Hypermediacy in Self-Presentations in Social Media: Explorations of a Case of Threatened Subjectivity

Abstract

Acting with images in social media is partly linked to practices using analog photographs. At the same time, new forms of image creation have emerged that increasingly depart from the representational function of photography. It is no longer just a matter of capturing reality and creating cues for memories. Rather, ways of expression are being explored in digital space, in which the reference to an extra-medial reality not only becomes more complicated, but also seems to get lost in numerous chains of reference. During a person's self-presentation in social media, through the compilation of primarily documentary photographs on the one hand, and highly staged, often modified, sometimes confusing and shocking images on the other, complex contexts of meaning emerge. Based on a case analysis from a biographical-analytical perspective, I examine the question as to whether such modes of self-presentation can be understood with a concept of hypermediacy. By means of image cluster analyses and biographical case reconstruction using a narrative-biographical interview, I reconstruct to what extent hyper-mediated image environments can be understood not only as pure play with images, but also as references to extra-pictorial biographical contexts. From the case-analysis, I will conclude generalizable aspects of the social function of hyper-mediated self-presentations.