The visual culture of selfies in the age of social media by Derek Conrad.
In this text the author speaks of ‘the selfie’ and the impact of how they’re shared and why. When talking about this, Murray focuses on young women and their use of selfies on social media (in the younger generations). Murray analyses and considers feminism, and how provocative and almost-nude selfie’s of young women could actually be anti-feminist and fights against the efforts of feminist movements. Personally I think Conrad is suggests this wrongly, as the one of the reasons for feminist movements are to enable women to do as they please with their own bodies without judgement. He talks about the styles of a few infamous female photographers who’ve demonstrated feminist acts in their work. One of these photographers he mentioned was Nan Goldin, whose work i’ve studied religiously – he describes her as a ‘hero’ in reference to the importance of her selfies to the photography world.
The text altogether seemed to analyse the selfie as if it was created for the benefit of political power. Whilst educational and insightful to how the ‘selfie’ of one generation can make a political impact on the world, I think the author comes across as slightly judgemental and contradictory in areas. I like how the text ended on a positive note for women after the arguments Conrad made in this piece.