Prelims

Half Title Page

Selfies

Why We Love (and Hate) Them

Series Page

SocietyNow

SocietyNow: Short, informed books, explaining why our world is the way it is, now.

The SocietyNow series provides readers with a definitive snapshot of the events, phenomena and issues that are defining our 21st century world. Written by leading experts in their fields, and publishing as each subject is being contemplated across the globe, titles in the series offer a thoughtful, concise and rapid response to the major political and economic events and social and cultural trends of our time.

SocietyNow makes the best of academic expertise accessible to a wider audience, to help readers untangle the complexities of each topic and make sense of our world the way it is, now.

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  Peter Kivisto

• Becoming Digital: Towards a Post-Internet Society

  Vincent Mosco

• Understanding Brexit: Why Britain Voted to Leave the European Union

  Graham Taylor

• Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame Online

  Crystal Abidin

• Kardashian Kulture: How Celebrities Changed Life in the 21st Century

  Ellis Cashmore

• Poverty in Britain: Causes, Consequences and Myths

  Tracy Shildrick

Title Page

Selfies

Why We Love (and Hate) Them

By

Katrin Tiidenberg

Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School, Tallinn University, Estonia

and

School of Communication and Culture – Information Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark

United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2018

Copyright © 2018 Emerald Publishing Limited

Reprints and permissions service

Contact: permissions@emeraldinsight.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters' suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78743-717-3 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-78754-357-7 (E-ISBN)

ISBN: 978-1-78754-359-1 (Epub)

Contents

Acknowledgements

This book might not have been possible without my friend and mentor, Annette Markham, who brought up my selfie research in a conversation with Emerald’s publisher Jen McCall, and urged me to put together a book proposal, at a moment when I thought I was perhaps already done with writing about selfies. I clearly wasn’t. Writing this has been a treat. Thank you, Annette – for your friendship, your feedback, and for putting me in an office with a giant whiteboard. Thank you Jen McCall for wanting to publish this book, and Rachel Ward for making the administrative parts of it smooth.

This book most probably would not have been, if my son were less of a gentle soul, or less of a flexible human. Together we were able to bend and not break, when writing, working and studying in a different country, away from home. Thank you buddy. You are my greatest love.

I’m grateful to my husband, sister, my friends and colleagues, who read and commented on bits and pieces, and to friends and students who speculated and future-wandered with me. Thank you Abby Oakley, Anja Bechmann, Asko Lehmuskallio, Cindy Tekobbe, Christoph Raetzsch, Evelin Kullman, Gabriel Pereira, John Carter McKnight, Kata Boronte, Katie Warfield, Kevin Driscoll, Kristjan Maalt, Kristoffer Thyrrestrup, Kseniia Kalugina, Mari-Klara Stein, Michael Burnam Fink, Oliver Kullman, Siim Tiidenberg and Steve Stein.

Last, but definitely not least, thank you colleagues of the Selfie Research Network for our exciting, lively communal space of thought, link and dialogue. Thank you Terri Senft for starting it, and thank you Amparo Lasen, Bent Fausing, Crystal Abidin, Hannah Ackermans, Jill Walker Rettberg, Luciano De Sampaio, Shahid Mirza, Sofia Caldeira, Tiffany Mariposa, Toni Eagar, Zeynep Donmez Bezroko and Yaren Jolie specifically for telling me about the selfie word’s usage in your countries.

About the Author

Katrin Tiidenberg, PhD, is Associate Professor of Social Media and Visual Culture at the Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School of Tallinn University, Estonia, and a Postdoctoral Researcher at the School of Communication and Culture at Aarhus University, Denmark. She is a founding member of the Estonian Young Academy of Sciences, a second-time board member of the Estonian Association of Sociologists and has just published her first book in Estonian on social media. She is currently publishing and speaking on selfie culture, digital research ethics, visual research methods and young people’s social media practices. Her research interests include visual culture, social media, self-presentation, gender, sexuality and norms.

Find her on the internet:

@kkatot

kkatot.tumblr.com