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- Title
The self--harmed, visualized, and reblogged: Remaking of self-injury narratives on Tumblr.
- Authors
Seko, Yukari; Lewis, Stephen P.
- Abstract
Images featuring self-injury (SI) have been proliferating on social media. This article reports the findings of a visual narrative analysis of 294 photo-based posts on Tumblr, exploring how SI is narrated through the interplay between image content, photographic composition, associated texts and tags, and reblogging. Findings reveal a shift in the iconography of SI from direct depictions of self-injured bodies to re-appropriations of popular media content that figuratively represent emotional struggles. Images of selfinflicted wounds received 10 times less reblogs than images without wounds, and media memes conveying hopeless moods were the most widely distributed. These memes represent SI as a form of life struggle virtually anyone can face while complicating conventional readings of SI as an individual pathologic experience. We discuss these findings in the context of an emergent online curation culture and how Tumblr's unique affordances may both offer and limit possibilities for narrating SI.
- Subjects
SELF-mutilation; TUMBLR (Web resource); SOCIAL media; NARRATIVE inquiry (Research method); SOCIAL stigma
- Publication
Advances in Mechanical Engineering (Sage Publications Inc.), 2018, Vol 10, Issue 1, p180
- ISSN
1687-8132
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/1461444816660783