Visual identity in Facebook

Abstract

Abstract Seeing your friends in Facebook has become a common means of social interaction, illustrating a visual turn in digital media in general and social media in particular. This article explores visual identity in Facebook, focusing on the use of profile photographs in the performance of digitally mediated selfhood. In Facebook, relationships are increasingly communicated through images, thus rendering the interactive reflexivity of performance rather visible. Based on the profile photographs of students at an arts college in Tanzania, the article discusses the construction of cultural identities through visual communication. By visually expressing their selves through profile photographs, users engage in the social construction of reality, crafting their digitally mediated identities in interaction with their online social relations. The online performance of selfhood is analysed in the context of offline social and material realities, to underline cultural aspirations for global inclusion. Building on anthropological readings of performance, the concept of social aesthetic frame is introduced to capture patterns of digital stratification that encompass the online construction of networked selfhood in the peripheries of the global network society. The article builds on anthropological research on digital media and intercultural interaction at a national arts institute in Tanzania, using a combination of digital, sensory and visual research methods. Notes [1] An earlier version of this paper was presented at the workshop Scanning Digital Visuality organised by the Nordic Research Network in Digital Visuality (NNDV) in Kista, Sweden, on 1–2 December 2011. I am grateful for the constructive comments of Asko Lehmuskallio, Helena Wulff, Karin Becker, Ida Winther, Arni Sverrisson and other NNDV members who participated in the workshop. I am also grateful for the constructive feedback of Nina Stanley and David Estomihi when reviewing the paper in Bagamoyo in January 2012, and for Nina's and David's permission to reproduce their profile photographs in this article. Two anonymous reviewers for Visual Studies provided very stimulating feedback, clarifying the arguments presented here. [2] This sudden increase in access is probably related to changes in data collection routines, although it can also reflect some real changes in connectivity as a result of the installation of a national Internet backbone, the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy), and mobile Internet access. [3] Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/africa.htm, accessed on 6 June 2012. [4] Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/africa.htm, accessed on 30 January 2013. [5] Internet rates as of June 2012 and Facebook rates as of December 2012. Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/africa.htm, accessed on 30 January 2013 [6] The images referred to here are also posted online at http://www.innovativeethnographies.net/digitaldrama/facebook-pamoja