Mediated Interfaces: The Body on Social Media

Images of faces, bodies, selves and digital subjectivities abound on new media platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, and others—these images represent our new way of being online and of becoming socially mediated. Although researchers are examining digital embodiment, digital representations, and visual vernaculars as a mode of identity performance and management online, there exists no cohesive collection that compiles all these contemporary philosophies into one reader for use in graduate level classrooms or for scholars studying the field. The rationale for this book is to produce a scholarly fulcrum that pulls together scholars from disparate fields of inquiry in the humanities doing work on the common theme of the socially mediated body. The chapters in Mediated Interfaces: The Body on Social Media represent a diverse list of contributors in terms of author representation, inclusivity of theoretical frameworks of analysis, and geographic reach of empirical work. Divided into three sections representing three dominant paradigms on the socially mediated body: representation, presentation, and embodiment, the book provides classic, creative, and contemporary reworkings of these paradigms.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Part One: The Body Mediated 1. ‘Find love in Canada’: Distributed selves, abstraction, and the problem of privacy and autonomy Vincent Miller, University of Kent, UK 2. Embodied Verification: Linking Identities and Bodies on NSFW Reddit Emily van der Nagel, Monash University, Australia 3. #ILYSM*: Instagram as Fan Practice, Hattie Liew, National University of Singapore, Singapore 4. Ethan’s Golden YouTube Play Button: The evolution of a child influencer Carolina Cambre and Maha Abdul Ghani, Concordia University, Canada Part Two: The Body Politicized 5. Performing Visibility: Representing the Palestinian Freedom Riders through Non-Violent Protest and Visual Activism Gary Bratchford, University of Central Lancashire, UK 6. #WhoNeedsFeminism? Mapping Leaky, Networked Affective Feminist Resistance Jessica Ringrose, UCL London, UK and Kaity Mendes, University of Leicester, UK 7. ‘Smart is the Nü (boshi) Sexy’: How China’s PhD women are fighting stereotypes using social media Jing Zeng, IKMZ Zurich, Switzerland 8. Online Ajumma: Self-presentations of contemporary elderly women via digital media in Korea Jung Moon, Seoul Women's University, South Korea and Crystal Abidin, Curtin University, Australia Part Three: The Body Felt 9. Naked and Unafraid: Nudity in Reclaiming Witchcraft Rituals Emma Quilty, University of Newcastle, Australia 10. “It’s like a rush of ‘man’ feeling”: Analyzing sexuality and felt-sense in men’s digital media communications Kaye Hare, University of British Columbia, Canada 11. Agential hysterias: a practice approach to embodiment on social media Katrin Tiidenberg, Lea Muldtofte, and Ane Katherine Gammelby, Talinn University, Estonia 12. Picture Me Naked. Embodying Images On Screen and Off Tobias Bol, Johannes Gutenberg University, Germany Work Cited List of Contributors Index