From the "Selfie" to the "Self-Paparazzo": The Notions about Spontaneity and Unpretentiousness on Instagram

• In Event: 3267 - Section on Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 5. Presentations of the Self and Audiences

Abstract

This text analyzes how users of virtual social networks have been used in the western world of new performative protocols in their posts on Instagram. Parallel to the way in which the logic of “selfie” has been marked by images made by ordinary people since 2002, the past few years have been marked by a practice that has roots in cinema, television and advertising, areas marked by the protagonism of the celebrities of the traditional media. This practice is defined here as “self-paparazzo”, a situation in which the photographer himself publishes images of a false “backstage”, pretending to be free from the social judgment, performing something that would not be common in his most recurrent public activities and that supposedly should not be a public persona. To support this discussion conceptually, I use the discussion about "backstage" (Erving Goffman), the debate about celebrities (Douglas Kellner) and the notions on "production" and "circulation" from the Communication area.

Author

• Robson da Silva Braga, Federal University of Ceará (UFC), Brazil