounter them. Even if users do not produce selfies themselves, they cannot help but consume them. But the production and consumption of selfies is not merely a social media trend; selfies have become social artifacts that deliver social messages created and negotiated by the culture that produces them. Even within a single culture, an artifact’s meaning can shift with context and those decoding the message. Gender and race play an important role in creating the context of almost all social messages and are particularly salient when analyzing the production and consumption of selfies.
Description
Keywords
gender presentation, race, presentation of self, conspicuous prosumption, social media, selfies, Sociology
Citation
Williams, A. A., & Marquez, B. A. (2015). The lonely selfie king: Selfies and the conspicuous prosumption of gender and race. International Journal of Communication, 9(1), pp. 1775–1787.