ABSTRACT

This chapter explores selfie culture and photo sharing through the curation of women and girls' online identities and the ways in which the visual has been taken up in research in this area. Using empirical examples from our own research on women's engagement with photo-sharing practices online, we trace a path through the theoretical and methodological engagements in and outside of psychology and how these have informed and shaped our own uses of visual methods. Selfies are now a well-established and routine part of daily life. Gendered and generational patterns around selfie-taking and sharing practices are resonant with the findings on generic social media usage. The visual manifestation of self in selfies has been constituted in popular arenas as intensifying preoccupations with oneself and self-image which is heightened by editing facilities built into digital photographic technologies to create ‘best’ look.