Digital Exhibitionism The Age of Exposure

Abstract

Web 2.0 has expanded the possibilities of digital creative production by individu-als and enabled the digitalisation of private life experiences. This study analyses how social media contributes to the making of personal biographies and discusses the shift towards a culture of digital exposure. This study uses netnography and a constructive approach to examine online communities and social networks. The findings illustrate that these new technological platforms are mediating in the con-struction of late modern biographies, which are expanding the complexity of to-day’s socio-technical systems. The paper discusses the power of these technolo-gies as agents of socio-cultural change and suggests that, besides providing indi-vidual realisation and mediated pleasure, these technologies encourage exhibitio-nistic and voyeuristic behaviour, elude reflexivity, and display authoritative ten-dencies and new possibilities for social control.

Keywords

• Social media
• cultural change
• online communities
• social control