Selfiekulturen har under de senaste åren växt sig stark. Över 350 miljoner selfie-relaterade hashtags finns på Instagram och det har arrangerats utställningar med just selfien i fokus. Bland individer som växte upp på 2000-talet, så kallade milleniegenerationen, har mer än hälften någon gång laddat upp en selfie på sociala medier. Plattformen vi fokuserar på är Instagram då det är en plattform för specifikt delning av bilder och med sina 500 miljoner användare är det tydligt hur pass populär plattformen är. Vår studie redogör vilka sociala och psykiska behov som ligger till grund till varför unga vuxna laddar upp selfies på Instagram. Vi undersöker utöver detta vilka upplevelser och psykosociala konsekvenser som kommer ur uppladdningen av selfies samt hur individens behov samverkar med drivkraften inom sociala medier. Vi utförde 10 enskilda forskningsintervjuer med unga vuxna med ett åldersspann mellan 16-26 år. Den kvalitativa intervjumetoden valdes eftersom vi ville få en djupare förståelse kring unga vuxnas användande och behov vad gäller selfies. Utifrån teorier om nya plattformar, självpresentation och identitetsutveckling skapade vi en intervjumanual med frågor som hjälpte oss besvara våra frågeställningar. Våra intervjufrågor delades upp efter teman som representerade huvudpoängen i teorierna vi valde. Tidigare forskning har visat ett samband mellan selfies och självkänsla samt narcissism. Detta hade vi också i åtanke vid val av teorier och frågor. Vår intervjumanual omfattade bland annat frågor kring betydelsen av likes och följare, negativa och positiva känslor som uppkommer av uppladdningen av selfies, redigering av bilder och intervjupersonernas uppfattning om selfiekulturen överlag. När vi sedan ställde frågan “Vad för slags behov tror du/känner du uppfylls av att lägga upp selfies, om något?” svarade 90% av respondenterna att det var bekräftelsebehovet som uppfylldes. Av vårt resultat kunde vi skapa en modell, “Selfie-modellen”, som beskriver hur vi tolkade att individernas användning och känslor samspelar med varandra. Dålig självkänsla var huvudfaktorn som ledde till detta bekräftelsebehov, som sedan uppfylldes av att ladda upp selfies och få likes. Likes och följare genererades av selfie och ledde till en större popularitet på plattformen och gav därav mer uppmärksamhet. Uppmärksamheten skapade en prestationsångest hos användarna som i sin tur ledde till ytterligare bekräftelsebehov. Självkänslan blev då enligt vår tolkning endast tillfälligt förhöjd och gav ingen långvarig effekt. / The selfie culture has during the past years grown very strong. Currently Instagram has over 350 million selfie related hashtags and exhibitions have been arranged with the famous selfie in focus. Amongst the individuals that grew up during the 21th century, so called “millennials”, more than half have at least once uploaded a selfie on social media. The platform we focus on in our study is Instagram. The reason for that is that it is a platform that is specifically meant for photo sharing and with its 500 million users it is clear just how popular the platform is. The aim of our study is to explore what social and psychological needs that underlie in why young adults upload selfies on Instagram.We also highlight the experiences and psychosocial consequences that comes from uploading selfies and how the individual's needs work together with the driving forces within social medias. We performed 10 individual interviews with young adults with an age span between 16-26 years old. The qualitative interview method was chosen to allow us to get a deeper understanding of young adults' uses and needs when it comes to selfies. With the help of theories about new platforms, self presentation and identity development we created an interview manual with questions that helped us answer our questions at issue. Our interview questions were divided into different themes that represented the main points of the theories we had chosen. Previous studies had shown a correlation between selfies and self esteem and narcissism. This was also something we had in mind when choosing theories and questions for our study. Our interview manual included, amongst others, questions about the significance of likes and followers, negative and positive feelings that occur with the act of posting selfies, photo editing and the respondent’s general opinions about the selfie culture. When we later asked the question “What needs do you feel/believe are fulfilled by uploading selfies, if any?” 90% of the respondents answered that it was confirmation needs that was fulfilled. With our result in mind we created a model, “The Selfie-model”, that describes how our interpretation of how the individual's use and feelings interplay with each other. Bad self esteem was the key factor that led to the need of confirmation that was filled by likes. The likes and followers that were generated led to a growth in popularity on the platform , thus giving the user more attention. The attention received created performance anxiety which in turn led to more confirmation needs. The self esteem was, according to our interpretation, only temporarily boosted and didn’t leave a long term effect.

Travel bragging, referring to the act of showing off or boasting about travel experiences, is ubiquitous on social media; travel bragging rights (e.g., Instagrammability) have become an important factor in travel decision-making in the social media era. Despite these developments, research on travel bragging remains scarce. This dissertation presents two studies. The first aimed to explore travel bragging via qualitative approaches (i.e., in-depth interviews, means-end analysis, and photo elicitation) to determine how consumers (both braggers and the audience) defined and perceived travel bragging and travel bragging rights. This study provided a systematic conceptualization of travel bragging, including a definition of the term, how to distinguish travel bragging from travel experience sharing, motivations behind travel bragging, the influence of travel bragging on travel braggers and their audience, and coping strategies consumers used to mitigate the negative impacts of travel bragging. This conceptualization of travel bragging highlighted perception gaps between travel braggers and the audience in identifying travel bragging, motivations behind this behavior, and the audience’s emotional reactions to it. The first study also provided a conceptual framework of travel bragging rights, which includes seven dimensions related to destination attributes: difference, similarity, scarcity, functionality, symbolism, hedonism, and consequentiality. Results show that, as a travel motivation, seeking travel bragging rights exerts a stronger influence on young generations and active social media content generators. The second study sought to investigate travel bragging in an online travel review context using an experimental design. Drawing on attribution theory and the emotional contagion effect, this study attempted to identify whether two visual cues in user-generated photos (pictorial self-prominence and selfies) could affect the persuasion effect of online reviews through perceived dubious motivations and positive emotions. Pictorial self-prominence (i.e., the degree to which the image of oneself is noticeable from user-generated photos) is a new concept introduced in this study. It was manipulated in two ways: the ratio of the area of one’s image to a whole self-portrait, and the ratio of the number of photos including the reviewer’s image to the total number of photos uploaded per online review. Results show that pictorial self-prominence has a negative impact on review helpfulness through perceived dubious motivations; however, this effect did not extend to visit intention to the tourist attraction mentioned in the online review. The findings also show that pictorial self-prominence (manipulated by number ratio) and selfie had a significant interaction effect on review helpfulness, such that when more photos contained the reviewer’s image, online reviews with selfies were perceived as more helpful than those with non-selfies. Follow-up analysis revealed that this interaction effect was mediated by perceived authenticity and perceived source expertise. Theoretically, this dissertation presents a systematic and comprehensive conceptualization of travel bragging, including travel bragging behavior and travel bragging rights. This conceptualization provides an update to consumers’ opinions about travel bragging and travel bragging rights in the social media era. This work also contributes to the word-of-mouth literature by uncovering the influences of travel bragging and underlying mechanisms. In addition, this dissertation reveals the influences of pictorial self-prominence and selfies on review helpfulness, highlighting the importance of visual cues in online word of mouth. Managerially, findings regarding travel bragging and travel bragging rights offer important implications for destination marketing organizations and associated social media marketers. The dissertation also outlines a series of tactful self-presentation strategies for individuals who enjoy bragging about or sharing travel experiences on social media while avoiding being perceived negatively. In addition, findings from the first study call for attention from policy makers to the negative psychological effects of travel bragging on travel braggers and the audience. The study on pictorial self-prominence and selfies provides important implications for destination marketers’ visual marketing strategies. / Tourism and Sport

近年來多軸空拍機快速發展與普及，可預見其未來將成為新一代的輔助攝影工具。空拍機打破距離、角度的限制，讓時下流行的自拍（Selfie）照片相較於以往以手臂或自拍棒輔助的方式，拍出更具特色及多樣性的構圖。然而當前空拍機操作方式複雜，使用者需花費一定的練習時間才能熟練地控制空拍機至預定位置進行拍攝。 本研究針對空拍機的使用情境進行觀察，歸納傳統操作方式造成的問題，再依不同互動控制方法討論過往研究提出的解決方法之優勢與限制，並依據自拍行為之心智模型及過往研究經驗，設計兩階段互動流程：相機定位階段（Positioning）及鏡頭構圖階段（Framing），並在各階段中分別提出直接指向（Direct Pointing）、移動微調（Fine Tuning）及構圖調整（Framing）三種有別於傳統類比搖桿操控之互動模式。 本研究另設計一俱觸覺控制回饋、可單手操作之實體自拍遙控器，搭配前述互動設計實作兼具自動化移動及以使用者為中心進行操作之空拍機自拍互動控制系統原型Skyfie，並於戶外環境設計實驗場域進行使用者測試，測試使用者指揮空拍機至指定位置拍照之操作，評估互動流程中各操作方法之優劣。測試結果顯示Skyfie 互動控制系統相較於傳統的類比搖桿操控方式更易於學習及使用，且符合使用者對空間的認知，並依照回饋意見進行互動模式修正，以達成對空拍機初學者而言也簡單易學的互動操作方式。 / As personal drones become more popular, we can envision a future where flying selfie bots are always with us. Drones break the limits of distance and angle, providing more diversified composition than taking selfie with arms or a selfie stick. However, users have to be very skillful to pilot the drone and are not easy to take aerial selfies by state-of-the-art methods. Based on user observation and the mindset of selfie taking, we summarize the problems caused by the traditional control methods and generalize the interaction flow of selfie taking into two stages: Positioning and Framing stage. In each stage, we present new interaction techniques including a direct pointing technique, fine-tuning technique, and a touch manipulation for framing. We also present a selfie remote controller designed for single-hand operation to collocates with the interaction techniques, and implement a proof-of-concept Skyfie system for an outdoor user testing. The result shows users felt intuitive and expressed enthusiasm to take aerial selfies with our techniques. Finally, we discuss the insights from the evaluation and conclude with future directions.

This research paper illustrates the social effects of social media and selfie posting on older age generations. These generational groups are called “Baby-boomers” and “Baby-busts” and are born before the existence of Internet and social media and therefore have had to adapt to the online context. The goal of this study is to make comparison between younger and older generations in terms of experiences, beliefs and feelings they encounter when posting and observing self-photos.  By using Semi-structured Qualitative interviews, which is set up as an interview guide based on questions designed to give open ended answers, we had the possibility to obtain a deeper understanding of the topic studied. This study has shown different perspectives of how generations born before the Internet era have adapted to social platforms and how they understood the selfie culture. Results identified have proven older age generations have higher level of self-esteem and prefer posting real and honest selfies, whereas the younger ones are interested in their looks and appearance on social media and they value their popularity by the number of likes received for their self-photos. As we discovered that likes and followers have no value for participants in our study, we concluded there is no reason like popularity seeking beneath their selfie posting habits. The target group in this study is instead using social media accounts as a source of inspiration, communication channel or a marketing tool for their professional life.

The thesis analyzes how a theoretical framework and method can be formulated to make mental illness visible in photographs posted on social media. The aim is to create a basis for further research. The framework is built on time, conversation, and language. Based on Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes and W J T Mitchells thoughts, a timeline is drawn. On it, both emotions and bodies are constantly present. Jon Kabat-Zinns mindfulness method is used to give an insight into how emotions can be handled with inspiration from eastern meditation techniques. The typical “yoga image” is analyzed. It is characterized by a woman doing a yoga pose, often placed in the middle of the image surface in an exotic place. The body ideal is recognized from other fitness contexts. The material is from @kinoyoga which is run by the yoga profile Kino MacGregor. Examining photographs that communicate perfect health puts this thesis questions at the forefront. The study shows that photographs on social media are not static objects but are parts in an ongoing documentation where meaning is not given. Instead meaning keeps transforming and is contently renegotiated. When the boundaries between the physical and digital realities are blurred, it becomes difficult to distinguish the needs of the image from one’s own. The emotional experiences of shortcomings and desires can occur and start to interact. As Instagram's algorithms exploit these emotions, it becomes difficult to break the vicious circle. Instagram users are forced to abide by the app's rules. The responsibility for the ill health generated should be the owners of for-profit companies and political institutions with the power to legislate.