TY - JOUR

T1 - The Mobile Archive of the Self

T2 - On the Interplay between Aesthetic and Metric Modes of Communication

AU - Mortensen, Mette

AU - Lomborg, Stine

PY - 2019

Y1 - 2019

N2 - This feature develops the concept of the mobile archive of the self to account for the communicative codification of self by way of metrics and aesthetics in the use of smartphone apps. We propose that research on digital self-representations would benefit from a more systematic and conceptually grounded integration of the metric and the aesthetic modes of communication in what we term ‘mobile selfhood,’ i.e., current practices for tracking and documenting the self with the smartphone. Positing that the two modes of communication are increasingly inseparable, we use selfies as a case in point to offer an integrating analysis, which focuses on processes of historicizing, commercializing and politicizing the self via smartphone applications. The resulting mobile archive of the self is at once bound to the hardware and software we use to perform and historicize it, and reconfigured, merged and reassembled as user profiles enter into data flows that run steadily from our personal devices to commercial and political actors.

AB - This feature develops the concept of the mobile archive of the self to account for the communicative codification of self by way of metrics and aesthetics in the use of smartphone apps. We propose that research on digital self-representations would benefit from a more systematic and conceptually grounded integration of the metric and the aesthetic modes of communication in what we term ‘mobile selfhood,’ i.e., current practices for tracking and documenting the self with the smartphone. Positing that the two modes of communication are increasingly inseparable, we use selfies as a case in point to offer an integrating analysis, which focuses on processes of historicizing, commercializing and politicizing the self via smartphone applications. The resulting mobile archive of the self is at once bound to the hardware and software we use to perform and historicize it, and reconfigured, merged and reassembled as user profiles enter into data flows that run steadily from our personal devices to commercial and political actors.

M3 - Journal article

VL - 13

SP - 6006

EP - 6020

JO - International Journal of Communication

JF - International Journal of Communication

SN - 1932-8036

ER -