ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes that the dominant research methods used to study socially mediated images of bodies often do not treat socially mediated images of bodies as closely connected to the bodies of the image-makers. It presents and illustrates three new materialist-informed methods authors have developed: meating in the story; networked intra-viewing; and reading the image horizontally to bring proximity between image-maker, image, and researcher. The chapter discusses each of these methods with reference to Courtney and authors' work together. To discuss the method of meating in the story, the chapter focuses on Courtney's coming out video posted on YouTube and how we adapted existing narrative methods for social media to bring proximity between image, image-maker, and researcher. The chapter illustrates the notion of the agential cut with our arguments about how representational and presentational research methods shape our understanding of socially mediated images of bodies.
