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"to see" and "to be seen". Internet self-portrait culture, adolescent self-identity development and social relation.

With the growing use of digital camera and internet album, it brings a new internet visual culture called as ¡§internet self-portrait culture¡¨ in Taiwan. Internet users take digital self-portrait photos, upload self-portrait onto personal websites like blog or internet album, and communicate with people in this way. This culture is much popular especially among the adolescents (aged form 12 to 24) in Taiwan.
This research refers to what kind of effects this new internet visual culture brings to the adolescents, especially focusing on the effect it brings to self-identity development and social relation. And interview is adopted in this research.
According to the result, first, internet self-portrait culture could be seen as an adolescent sub-culture. In this subculture, the adolescents develop a series of communicative methods like ¡§to see¡¨ and ¡§to be seen¡¨. In this way, the adolescents chase for chances and stages for ¡§showing oneself¡¨, and the ¡§beautiful looks¡¨ is the main point of the show. ¡§Chasing for aesthetics of body¡¨ and ¡§everyone having equal and unique prettiness¡¨ are the two important values in this subculture.
As for self-identity, participating in internet self-portrait culture brings the adolescents the experience of alternative role playing experience. Moreover, it helps build up self-confidence and positive self-identity on looks. As for social relation, it helps the adolescents keep in touch with the old friends and brings them new friends who help the adolescents build self-confidence on looks. Besides, participating in internet self-portrait culture could be seen as a way for the adolescents to retrieve ¡§freedom of making friends¡¨ and ¡§freedom of managing one¡¦s own body¡¨ from their parents.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0826110-132037
Date26 August 2010
CreatorsWang, Yun-peng
ContributorsPing Shaw, Feng-Yang Kuo, Wen-hui Tang
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0826110-132037
Rightswithheld, Copyright information available at source archive

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