Social media and participation: The selfie as a curious cultural artefact

Kidd, Jenny ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0188-2140 2020. Social media and participation: The selfie as a curious cultural artefact. Black, Graham, ed. Museums and the Challenge of Change: Old Institutions in a New World, Routledge, (10.4324/9781003043010-5)

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Abstract

Many museums around the world have had to shut their doors, and those that are re-opening are doing so tentatively, with strict physical distancing measures in place. This chapter explores selfies – initially through the prism of the #GettyMuseumChallenge – as a form of cultural participation. People were of course ‘imprisoned’ in their homes with limited resources, and this gave the contributions a quirky and very much homemade aesthetic. Consideration of social photography for collection and preservation purposes is of course a part of that picture. Selfies make some people uneasy because of the intense centrality of self, that self’s hyper visibility being off-putting. But as has been outlined there are other concerns for museums, archives, and galleries: about ownership, control, and questions of taste. Persistent bans on photography at some sites indicate that the kinds of performance ritualized in the selfie continue to be deemed unwelcome or inappropriate within some contexts.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Journalism, Media and Culture
Publisher:	Routledge
ISBN:	9780367488307
Last Modified:	18 Dec 2025 14:55
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/136792

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