Is Selfie Moving Towards Popular Culture? - Application of Selfie Phenomenon and Extension of Digital Self in Television Ads

Falguni Vasavada Oza 1 *, Khyati Jagani 1
More Detail
1 Mudra Institute of Communication, India
* Corresponding Author
Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, Volume 7, Issue 4, pp. 118-131. https://doi.org/10.29333/ojcmt/2613
OPEN ACCESS   1857 Views   865 Downloads   Published online: 10 Oct 2017
Download Full Text (PDF)

ABSTRACT

Up until the early 2000s the content from television had found space in the internet, especially on the social networking sites where content such as news, soap operas, dramas, and movies, traditionally viewed and consumed on television was now also being consumed online by the consumers. However, recently a reverse phenomenon has been observed, where an internet trend, more specifically a social networking phenomenon namely, selfie, has found a space in the television advertisements, promotional activities and soap operas on televisions. This phenomenon in the last few years has been used extensively for the purpose of advertising and promotions. For instance, in 2015 a soap opera show named, Master Chef India, had announced a contest where, the interested audience were asked to prepare a special dish cooked by them, take a selfie with the dish and send it through Whatsapp. This provides marketer a direct interaction platform with the consumers.
One of the factors that determine consumption is the affirmation of identity. Consumers seek to build some sort of congruity between themselves and brand so that the brand they use becomes meaningful to them. Therefore, it is essential for a consumer to select those brands that are in tune with their self-identity. An individual’s profile page on various social networking sites is like a reflection of them self and their self image. The digital self is created in the online communication with no intervention of feedback or external environmental factors. The digital self is more of the reflection of one’s inner world, which focuses on the thoughts, feelings, emotions and personalities of an individual. The digital self is often represented in a manner in which the negatively perceived physical attribute of a person could be changed into a positively perceived digital representation.
This paper aims to conceptualise how the marketer uses the concept of digital self through the selfie phenomenon in the offline context, and how this has become a part of the popular culture where the digital self is extended from the online sphere to the offline sphere.
Keywords: selfie, popular culture, marketing

CITATION

Oza, F. V., & Jagani, K. (2017). Is Selfie Moving Towards Popular Culture? - Application of Selfie Phenomenon and Extension of Digital Self in Television Ads. Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 7(4), 118-131. https://doi.org/10.29333/ojcmt/2613

REFERENCES

  • ‘A brief history of the selfie,’ (2013). Huffington Post. Retrieved June 15, 2016 from http://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/selfie-history-infographic_n_4101645.
  • Appadurai, A. (1998). Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
  • Arnould, E., & Thompson, C. (2005). Consumer culture theory (CCT): Twenty years of rearch. Journal of Consumer Research, 31(4), 868-882.
  • ‘Beginners guide to understanding and using a brownie box camera,’ (2014). Retrieved on May 24, 2016, from: http://www.brownie-camera.com/articles/petelutz/article.shtml.
  • Brennan, C. (2015). The most touching set of photographs you’ll ever see!” Retrieved on July 20, 2016, from: http://www.thejournal.ie/lifelogging-alberto-frigo-1934573-Feb2015/.
  • Campbell, J., Giglio, S., & Pathak, P. (2011). Forced Sales and House Prices, The American Economic Review, 101(5), 2108-2131.
  • Charlton, A. (2015). Huawei Ascend P7 announced – this one’s for the selfie lovers. Retrieved on May 1, 2016 from www.mobilechoiceuk.com/news/29282/ huaweiascend-p7-announced---this-ones-for-the-selfie-lovers.aspx#.U6M9N_ldW_i.
  • Cornelius. (2013). Self-portrait; believed to be the earliest extant American portrait photo. Print & Photographs Online Catalog. Library of Congress. 1-5.
  • Cornelius, R. (2014). Self-Portrait: The First Ever “Selfie” (1839). Public Domain Review. 1- 10.
  • Freeman, C. (2007). The ‘reputation’ of neoliberalism. Journal of the American Enthnological Society, 34(2), 252-267.
  • Glum, J. (2015). Millennials Selfies: Young Adults Will Take More Than 25,000 Pictures of Themselves During Their Lifetimes. Retrieved on April 10, 2016 from http://www.ibtimes.com/millennials-selfies-young-adults-will-take-more25000pictures-themselves-during-2108417.
  • Kozinets, R.V., & Cerone, S. (2014). Between the Suit and the Selfie: Executives’ Lessons on the Social “Micro-Celebrity”, Micro-Celebrity, 6(2), 21-22.
  • Krishna, R. (2014). Consumer Behaviour. Oxford University Press. London, UK.
  • Levy, S. (1981). Interpreting Consumer Mythology: A Structural Approach to Consumer Behaviour. Jounrnal of Marketing, 45, 49-61.
  • Malone, P. (2014). Dealing with Selifes – Narcissists and The Public Manager, Public Management, 14-18.
  • McCracken, G. (1988). Culture and Consumption, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
  • Oxford Dictionaries, (2015). Selfie Noun – Pronunciation – Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Retrieved May 1, 2016 from http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/pronunciation/english/selfie.
  • Sahlins, M. D. (1997). Comment. Current Anthropology, 38(2), 272-276.
  • Saltzman, D. A. (2014). A 4th of July Selfie, National Underwriter Life & Health, 20-21.
  • Sinha, J. B. P. (2008). Creating enabling conditions for human development. The Social Engineer, 2, 8-25.
  • Slater, D. (2002). Modernity under construction: Building the Internet in Trinidad. In P. Brey, T. Misa and A. Rip (eds), Modernity and Techonology: The Empirical Turn, Boston: MIT Press.
  • Thomas, M. (2014). Stevie Nicks self-portraits shown for the first time: I never thought anyone would ever see these pictures, The Guardian, London.
  • The Second Self. (2015). Retrieved April 20, 2015 from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1561142555?accountid=82913
  • Trier-Bieniek, A., & Leavy, P. (2014). Gender & Pop Culture, Sense Publishers, USA.
  • Wilson, M. (2015). For 11 years, this man has taken photos of everything his right hand touches, Fast Company, 1-10.