Im(matter)ial Bodies: A Material and Affective Rethinking of Selfies for Digital Literacy Resources

Abstract

This paper conducts a critical discourse analysis of a recent Canadian adolescent digital literacy resource to show that selfies are treated primarily as discursive objects. This paper suggests that by rethinking selfies as both discursive and important material and affective entanglements—a frequent proposal in recent scholarship on this phenomenon—and by redesigning learning resources accordingly, teachers could encourage students to think in a material, affective, embodied, and more complex way about the experiences of sharing images of bodies online.