According to three panelists, social media can directly change the view or manipulate the idea of body image.
“Most of our online communication is intrapersonal, but has personal consequences,” Oriana Rodriguez, Saint Peter’s University senior and the first speaker at the panel, said.
The Wednesday, Oct, 22, panel was moderated by Dr. Paul Wright, Cabrini English professor, and was broken up into three sections including Rodriguez’s “The Pseudo-Intimacy of Internet Socialization and Casual Dress,” Hamilton College’s Sabrina Hua’s “#Asian: Mass Fetishizing Asian Bodies in the Construction of Racial Identity on Social Media,” and Dana Millio, senior English major’s, “#Selfie-Actualization: The Presentation of the Self in an Online Society.”
Rodriquez’s presentation focused on the lack of face-to-face communication that social media has created that has made the workplace somewhere where casual dress is the norm.
“Casual dress has become the last mode of non-verbal communication readily available to absorb,” Rodreguez said. “The professional realm is left for the glossy profile pictures on LinkedIn and Facebook. Our last non-verbal statement is what we put on our bodies.”
While Rodriquez focused on how social media is changing society, Hua saw how it is used to show society.
Through her research, she’s found that searching “#Asian” on social media means very different things, in very different contexts. The reasons for using “#Asian” can range from the purpose of cultural appreciation or a description of a person’s identity, to racism or even as a use to promote certain fetishes.
A common denominator in both Rodriquez and Hua’s topics is the use of selfies, which was the focal point of Millio’s presentation.
“The need for validation through selfie-culture has an ugly flipside,” Millio said. “In an online society with social networking sites based almost exclusively on vanity, being overlooked online can be crushing.”
In her research, Millio found that selfies are more than just pictures but staples in how many millennials interect online and find real-life validation through online recognition.
