ABSTRACT

The chapter discusses the conception, production, deployment and user-testing of the selfie course: a distributed, online, collaborative course (DOCC) designed to help students and teachers 'go through it': that is, critically assess social media moments together. The selfie course emerged from the selfie research network, a facebook-based discussion and research group established by Theresa Senft in February 2014. This informally-convened group rapidly expanded from a small number of scholars to a global network of academics, students and others interested in understanding the phenomenon of selfies. This allowed for discussions that included established scholars familiar with each other's work, as well as remaining inclusive to students and newcomers. It soon became clear that many of the participants were interested in using selfies in teaching, and discussions turned towards how selfies might be integrated into university and college classes on digital culture, communications, ethnography, gender studies, cultural studies or visual studies.