[Commlist] Call for abstracts: Intimacy and visual communication on social media

Call for abstracts: Intimacy and visual communication in social media

Sharing (intimate) photos has become an integral part of close 
relationships in the age of social media. Particularly young people use 
social media as a way to establish and maintain strong social ties 
rather than a way of connecting to public life. This use pattern 
includes the sharing of photos and videos with intimate and sexual 
content such as nudes, intimate situations and other types of 
self-disclosure. As most public and academic interests has been related 
to situations where the process has gone wrong and people have been 
hurt, they are often associated with risk, worries and, indeed, moral 
disdain. Yet these cases are part of a much broader social practice, 
which is for the most part unproblematic and mundane. The sharing of 
intimate photos can be seen as part of a more general act of (mutual) 
self-disclosure in order to establish trust, and it can be seen as an 
exploration of sexuality and social identities. In both cases the 
sharing of intimate photos becomes part of more general processes of 
intimacy and close relationships that we should be careful not to reject 
or problematize as a whole.

Accordingly, in this themed issue we would like to move beyond the 
‘stories of problem youth’ and toward a more empirically grounded and 
systematic analysis of the complex ways in which the sharing of intimate 
photos becomes part of everyday life practices including friendships, 
courtships, trust and intimacy – across all life phases. This may 
include studies of the roles intimate photos may have in the maintenance 
of friendships and romantic partnerships, the ways in which people 
negotiate trust and responsibilities in relation to this, and the 
specific place of risk in these interactions. It may also include more 
historical studies foregrounding differences and similarities to earlier 
practices of intimacy, friendships and sexual partnerships, and the ways 
gender and life phase condition and is conditioned by such practices.  
It may include case studies zooming in on specific turning points where 
unproblematic practices turns into contested or even criminal offences. 
Further, articles could also focus on  situations where people restrict 
or prevent others from using photos in an undisclosed matter. Finally it 
may include more political-economic analyses of the way specific social 
platforms condition such practices and capitalize on them, and the wider 
implications this may have for citizens’ rights and security in the 
digital network society.

Please submit an extended abstract of 1000 words by May 15^th on 
MedieKultur’s website: www.tidsskrift.dk/mediekultur

Authors will be notified by May 30^th, and the deadline for final 
submissions is August 31^st .

Articles that are accepted for further process by the editors will go 
into peer-review in September. Expect to have decisions on manuscripts 
and potential further revisions end of September. Publication is planned 
for the end of 2019.


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