Going Visible in Social Networks: Strategies of Self-Presentation in Facebook Photos

What inspired this study was a specific kind of headshot (portrait) photo uploaded to the social networking site Facebook. The “flirty” pose with an “I am unique” look, self-taken from above, in which the model slightly tilted his/her head sideways smiling and was both near and far from us pretending to be a star... “Star” poses and “idealized” image of the person copied from popular culture are shared via social networks and re-generate the dominant culture. Aim of this study is to reveal the meaning of social norms and codes in Facebook photos focusing on headshots (portrait photos). Theoretically, it is possible for us to photograph anything when and wherever we want using a mobile phone or digital camera; however, we follow socially established norms while taking photos. We think that these social norms relating to creation, content and sharing of the photo in social networks are formed and shaped by the popular culture of capitalism which sublimates the individual. One of the basic hypotheses of this study is that the idealized image of the individual is re-generated according to the star images shared within popular culture. Although it is a challenging work to classify the photos shared on Facebook, we can suggest that these photos shared thereon contain repeated visual messages. As well as containing habits originating from Kodak and Digital Culture, these norms are also mainly determined by the features of communication medium and communication context within