CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / No contexto tecnocultural da sociedade de consumo contemporÃnea, observamos uma crescente virtualizaÃÃo das relaÃÃes humanas. Os indivÃduos transformam-se em potenciais terminais receptores e transmissores de dados via web, sendo grande parte destes, alusivos a imagens. Neste cenÃrio, destacam-se os selfies, autorretratos capturados via smartphone ou webcam para o compartilhamento em redes sociais. Esta prÃtica tem crescido e abarcado diferentes aspectos da vida: a hora de dormir (bedtimeselfie), de dirigir automÃveis (drivingselfie) e, atà mesmo, do sexo (aftersexselfie). HÃ, ainda, selfies como o braggie, que busca gerar inveja atravÃs da ostentaÃÃo de objetos e vivÃncias socialmente desejÃveis. Logo, os selfies tornaram-se um importante veÃculo de difusÃo de ideais e estilos de vida contemporÃneos. Este trabalho se propÃs a analisar o fenÃmeno selfie, considerando o culto à autoexposiÃÃo estetizada e modelada por ideais de consumo, bem como refletir sobre as repercussÃes deste fenÃmeno na subjetividade e sociabilidade dos indivÃduos. Para este fim, utilizamos a Teoria CrÃtica da Escola de Frankfurt, bem como de crÃticos da cultura contemporÃnea que tematizam acerca de conceitos como Sociedade de Consumo, Tecnocultura, IndÃstria Cultural e Sociedade do EspetÃculo. Metodologicamente, nos valemos da abordagem microlÃgica da Teoria CrÃtica, que concebe o particular como um valioso Ãndice que remete ao todo. Logo, alÃm de compreender o fenÃmeno selfie como um Ãndice capaz de desvelar a totalidade de ideais culturais contemporÃneos, tambÃm foi utilizada esta abordagem durante a coleta de dados: selfies, reportagens, hashtags, comentÃrios de cibernautas, documentÃrios, tutoriais e vÃdeos. Portanto, no decorrer deste trabalho, realizamos uma anÃlise teÃrico-crÃtica, articulando prÃtica e teoria, findando por erigir trÃs categorias-chaves a partir da recorrÃncia de certos temas: Dolce Vita, Telerrealidade e Corpo Ideal. A primeira refere-se a certo estilo de vida encontrado nas imagens, ao passo que a segunda alude à ambiÃncia, que compÃe este estilo de vida. Quanto à terceira, relaciona-se ao corpo nestas imagens. Nossas reflexÃes finais apontam para o selfie como um fenÃmeno de consumo do eu e do outro, de modo que observamos o espelhamento de aspectos da sociedade de consumo em suas diversas facetas - tipos, finalidade, busca por selfies perfeitos e por curtidas. Busca-se, pois, capturar o olhar do outro atravÃs do que lhe à familiar: a linguagem publicitÃria, espÃcie de idioma da indÃstria cultural. Almeja-se, enfim, o espetÃculo, porque este se tornou um modo de existir total, concernente tanto a produtos quanto a pessoas: ele engloba a cena social. Daà a relevÃncia deste estudo para a contemporaneidade, especialmente para a psicologia social crÃtica. Ainda, nesta investigaÃÃo desvelam-se indivÃduos imersos no clima homogeneizante de bens culturais produzidos por uma indÃstria cultural exacerbada pela tecnocultura. Logo, a produÃÃo deste indivÃduo, isto Ã, a maneira que ele escolhe para autorretratar-se, espelha esta âpedagogia do existirâ ou âpedagogia da visÃoâ, na qual visibilidade e existÃncia encontram-se, muitas vezes, sobrepostos. / In contemporary consumer societyâs tecnocultural context, weâve watched a growing virtualization of humanâs relations .The individuals become potential web terminals of dataâs reception and transmittion, being images a great part of that data. In this scenario, a certain type of image detaches: the selfies. At those, individuals self-portrait themselves on smartphones or webcams to share their images on social medias. This practice has increased broadly and has enclosed many lifeâs aspects. For example, we highlight moments in bed (bedtimeselfie), while driving (drivingselfie) and even after sex time (aftersexselfie) . Also, there is a certain kind of selfie called braggie that seeks to cause envy through desirable objects or social experiences. Therefore, the selfies have become an important vehicle of contemporary ideals and lifestyles. The aim of this study proposes a selfie phenomenon analysis, considering the cult of self-exposition through consumption ideals and a reflection about the repercussion of this phenomenon on individualâs subjectivity and sociability. In order to do this, we approach the phenomenon, in a qualitative perspective, using the Critical Theory from Frankfurtsâs School as a theoretical and methodological referential, in addition to contemporary critical authors that thematizes about aspects involving the object of the research. Methodologically, it was made a use of Critical Theory proposal, whose micro logical approach conceives the particular as a revealing index that remits to social whole. By this mean, we elected selfie phenomenon as an index able to uncover the totality of contemporary significant consumption ideals. Therefore, objectifying this phenomenonâs comprehension, we first percussed a documental stage, being oriented by details, marginal data, vestiges and evidences connected to the presented phenomenon. The documents considered were: selfies, reportings, hashtags, cybernautsâ comments, documentary, tutorials and videos. Afterwards, the collected material was organized on three key-categories by certain themes: Dolce Vita, Telerrealidade and Ideal Body. The first one refers to a certain lifestyle found in the analyzed images, while the second one specifies the ambience that compounds this lifestyle. The third category is related to the body that appears in those images. Finally, we proceeded to our final considerations, which involved a dialectical articulation between the adopted theory referential and the documental stage that pointed selfies as consumption phenomenon of the self and the other. In fact, on selfies many sides â its finality, its types, the search for the perfect selfie and for likes â we observe the mirroring of consumption societyâs aspects. The perfect selfie, synonym of maximum visibility and likes, shows itself as the âperfectâ integration of consumption ideals through new shapes. The search to capture the otherness eyes through what is familiar: the publicity language, part of Culture Industryâs speech. In the end, the spectacle is craved because became a total existing manner to people and to objects: it has included the social scene. By this mean, we point the relevance of this study to our contemporaneity, especially, to critical social psychology. Still, at this research, itâs uncovered an individual immersed in an homogenizing clime produced by a culture industry exacerbated by Tecnocultura. Therefore, this individualâs output, in other words, the way he chooses to portrait himself, shows this âexistence pedagogyâ or âvision pedagogyâ , on which visibility and existence are, at many times, overlapped.

Departing from a technofeminist perspective, Becoming Image, places the digital image in a broader context of modern and postmodern technological discourses and fashion. In four articles, the compilation dissertation expands a contemporary and imagistic tech discourse by questioning the ideology of ”masculinity”―specifically the idea of it as a historically male domain. Through interviews, discourse analysis and feminist critique, as well as an interdisciplinary focus on digital media, the project investigates how everyday image practices open up for new embodied experiences. Focusing on women and social media, the articles examines the way material and immaterial aspects of images overlap in everyday life. Rather than artistic intention, emotions and basic human interaction often lie at heart of becoming image. Fashion is, however, highly present in this critical transformation. Not only as collaborative projects emerge out of combining new technologies and dress―such as using your smartphone to elevate your clothing―but also how fashion is a technology itself. Fashion highlights the body as medium, but fashion is also always (mostly) image.  Previous research around the digital image and its meaning has often stressed the banality of everyday image practices as taking selfies. However, these debates represent deeper cultural values and norms, which the dissertation reaches beyond. As women, and also queer and trans-people increasingly innovate and interfere with normative technological usage, it becomes evident that such groups have been excluded from communities organized around technological power and skill. As with language, technology and digital imagery are not neutral media. Women have hence been excluded―and been forced to use instruments and apps seemingly made for strict masculine purposes. Arguably, image practices such as selfies or image micro-blogging encourage women to “write” themselves out of a world they have not constructed themselves. Thus, Becoming Image simultaneously illuminates the structural and fundamental levels of technology and gender―while also suggesting new methodological and theoretical ways of studying and approaching digital media. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 4: Accepted.</p><p> </p>

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Social media has come to play an increasingly important role in today's society. It’s hard in today’s world not to talk about youth culture without mentioning social media. Large amounts of research show that this type of media adversely affects young people, but at the same time, much of this research is written from an adult perspective. Our purpose in this bachelor thesis is to examine and highlight a young persons own perspective on this type of media. We have chosen to focus on younger people that use Instagram between the ages of thirteen through sixteen. The teens are most active on Instagram and it's their main social media platform. We have been studying Instagram accounts and have had interviews with focus groups to explore the culture that prevails on Instagram today. The study shows that young people today use Instagram in order to take advantage of the sharing of their everyday lives. All of the respondents believe that girls and boys use Instagram in different ways. The main difference is that girls seem to care more about their social media lives than boys do. Something that is demonstrated by all the girls is that they use two different accounts for two different audiences. In the discussion, we review why the culture looks like it does and how young people today jointly build rules about how to behave in this social medium. Then we finally arrive to the point that young people today have a better eye on social media than previous researchhas shown. We believe that the concerns many parents have about their children on social media in many cases is excessive. / Sociala medier har kommit att spela en allt större roll i dagens samhälle. Det går idag inte att prata om ungdomskulturen utan att nämna de sociala medierna. Mycket forskning visar att ungdomar påverkas negativt av denna typ av media men samtidigt är mycket av denna forskning skriven ur ett vuxenperspektiv. Vårt syfte med denna studie är därför att undersöka och belysa de ungas egna perspektiv på denna typ av medier. Vi har valt att inrikta oss på ungdomar och Instagram då det är unga mellan 13-16 som är mest aktiva på sociala medier och Instagram är deras största plattform. Vi har genom att studera Instagram-konton och intervjuer i fokusgrupper undersökt kulturen som råder på Instagram idag. Studien visar att ungdomar idag använder Instagram i syfte att ta del av samt själva dela med sig av sin vardag. Samtliga respondenter menar att Instagram används på olika sätt av tjejer och killar. Främsta skillnaden är att tjejer verkar bry sig mer än vad killar gör. Något som styrks av att samtliga tjejer använder sig av två olika konton för två olika målgrupper. I diskussionen går vi igenom varför kulturen ser ut som den gör idag och hur de unga idag tillsammans bygger regelverk kring hur man ska bete sig på detta sociala medium. Det vi till sist kommer fram till är att unga idag har bättre koll på sociala medier än vad tidigare forskning visat. Vi anser att den oro många föräldrar känner över sina barn på sociala medier i många fall är överdriven.

There is a high prevalence of nonuse and imperfect use of oral contraceptives (OCs) that can result in multiple consequences, one of which is unintended pregnancy. Deposit contracting may be promising for increasing OC adherence, however, there is little research testing deposit contracting on oral contraceptive adherence. In addition, studies have concluded that young women with elevated stress symptoms are at risk of contraceptive nonuse. Purposes of this thesis were to evaluate effects of deposit contracting on OC use for women, and the relation of stress to timely pill consumption. In addition, reliability was measured between the different measurements used to determine OC usage in the study. We recruited 10 college-aged female participants who were distributed into three cohorts. During baseline phase, participant’s deposit returns were based on submitting daily “selfies” (optional), weekly OC blister packs photos, weekly completed PSS-4 forms, and weekly completed pill diaries on time. During the deposit contracting phase, participants were to continue submitting all the weekly reports, but the deposit returns were contingent also upon submitting daily “selfies” on time. Results of latency of pill consumption and percentage of imperfect use showed that deposit contracting was effective in decreasing percentages of OC imperfect use, decreasing the latency in pill consumption, and increasing OC adherence for participants with stress. Results of the study also indicated that reliability was mixed between the different form of data collections on OC adherence.

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No description available.

Esta pesquisa propõe uma reflexão sobre a tecnologia colaborativa e a visualidade como os principais elementos para construção da identidade nas redes sociais, com ênfase na fotografia e no vídeo. A explosão, nos últimos 20 anos, dos processos de mediação tecnológica, já consolidados como parte da vida cotidiana, tem gerado uma forma distinta de construir identidades, fato que denominei como conceito de trabalho, Identidades Expandidas. Neste trabalho, descrevo como antecedentes, duas trajetórias separadas, mas interligadas, que dão conta da conformação destas identidades expendidas e configuram um campo emergente, para posteriormente elaborar uma análise de sua relação com as mídias e com a arte contemporânea utilizando diversos exemplos de produções recentes. De uma parte, está a trajetória da tecnologia em rede desde os primórdios até a Web 2.0 ou Web Social, mediação que proporcionou ferramentas importantes para arquitetar novos modelos da identidade individual, e que atualmente estão centrados na sobre-exposição do Eu na imagem interconectada. De outra, está a trajetória das tecnologias da visão usadas quase exclusivamente na arte como exercício de análise para a autoexploração, o que deu como expressão máxima o autorretrato, que recentemente se viu confrontado por o excesso de autoimagens na rede. No ponto em que confluem estas duas trajetórias se instala o recém-chamado Selfie, que é a prática paradigmática da imagem em rede. O selfie é usado como foco de estudo porque é um exemplo destacado de como a tecnologia, visualidade e identidade tem influenciado as mídias e novas práticas artísticas. O objetivo do trabalho que aqui apresento é refletir sobre a relação entre tecnologias sociais, processos de subjetivação, imagens digitais e práticas artistas, num diálogo sobre a transformação radical da visualidade contemporânea. / This research proposes a reflection about collaborative technology and the visuality as the main elements for identity construction on social networks, focusing on photography and video. The explosion, on the last 20 years, of technologically mediated processes that are becoming part of the everyday life, has shaped a new form of identity construction that I have called Expanded Identities. In this work I describe two different but interconnected trajectories that set the base for an understanding of these expanded identities. With these trajectories as a base the analysis, describes several cases in media and art works that engage with these identities and outline an emergent field. The first trajectory frames Internet history focusing on the technologies that make possible the so-called Web 2.0, a social web. These set of technologies create affordances that shape new models of identity that are centered on the over exhibition of networked images. The second trajectory accounts for the technologies of vision that had been traditionally used only by artists as a self-exploration analysis, being the self-portrait as the main genre. This relationship is challenged right now because of the excess of self-images online known as Selfies. These trajectories converge precisely in the Selfie as the paradigmatic practice of the networked image. The selfie is used asfocus ofstudy because it is a good example of how technologies, visuality and identities are influencing the media and new artistic practices. The main objective of this research is to reflect upon the relationship between technologies,subjectivity processes, digital images and artistic practices that form a dialogue on the radical transformations of contemporary visuality.

The main theme of this essay was; How does Instagram affect their users when it comes to everyday retouching and today’s ideal of beauty, and are there any differences between age and gender? To answer this question, the everyday retouching of the Instagram users selfies (self-portrait) was investigated and charted, to see how it affecting today’s ideal of beauty.   We used a quantitative method and conducted an empirical study that was rooted in the Encoding/Decoding-model of Stuart Hall, Gidden’s theory of structuration, Cooley’s ”looking-glass self”, Lippman’s triangle, together with previous research and a web survey that was targeted to a random selection of Instagram users. The study contained a total of 194 self-recruiting respondents. We deemed it necessary to conduct this study, as it addressed an important topic that might be linked to the current fixation on appearance and today's ideal of beauty.   The results showed that Instagram has a particular impact on its users when it comes to everyday retouching. The majority of respondents used Instagram’s built-in tools for their editing/retouching process. Our results also showed that half of the women edited/retouched their selfies. About half of the men who responded to the web survey edited/retouched their selfies. The clearest result of the study was that younger individuals had a tendency to edit/retouch their selfies more frequently. / Temat för uppsatsen var; Hur påverkar Instagram sina användare när det gäller vardagsretuschering och dagens skönhetsideal, samt finns det några skillnader mellan ålder och kön? Syftet var att undersöka och kartlägga Instagram användarnas vardagsretuschering och hur det påverkar dagens skönhetsideal, med fokus på användarnas selfies.   Vi använde oss av en kvantitativ metod och utförde en empirisk studie som utgick från Encoding/Decoding- modellen av Stuart Hall, Giddens strukturering teori, Cooleys ”spegeljaget”, Lippmans triangel, tillsammans med tidigare forskning och en webbenkätundersökning som riktade sig till ett slumpmässigt urval av Instagrams användare. Studien hade sammanlagt 194 självrekryterande respondenter. Vi tyckte att det var viktigt att genomföra denna studie, då den innehöll ett relevant ämne som möjligtvis kan ha koppling till rådande utseendefixering och dagens skönhetsideal.   Undersökningens resultat visade att Instagram har en viss påverkan på sina användare när det gäller vardagsretuschering. En majoritet av respondenterna använde Instagrams inbyggda verktyg i sin redigerings/retuscherings process. Vårt resultat visade även att hälften av kvinnorna redigerade/retuscherade sina selfies. Av de män som svarade redigerade/retuscherade cirka hälften sina selfies. Det tydligaste resultatet av studien var att de yngre har en tendens att redigera/retuschera sina selfies oftare.

Esta pesquisa propõe uma reflexão sobre a tecnologia colaborativa e a visualidade como os principais elementos para construção da identidade nas redes sociais, com ênfase na fotografia e no vídeo. A explosão, nos últimos 20 anos, dos processos de mediação tecnológica, já consolidados como parte da vida cotidiana, tem gerado uma forma distinta de construir identidades, fato que denominei como conceito de trabalho, Identidades Expandidas. Neste trabalho, descrevo como antecedentes, duas trajetórias separadas, mas interligadas, que dão conta da conformação destas identidades expendidas e configuram um campo emergente, para posteriormente elaborar uma análise de sua relação com as mídias e com a arte contemporânea utilizando diversos exemplos de produções recentes. De uma parte, está a trajetória da tecnologia em rede desde os primórdios até a Web 2.0 ou Web Social, mediação que proporcionou ferramentas importantes para arquitetar novos modelos da identidade individual, e que atualmente estão centrados na sobre-exposição do Eu na imagem interconectada. De outra, está a trajetória das tecnologias da visão usadas quase exclusivamente na arte como exercício de análise para a autoexploração, o que deu como expressão máxima o autorretrato, que recentemente se viu confrontado por o excesso de autoimagens na rede. No ponto em que confluem estas duas trajetórias se instala o recém-chamado Selfie, que é a prática paradigmática da imagem em rede. O selfie é usado como foco de estudo porque é um exemplo destacado de como a tecnologia, visualidade e identidade tem influenciado as mídias e novas práticas artísticas. O objetivo do trabalho que aqui apresento é refletir sobre a relação entre tecnologias sociais, processos de subjetivação, imagens digitais e práticas artistas, num diálogo sobre a transformação radical da visualidade contemporânea. / This research proposes a reflection about collaborative technology and the visuality as the main elements for identity construction on social networks, focusing on photography and video. The explosion, on the last 20 years, of technologically mediated processes that are becoming part of the everyday life, has shaped a new form of identity construction that I have called Expanded Identities. In this work I describe two different but interconnected trajectories that set the base for an understanding of these expanded identities. With these trajectories as a base the analysis, describes several cases in media and art works that engage with these identities and outline an emergent field. The first trajectory frames Internet history focusing on the technologies that make possible the so-called Web 2.0, a social web. These set of technologies create affordances that shape new models of identity that are centered on the over exhibition of networked images. The second trajectory accounts for the technologies of vision that had been traditionally used only by artists as a self-exploration analysis, being the self-portrait as the main genre. This relationship is challenged right now because of the excess of self-images online known as Selfies. These trajectories converge precisely in the Selfie as the paradigmatic practice of the networked image. The selfie is used asfocus ofstudy because it is a good example of how technologies, visuality and identities are influencing the media and new artistic practices. The main objective of this research is to reflect upon the relationship between technologies,subjectivity processes, digital images and artistic practices that form a dialogue on the radical transformations of contemporary visuality.