Julia Eckel & Jens Ruchatz 
Exploring the Selfie 
Historical, Theoretical, and Analytical Approaches to Digital Self-Photography

This volume explores the selfie not only as a specific photographic practice that is deeply rooted in digital culture, but also how it is understood in relation to other media of self-portrayal. Unlike the public debate about the dangers of ‘selfie-narcissism’, this anthology discusses what the practice of taking and sharing selfies can tell us about media culture today: can the selfie be critiqued as an image or rather as a social practice? What are the technological conditions of this form of vernacular photography? By gathering articles from the fields of media studies; art history; cultural studies; visual studies; philosophy; sociology and ethnography, this book provides a media archaeological perspective that highlights the relevance of the selfie as a stereotypical as well as creative practice of dealing with ourselves in relation to technology.

Table of Content

1.The Selfie as Image (and) Practice – Approaching Digital Self-Photography.- 2. The Consecration of the Selfie. A Cultural History.- 3. Selfie-Reflexivity. Pictures of People Taking Photographs.- 4. Locating the ‘Selfie’ Within Photography’s History – and Beyond.- 5. The Selfie as Feedback: Video, Narcissism, and the Closed-Circuit Video Installation.- 6. The Selfie and the Face.- 7. Selfies & Authorship – On the Displayed Authorship and the Author Function of the Selfie.- 8. Competitive Photography and the Presentation of the Self.- 9. Of Duckfaces and Cat-beards: Why Do Selfies Need Genres?.- 10. Interfacing the Self – Smartphone Snaps and the Temporality of the Selfie.- 11.The Video Selfie as Act and Artefact of Recording.- 12. Be a Hero – Self-Shoots at the Edge of the Abyss.- 13. Strike a Pose: Robot Selfies.- 14. Selfies and Purikura as Affective, Aesthetic Labour.- 15.The Kid Selfie as Self-Inscription: Re-Inventing an Emerging Media Practice.- 16.“Machos” and “Top Girls”: Photographic Self-Images of Berlin Hauptschüler.-

About the author

Julia Eckel is Research and Teaching Associate at the Institute of Media Studies at Philipps-University Marburg, Germany. 






Jens Ruchatz is Professor of audiovisual transfer processes at the Institute of Media Studies at Philipps-University Marburg, Germany. 





Sabine Wirth is Research and Teaching Associate at the Institute of Media Studies at Philipps-University Marburg, Germany.