Snapchat ‘selfies’

The case of disappearing data

Abstract

Little has been written about the impact of ephemeral messaging technologies such as Snapchat,

Wickr and iDelete on learner identities. The authors explore how disappearing social media may

enable young people to take up a range of discourses and demonstrate discursive agency in ways

that support social mobility through shifting relationships with their peers. Much of this unfolds

through the transmission of digital images that promote social flexibility. The visibility, of seeing

and being seen, demonstrates a Foucauldian ‘gaze’ where power plays out through the capacity to

be visible and recognisable to others and specific practices (e.g. selfies) become normalised.

Social media technologies furnish emergent spaces for underlife activity that foster this gaze.

Taking up the Foucault’s concept of subjectivities as discursively constituted identity categories,

the authors explore the relationship between disappearing media and youth identities.

Keywords: , identities, social media, Foucault, ‘selfies’