THE SELFIE AS NEW MEDIA STRATEGY: THE ONGOING LEGACY

This writing connects historical and contemporary vernacular image practices in their role of providing diverse representations of the Latinx experience. It begins with a brief overview of the camera, outlining the historical use of photography in the biased representation of certain communities. It then explores vernacular photography and the photo album as tools for countering stereotypical depictions. Highlighting the impact of technological developments on vernacular photography, the discussion moves to how smartphones and social media have fostered new media practices that continue the legacy of visualizing the Latinx experience. By situating the selfie within contemporary vernacular practices, it explains how the selfie generates a sense of belonging while also resisting erasure on biased platforms. The piece concludes by emphasizing the need for innovative, transdisciplinary scholarship to explore how new media is contributing to autonomous, pluralistic, and performative representations of the Latinx community.

Keywords:  visual cultures, new media, cultural studies

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Exploring the power of self-representation in the form of selfies as an affirmation-based practice,the artist transforms her frustrations with self-identification through a “trans*glitch-performance,” and practices queer self-representation and self-portraiture through the use of selfies as a medium to challenge LatinX identity and representation.

Keywords: digital representation; LatinX; queer; selfie; transmigrant

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The Selfie Institute invites readers to reconsider how we study, circulate, and co-create knowledge in a digital world increasingly shaped by self-representation. Far more than a meditation on selfies, this paper offers a vision for a decentralized, transdisciplinary research platform that challenges hierarchical academic norms and embraces participatory, community-driven inquiry. By blending speculative design, digital culture analysis, and innovative technologies like AI and NFTs, it proposes bold alternatives for how knowledge can be generated, archived, and shared. Anyone invested in the future of scholarship, digital identity, creative practice, or equitable knowledge access will find in this work not only a critique of the present but a blueprint for more inclusive, collaborative modes of learning. It is an invitation to imagine and help build the next frontier of alt-scholarly communication.