Medical Selfies: Emotional Impacts and Practical Challenges

Medical images taken with mobile phones by patients, i.e. medical selfies, allow screening, monitoring and diagnosis of skin lesions. While mobile teledermatology can provide good diagnostic accuracy for skin tumours, there is little research about emotional and physical aspects when taking medical selfies of body parts. We conducted a survey with 100 participants and a qualitative study with twelve participants, in which they took images of eight body parts including intimate areas. Participants had difficulties taking medical selfies of their shoulder blades and buttocks. For the genitals, they prefer to visit a doctor rather than sending images. Taking the images triggered privacy concerns, memories of past experiences with body parts and raised awareness of the bodily medical state. We present recommendations for the design of mobile apps to address the usability and emotional impacts of taking medical selfies

Performing the Digital Self: Understanding Location-Based Social Networking, Territory, Space, and Identity in the City

Expressions of territoriality have been positioned as one of the main reasons users alter their behaviors and perceptions of spatiality and sociality while engaging with location-based social networks (LBSN). Despite the potential for this interplay to further our understanding of LBSN usage in the context of identity, very little work has actually been done towards this. Addressing this gap in the literature is one the chief aims of the article. Drawing on an original six-week study with 42 participants utilizing a bespoke LBSN entitled ‘GeoMoments’, our research explores: (1) the way that territoriality is linked to self-identity; and (2) how this interplay affects the interactions between users as well as the environments they inhabit. Our findings suggest that participants affirmed their self-identity by selectively posting and claiming ownership of their neighborhood through the LBSN. Here, the locative decisions made related to risk, hierarchies, and the users’ relationship to the area. This practice then led participants to discover and interact with the digital information overlaying their physical environments in a playful manner. These interactions demonstrate the perceived power structures that are facilitated by identity claims over a virtual area. In the main, our results reaffirm that territoriality is a central concept in understanding LBSN use, while also drawing attention to the temporality involved in user-to-user and user-to-place interactions pertaining to physical place mediated by LBSN

Scarlett Johansson Falling Down: Memes, Photography and Celebrity Personas

Daniel Palmer and Kate Warren’s chapter explores the place of celebrity in online visual culture. It hones in on a single image of Johansson falling over while filming a scene in Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013). As Palmer and Warren highlight, this image provides significant insight into celebrity culture in the era of digital malleability and social media shareability as it was promptly transformed into the viral meme “Scarlett Johansson falling down” and shared widely online. Through analysis of this meme and its rapid proliferation, Palmer and Warren explore the relation between contemporary celebrity culture and online photosharing practices. They highlight the central role of photography and online image-based sharing in producing and critiquing celebrity personas

Nostalgia and Retro-Femininity in Self-Presentations of 50+ Women on Flickr

This article focuses on interconnected issues of nostalgia and sexual politics of retro-femininity in the online photo-sharing practices of mature women who display eroticized photographs of themselves on Flickr. These stylized images mimic the retro-feminine ideal, borrowing heavily from visual conventions of pin-up and aesthetics of hyper-feminine vintage fashion. They represent both a longing for the past younger self and a romanticized view of a model of femininity of the bygone era. The self-presentations in question are examined in a relationship with debates over the agency of self-display within the online sphere, considering how the uneasy positioning of aging female body in the youth-centered contemporary culture complicates the reading of these images.</p