THE SELFIE AND CROSS CULTURE COMMUNICATION

An Essay

1. Introduction:

The Oxford dictionary defines the word “Selfie” as “A photograph that one has taken of

oneself, typically one taken with a smart phone or webcam and shared via social media:”

(Oxford, 2015). Selfie is thus, as defined by Oxford as a photograph clicked by someone of

themselves and posted on a social media site such as Twitter, Facebook or Instagram etc.

Selfie(s) are becoming quite a rage nowadays, from common men and women to celebrities

and even some heads of states posting selfies of themselves on social media networks.

As Mcluhan and the visual architect Quentin Fiore demonstrate to us in The Medium

is the Massage (through pictures of circuit sheets, phonographs, books, film stills, daily paper

clippings, mirrors, apparel, railroad tracks, and so forth.), media are constantly encapsulated,

and, in that capacity, really obliged and particular. (Levin, 2014) One of the most punctual

advanced models of media, Newton created the idea of the aether to portray the components

behind any collaboration at a separation. (Levin, 2014)As the name infers, Newton's aether

was initially developed as a methods for clarifying both his explores different avenues

regarding the visual spectra of light and his translation of how light empowers sight – the

impression of articles at an evacuate. In doing along these lines, it finished his entirely causal,

material understanding of the universe by working as an universal open medium. (Levin,

2014)

2. Selfie in today’s Digital Era:

Newton's hypothesis of the aether conflates the solitary and plural essences of

medium and media through the equivalency of an universal substrate of intuitiveness with the

different media (electromagnetic spectra – Newton's waves and beams of light) through

which the aether is deductively noticeable and subject to trial confirmation and numerical

work. (Levin, 2014) The work of mid-century data scholars, for example, Claude Shannon,

shows a comparable inclination to conflate the plural and particular implications of media

and medium. Nonetheless, while Newton's hypothesis of the aether augmented visual media

by making an interpretation of them into the primary medium of association, Shannon

minimized media majority trying to make universal standards for electronic telecom. (Levin,

2014)

This minimization takes the type of an auxiliary interpretation, from media into signs,

by method for which the message is stripped of its media intentions so it may be transmitted

and got electronically. (Levin, 2014) Shannon accordingly endeavors to make a sort of

microcosmic Newtonian aether, an universal medium of correspondence contrived through

methods of encoding and unraveling that evacuate media-particular data (the messages of

other media) from the sign. Doing so permits Shannon to create a numerical model for the

transmission of exposed "data," (Levin, 2014) inside particular points of confinement of

velocity (bit-rates) and exactness (noise).

While work by figures, for example, Shannon has demonstrated instrumental to the

usage and on-going advancement of huge scale data foundations (like the web), the

requirement on the performative parameters of interchanges innovations displays a propensity

towards media solipsism in which the intentions of content, sound, picture and film advances

are subsumed by the interpretation of media-messages into signs suitable for digital

transmission. (Levin, 2014) This inclination is plainly communicated by Warren Weaver in

first experience with Shannon's Mathematical Theory of Communication, in his claim that

from the viewpoint of correspondences hypothesis the English dialect is half repetitive – a

claim that, in lieu of the remarkably truncated types of English produced for contemporary

digital correspondence, may appear an under-estimation. (Levin, 2014) The outcome is a

general subversion of media, and a multiplication of arrangements (doc, mp3, jpg, pdf, mpeg,

avi, and so forth.), (Levin, 2014) created to meet the execution prerequisites of squeezing,

data-trade rates, RAM and the stipulations of digital bases for data transmission.8 Data now

supplant, in numerous occurrences, the nuanced separations in significance between media,

with the web taking on the position of Newton's luminiferous aether, and standing as an

universal standard of correspondence.

3. Ethnography:

Running counter to the media reduction of the physical sciences, common scholars,

antiquarians, and later researcher kept up the first Latin separation in the middle of medium

and media. This can be seen in the way that French material and common thinkers

consolidated Newton's hypothesis of the aether into their own oeuvres. (Hine, n.d)The French

interpretation of aether is milieu, a term used to depict any particular material substrate. This

definition is especially obvious in the work of Jean-Baptist Lamarck, who utilized it to depict

how physical situations (milieus) influence morphogenetic change in living organisms.

For Lamarck, a milieu spoke to an interesting physical substance (water, air, light),

the interminable workings of which advise the horrible morphological attributes of animals.

(Hine, n.d)In Lamarck's hypothesis of development, formative adjustments are dependably

physically and ecologically obliged and particular to specific milieus.10 According to

Lamarck's evolutionary model, the exceptional qualities procured by a living being as a result

of its imbrications inside specific milieus may be exchanged to that creature's offspring, a

methodology known as epigenesist. (Hine, n.d)

This model of milieu was received and reached out by Ernst Haeckel in his meaning

of "biology." (Hine, n.d) Haeckel authored the term to incorporate not just the material

influences of ecological media (like water, light and air), additionally the different plant,

creature and land datum (temperature, geography, and so on.), all of which encroach upon the

morphological verbalization and survival of living organic entities. In Haeckel's terms, the

network of drives that include a living being's biology characterize the conditions to which

that life form is "adapted." As such, nature outlines the formational connecting of media

influencing natural development through their tireless impact. (Hine, n.d)

Haeckel's consolidation of the Lamarckian model of milieus joins frameworks of

Darwinian choice with those of epigenesist. (Hine, n.d)Generally, Haeckel contended for a

crossover evolutionary model, in which the randomness of natural emphasis portrayed by

Darwin is educated by the submersion of an organic entity (or gathering of living beings)

inside settled associational and material systems. Haeckel's hypothesis of nature served to

depict the transformational strengths bending natural development. (Hine, n.d)

Haeckel acquainted a second idea with record for the constancy of structure after

some time – the biogenetic law. (Hine, n.d) In its least difficult definition, this law expresses

that ontogeny (the current morphology of a life form) summarizes phylogeny (the recorded

manifestations of the phylum). Haeckel showed this law through an embryonic succession, in

which each one phase of growth is checked by an alternate set of traits, until the current

morphology is attained to (Hine, n.d). This gestational procedure serves as a restricting

component for morphological deviation, even as the different and variable powers of

environment work towards expanded formal separation. Haeckel's speculations of nature and

restatement in this way represent both the chronicled coherence of structure spoke to by an

organic entity's phylogeny, and the unobtrusive varieties revealed by a creature's ontogeny

(developing structure). While the particulars of Haeckel's speculations have not survived the

development of the natural sciences, the basic compels that he depicted are still an essential

part of contemporary evolutionary and environmental science. At the hereditary level, the

genome assigns the inborn natural constraints illuminating an organic entity's ability for

transformation or advancement; it serves as both a variable lattice taking into consideration

conceivable evolutionary transfiguration and as a truly created arrangement of restatement

binds life forms to their hereditary legacy. Alternately, ecologies, which portray systems of

affiliation going from terrible local attributes, for example, atmosphere, geography and

geology, to close biotic groups, for example, those characterized by sustenance connections,

give the ecological connection to potential future adjustment, as obliged by frameworks of

Darwinian rivalry. (Hine, n.d)

Connected to what may be known as the mechanical phylum, Haeckel's ideas of

biological advancement and hereditary reiteration help portray both the natural chronicled

inactivity of media, and their ability for development. (Hine, n.d)Accordingly, the

evolutionary capability of any medium is characterized by horde variables natural to the

medium all things considered, including its material organization, fundamental hierarchical

standard and/or one of a kind usefulness. Notwithstanding these characteristic evolutionary

parameters are the outward compels of media ecologies, for example, material accessibility,

the headway or elimination of specific types of assembling, the rise of contending or

reciprocal media ideal models and the improvement and support of essential frameworks.

The same may be said of media antiques, in the same way as the selfie, whose late

wealth speaks to a conversion of new media (cell phones and tablets), all the more spatially

disseminated and speedier remote systems and professed social proclivities towards online

representation toward oneself and development. The later have been energized through the

ubiquity of interpersonal interaction destinations like Facebook and Twitter and the

application ecologies that undeniably help them. (Hine, n.d) Yet, even as selfies are

enmeshed inside rising ideal models, such versatile figuring and person to person

communication, they likewise display a propensity towards innovative and tasteful

restatement, including the utilization of channels that copy more seasoned photographic

advances or the repeat of entrenched and mainstream stylish tropes. This reassertion of

customary structures not just retards the evolutionary advancement of the Selfie, additionally

educates the development of new ideal models.

4. Netnography:

As unrealistic as it may appear, selfies help reinforce companionships. Selfies aren't

fundamentally some unusual rage or a viral pattern among young people. While they might in

some cases simply be a type of young vanity, it is accepted that they are vital in the digital

age as a manifestation of correspondence, proclamation toward oneself and documentation.

The new social world is on the web. Web infiltration rates proceed with their

worldwide ascension. (Kozinets, 2010)Sensibly, we can say that over a billion individuals

now take an interest in different types of social networking. We are amidst an innovation

drove mutual upheaval.

The suggestions for advertisers, showcasing scientists, and directors of all stripes are

boundless. Customers are offering assorted types of feelings and data with one another about

amazing panoply of items, retailers, and brands. (Kozinets, 2010) The online environment

offers us about boundless access to customer to-purchaser interchanges that are: Applicable

and itemized. Got in an inconspicuous way, and realistic in an opportune, liable, and

productive way. This data is crude. It is true. (Kozinets, 2010)Advertisers have reacted by

starting to incorporate online networking with their showcasing plans, their publicizing and

special fights. However as far as purchaser knowledge, showcasing is overwhelmed by the

same old strategies. The move to manufacture rich understanding with the cornucopia of

online buyer data is simply starting.

Connected to business and showcasing needs, netnography constructs profound

customer bits of knowledge that give: All-grasping depictions of the commercial center

sections, item groupings, trait sets Realistic perception of online correspondence classes,

patterns, images, pictures Social understandings of buyer decision influencers, (Kozinets,

2010) adopters, WOM properties Natural perspectives of brand importance deciphering bona

fide purchaser dialect and terms, and in addition visual and varying media investigation

Embedded disclosures of purchaser development situated in lead client, and innovativeness

Contrast netnography with the center gathering or study data commanding the universe of

customer knowledge research. Focus gatherings offer point by point and significant data. In

any case they are inspired, prominent and totally manufactured. (Kozinets, 2010)

The one-time bunch progresses are manufactured and bizarre. (Kozinets,

2010)Surveys are simulated, prominent, and evoked. (Kozinets, 2010)We frequently have no

chance to get of knowing whether our review questions are significant to the purchasers'

reality. Both center gatherings and studies can be costly. Think about that as a national set of

center gatherings can undoubtedly run in the many thousands.

Netnography is the Marketer's Secret Weapon How Social Media Understanding

Drives Innovation. There are right now just a handful of far-located organizations that lead

netnography. (Kozinets, 2010) Despite the fact that it is presently all inclusive secured in the

scholastic universe of shopper and showcasing research, the very idea of online ethnography

is still obscure to most advertisers, item chiefs, advertising specialists, and item advancement

and shopper knowledge pros. You have to peruse it in light of the fact that netnography offers

a sharp new shaft in the shopper examination tremble, a compelling new device for the

advertising workbench. Then again, on the off chance that you favour Sun Tzu's "The Art of

War"… Netnography is the advertiser's mystery weapon for.

There are various approaches to study consumer behaviour in the online social world.

Here are a couple of the real ones: We can review individuals and get some information about

their practices. We can track and follow online practices and clickstreams. We can set up

online center gatherings, boards, and manufactured groups. We can code, inventory and sort

data. (Kozinets, 2010)

The way to netnography, and what makes it unique in relation to systems like center

gatherings, overviews, CRM data models, clickstream following, and even simulated groups,

is this: Netnography is centered on social bits of knowledge. Netnography is diverse on the

grounds that it treats online correspondences not as minor "substance," however as social

communication, as installed representation of significance, and as social curio. Netnography

gives careful consideration to setting. Netnography looks not simply at the words introduce in

social connections, however at the gathering components, the communicator qualities, the

dialect, the history, the significance, the sort of cooperation. (Kozinets, 2010) It inspects

textual styles, separating, images, writings, pictures, photographs, and features. And, in the

same way as its ancestor ethnography: It is naturalistic, after social declaration to its online

appearances. It is immersive, drawing the specialist into a captivated, deeper understanding.

It is unmistakable, trying to pass on the rich reality of contemporary shoppers' lives, with the

majority of their covered up social implications and additionally their vivid representation,

drawings, images, sounds, photographs, and features. (Kozinets, 2010)It is multi-technique,

joining great with different techniques, both online and off, for example, interviews and

videography. Like all techniques, netnography regularly works stunningly better when

triangulated with other wellsprings of knowledge. Case in point, supplement netnography

with focused on overviews to accept the replicability of discoveries. It is versatile, moving

easily from newsgroups to sites, wikis, virtual planets, informal communication destinations,

podcasting and portable online/logged off groups, and whatever else the future has in store.

As any individual who has utilized a web search tool to examine a theme knows,

Internet data is simple. Sort the brand name "Listerine" into the principle Google web search

tool and you will be confronted with pretty nearly 907,000 hits. It is generally simple for

somebody to download a couple of dozen of these pages and gathering posts about the brand,

survey and condense them, and then to pass themselves off as an online anthropologist.

Notwithstanding, something would be absent. There are prone to be no less than two

noteworthy issues with the 907,000 or something like that hits about the Listerine brand, or

some other famous brand, item, or business sector class that we may be occupied with

researching. (Kozinets, 2010) In the first place, there are a wide range of interchanges going

ahead on the double, and this makes discovering the examination fitting interchanges

troublesome. (Kozinets, 2010) There is publicizing, official correspondences, spam,

advancements, and reposts existing together with the social, buyer to-customer collaborations

that drive netnography. Google just provides for us the initial 1,000 hits. (Kozinets,

2010)And even with those thousand hits, we confront a circumstance of wealth. More is not

generally better. Regardless of the possibility that we were to rise above the regular web

search tool's constraint, the possibility of physically downloading and perusing a huge

number of online collaborations is an overwhelming time duty. Netnography requires the

analyst to explore the scope of applicable social action happening in online social spaces.

These social spaces have been becoming huge both in volume and in assortment. On account

of these two truths, I have discovered it progressively significant to have quality

programming instruments as a subordinate to netnography. (Kozinets, 2010)

5. Selfies in the real world:

When we first hear the expression "Selfie," what do we consider? Is it accurate to say

that it is a young lady with a "duck face" at a gathering on Facebook, or a fellow directing his

iPhone at the mirror toward record his late workout? MySpace was the first mass informal

organization. Then again, the Selfie was initially begat on Flickr in 2004. Presently

everybody's dashboard on every person to person communication site is loaded with

photographs individuals took of themselves and their companions. Each one revive of the

"Investigate" page on Instagram guarantees an alternate 50 selfies transferred inside 10

seconds.

Selfie society, however shocking it may appear to numerous people, has gotten to be

genuinely pertinent throughout today's high school era. (Miller, 2014) With the advancement

of cell phone cams, especially the Samsung Galaxy and IPhone, youngsters are joined by

grown-ups and kids in the mission for every day Instagram posts, hourly Facebook overhauls,

and moment by-moment Snap chats.

Obviously, one needs to ask, what urges us to take pictures of ourselves to send to our

companions or post on an open discussion? It is safe to say that it is immaculate narcissism,

or more than that?

It is seen that young ladies who take every day selfies to post to Instagram. As of

October 2013, there have been about 40 million posts containing "#Selfie" under their labels.

(Miller, 2014)Instagram was the origination of the Selfie, as men and ladies started posting

pictures of their surroundings, as well as themselves. (Miller, 2014)

For friends who live apart, Snapchatting is really one of the best manifestations of

correspondence. (Miller, 2014) Despite everything it considers a cosy companionship, on the

grounds that we can see one another's faces consistently, rather than simply messaging or

talking. (Miller, 2014)There's something extraordinary about Snapchatting in that way, on the

grounds that its unique in relation to simply words flying over and over again. Like

Instagram, its pictures from genuine living. Snapchatting is extraordinary on the grounds that

it is an eye to eye trade that doesn't include the dedication of Skype. One can undoubtedly

have a "discussion" with somebody for the duration of the day essentially by how we send

pictures over and over again. (Miller, 2014)

Selfies come in different styles and angles; let us take an illustrative example of some kind of

selfies. (Chosen from Twitter)

Smiling Selfie:

Work Out Selfie:

Celebrity Selfie:

Nude Selfie:

Selfies with Different Poses:

Selfies with Friends:

Selfies with Pets:

With the help of the above illustrations, we have seen various types of Selfies. While some

people prefer to take smiling selfies, others strike a pose and others want to take naked

selfies. Some people prefer selfies after a workout to flaunt their bodies, while others may

include their pets or close friends. Even celebrities are becoming more and more active when

it comes to joining the selfie culture. Who can forget the famous Ellen DeGeneres Oscar

selfie that included Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper?

6. Selfie Culture in Different Countries:

Parameters Bangkok

New York

London

Paris Beijin

g Berli

n

Los Ange

les

Sao Paulo

Sydney

Moscow

Total Worl

d

Male 42.30

% 44.90

% 52.70

% 50.70

% 46.20

% 73%

44.80%

53% 63.90%

56.40%

48.70%

Female 57.70

0% 55.10

0% 47.30

0% 49.30

0% 53.80

0% 27.00

0% 55.20

0% 47.000%

36.100%

43.600%

51.300%

Total Tweets

171 1286 1170 271 99 52 1059 127

7 184 151 4500

Total Audience

107909

2250381

925289

1281010

57388

156132

1481052

194007

8

135172

43467

19102998

Contributors

145 1078 901 240 84 42 918 978 144 116 3991

Measured time

186 157 178 177 178 178 123 170 184 173 1776

Tweets / Contributor

1.1793103

45

1.1929499

07

1.2985571

59

1.1291666

67

1.1785714

29

1.2380952

38

1.1535947

71

1.30572

6

1.277778

1.301724

1.1275369

58

Frequency (tweet per

hour)

0.9193548

39

8.1910828

03

6.5730337

08

1.5310734

46

0.5561797

75

0.2921348

31

8.6097560

98

7.51176

5 1

0.872832

2.5337837

84

Audience Per Tweet

631.04678

36

1749.9074

65

790.84529

91

4726.9741

7

579.67676

77

3002.5384

62

1398.5382

44

1519.24

7

734.6304

287.8609

4245.1106

67

The above data has been retrieved from the website www.followthehashtag.com. A simple

keyword “Selfie” was used to check the frequency of selfies posted on Twitter. Various cities

in the world were examined individually, and then as a whole.

We found that Females post more Selfies than their male counterparts in various cities in the

world, and the world ratio of Male vis-à-vis females was in favour of females posting more

selfies. London, Sydney and Moscow were the exceptions among the cities examined, and

Paris was marginally skewed in terms of males posting more selfies than females.

The measured time of the tweets ranged between 123 hours to 186 hours in the cities

examined, with a total of 1776 hours for the world (including cities not examined).

We found that the world averaged approximately 2.5 tweets per hour. This frequency was

highly elevated in cities such as New York, London, Los Angeles and Sao Paulo with each

ranging above or close to 8 tweets per hour. On the other hand, cities such as Bangkok,

Berlin, Beijing and Sydney were considerably less frequent in posting Selfies, with the

average frequency being 1 selfie or less per hour.

Almost all the cities had users posting more than one selfie of them, and even the world

average had the same contributors posting more than one selfie.

The world averaged about 4245 people viewing per tweet. Almost all the cities examined,

with the exception of Paris were considerably below the world average.

The data analyzed by selfiecity.net tells us how different cultures and countries have adapted

to the Selfie culture. It was found that Bangkok (Thailand) and Sao Paulo (Brazil) have the

highest smile ratios at 0.68 and 0.64 respectively. (Smile ratio was calculated on the basis of

a smile score when people took Selfies. (Selfiecity, 2015) Moscow (Russia) stood at the

lowest amongst the countries analyzed with a smile ratio of 0.53. (Selfiecity, 2015) It was

also found that women, especially in Sao Paulo, had more expressive selfies than any other

part in the world, with a head tilt of approximately 16.9° (Selfiecity, 2015). Moreover,

women were found to have a more expressive or a bigger head tilt almost in every country

analyzed.

7. Conclusions:

As discussed in the course of this paper, Selfies are becoming more and more popular with

the help of technological advanced gadgets such as smart phones and tablets. Twitter,

Facebook, Instagram are some of the leaders when it comes to posting Selfies by people. The

Selfie (as discussed earlier) has become a global phenomenon and is extremely popular,

especially amongst children and young adults, with a median age of 23.7 years. (Selfiecity,

2015). Additionally, if one were to carefully dissect the demographics of the Selfie culture,

we would find that women are generally more active in clicking selfies than their male

counterparts. (Selfiecity, 2015) However, these figures may be misleading in a sense of

totality. It is found that only 4% of total users on various social networking websites actually

click selfies. (Selfiecity, 2015). Major world cities such as Bangkok, Berlin, New York, Sao

Paulo and Moscow are the leading in terms of their people clicking Selfies. (Selfiecity, 2015).

Most of the Selfie tweets on Twitter.com are from users who have in excess of 60,000

followers.

The Selfie culture is here to stay, for the time being anyway. However, there have

been various outcry in the recent past when youths have clicked Selfies at funerals and even

Nazi Concentration Camp sites. Citing these events as misguided teenage phenomenon,

people have come down heavily on these youths. However, some people argue that clicking

Selfies have been in vogue ever since the camera was first introduced.

References

Hine, C. (n.d) 'VIRTUAL ETHNOGRAPHY', Centre for Research into Innovation, Culture and

Technology.

Kozinets, R.V. (2010) 'Netnography: The Marketer’s Secret Weapon', NETBASE, March.

Levin, A. (2014) the Selfie in the age of Digital Recursion, [Online], Available:

http://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/portfolio/the-selfie-in-the-age-of-digital-recursion/ [05 January 2015].

Miller, C. (2014) Selfie Culture, 24 January, [Online], Available:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/casey-miller/teens-and-selfies_b_4218454.html [05 January 2015].

Oxford (2015) selfie, [Online], Available:

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/selfie [05 January 2015].

Selfiecity (2015) Data Sets, [Online], Available: http://selfiecity.net/#dataset [05 January 2015].