A Revised Project Proposal

Since the advent of the camera phone in 2000 (Hill, 2022), mobile phone users have had the ability to make photographs, and since the arrival of Facebook in 2004, they have had an online platform with which to share their creations. Today, the camera phone is a ubiquitous technology, possessed by billions of people, and social media has developed into a pervasive global network used by similar numbers.

This project examines social media behaviours around the Selfie (a photograph taken of oneself, typically with a camera phone to be shared on social media) and its contemporary challenger, Video, on two of Meta’s platforms, Facebook and Instagram. In 2013 the Oxford Dictionaries declared the Selfie word of the year, qualifying their decision as due to an apparent 17,000%  increase in usage over the preceding twelve months (BBC, 2013). That same year the Selfie, a social media phenomenon of the last two decades, started to face competition,  from video posts on Instagram’s new Video service.

In the last decade, the posting of personal content on social media has burgeoned into a surreptitious social competition to represent oneself, life, and family in the best possible way, by emphasising the positives and neglecting the negative. In their 2022 survey, The Psychology of Likes: Relevance of Feedback on Instagram and Relationship to Self-Esteem and Social Status, Sarah Diefenbach and Laura Anders offer support to pre-existing research identifying gratification and the reinforcement of social standing and self-worth to be factors encouraging social media use (Diefenbach and Anders, 2022).  

In their paper What Does the Selfie Say? Investigating a Global Phenomenon, Theresa Senft and Nancy Baym highlight the potential dangers linked with posting such material publicly on the internet, stating:

“Once anything enters digital space, it instantly becomes part of the infrastructure of the digital superpublic, outliving the time and place in which it was originally produced, viewed, or circulated” (Senft and Baym, 2015).

This project intends to create content that highlights the harmful nature and risks presented by these self-promotional trends, employing critical humour and underlying messages about the risks inherent in posting personal imagery publicly on the internet.  

The following objectives are intended as a guide for project delivery. They identify a set of deliverables by which progress, and success might be measured.

1.     To examine social media behaviours around the use of the selfie, and video using Reels and Stories, utilising contemporary academic research together with observational context.

2.     To create a series of digital media projects that utilise the media formats available of Meta’s most popular social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram. I will take inspiration from contemporary artists, and from individuals who I follow on social media.

3.     To create an Instagram account to publish my media projects. It is not my intention for the account to actively seek followers but to operate as an effective sandbox for my live Instagram account. I will also cross-post media project outcomes, where possible and permitted by copywrite law, to my Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube accounts.

BBC, 2013. 'Selfie' named by Oxford Dictionaries as word of 2013 [Viewed 25/11/2024]. Available from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24992393

DIEFENBACH, A., and L. ANDERS, 2022. The Psychology of Likes: Relevance of Feedback on Instagram and Relationship to Self-Esteem and Social Status. Psychology of Popular Media, 11 (2), 196-207

HILL, S., 2022. A complete history of the camera phone [Viewed 25/11/2024]. Available from: https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/camera-phone-history/

MANROTH, T., n.d. Instagram Stories vs. Facebook Stories for Businesses: The Most Important Differences [Viewed 28/10/2024]. Available from: https://storrito.com/resources/instagram-stories-vs-facebook-stories/#:~:text=Facebook%20vs.,being%20seen%20by%20your%20followers.  

META, n.d. Technologies [Viewed 25/11/2024]. Available from: https://about.meta.com/technologies/  

META, 2024. Meta Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Results; Initiates Quarterly Dividend [Viewed 25/11/2024]. Available from: https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2024/Meta-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2023-Results-Initiates-Quarterly-Dividend/default.aspx

SENFT, M. T., N. K. BAYM, 2015. What Does the Selfie Say?  Investigating a Global Phenomenon. International Journal of Communication, 9 (2015), 1588–1606