Surveillance and Manipulation Versus Networking and Sharing

Abstract

For some time now, image has no longer been a predominantly visual issue. What I mean by this is that, in today’s society, an image no longer merely “behaves” like a visual object put before a spectator, or rather, an observer (Crary 1990): instead, it is an object that boasts a vitality that continually readapts its function within a media ecosystem that is increasingly complex and diverse. Today, perhaps more than at any other time in history, images are objects to be used. Particularly on social networks, images have been made the object of a series of social and communicative practices that pervade our daily lives and force us to reconsider the issue of “visibility”—understood as the relationship between a person who observes and a person who is observed—if we hope to understand the particular dynamics that are triggered when images come into play (in vastly different forms and through different media). Take, for example, how a common, entertaining practice such as the selfie—which has radically redefined the rules of visibility as regards self-representation—has become a key element in a series of promotional strategies that “exploit” the urge to create and share such images, an urge felt by an untold number of people (“selfie points,” now found in cultural venues, places of entertainment, and retail outlets, are an obvious example).