Towards a Sociology of Selfies

Maria-Carolina Cambre is an associate professor at Concordia University, Montreal CA and Chercheuse associée à IRCAV-Paris (2020-25). Cambre’s research addresses visual processes of legitimation, questions of representation, visual methodologies. Cambre is the author of: The Semiotics of Che Guevara: Affective gateways (2015/16), and co-editor of Mediated Interfaces: The Body on Social Media (with Katie Warfield and Crystal Abidin 2020) and the forthcoming Visual Pedagogies: Concepts, Cases & Practices (with Edna Barromi-Perlman, and David Herman Jr. 2022)Christine Lavrence is Associate Professor of Sociology at King’s University College at Western University. Lavrence’s research explores questions related to digital media, visual sociology, memory and memorialization.

• Part I: Defining and Theorizing Selfie practice 1. Introduction 2. Mechanics: Method and Analysis 3. This is Not a Like: Selfies as Social Practice 4. "Do I Look Like My Selfie?" Filters & the Digital-Forensic Gaze Part II: Affect and Gender 5. Becoming Digital She-Objects: From the Double to… 6. Soft Boys, Chads, and Fuckboys: Performing Selfie Masculinities 7. As-if Happy: The "Forced Positive" and Post(ing)-fun Part III: Digital Constraints and Contexts 8. "Saturatedly Perfect": Staring Down the Hegemonic Gaze 9. Hashtags and the Optics of Optimization 10. Algorithmic Sociality: It’s Not a Bug it’s a Feature 11. Conclusion: Selfies and the Ends of Photography