Celebrity and the self(ie): exploring young women’s uses of celebrity on Instagram

Atkins, Bethany (2024) Celebrity and the self(ie): exploring young women’s uses of celebrity on Instagram. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

This thesis examines young women’s engagements with celebrity selfies on the social media platform Instagram. In recent years, concerns have been raised about the perceived negative ‘effects’ of the platform and its encouragement of ‘Instagrammable’ (normative) beauty ideals in popular discourse. Celebrity content in particular has been implicated in these debates, with celebrity selfies displaying ‘impossible’ standards positioned as responsible for negative social comparison and body image anxieties among young women and girls.

A wealth of academic work has sought to complicate popular framings that position the selfie in relation to pathologised constructions of femininity, as tied to ideas of narcissism and low self-esteem. While such research has highlighted the complexities of people’s selfie and Instagram practices, the intersecting role of celebrity has not been met with the same urgency or nuance. There is a tendency for academic work on the celebrity selfie, which is largely comprised of textual and visual analyses, to echo popular debates that limit young women’s engagements with celebrity content in terms of imitation – i.e., it is assumed they want be(come) like celebrities in their own selfies.

This research is both a response to popular debates and a necessary empirical contribution to existing academic work on the celebrity selfie. It draws on interview data from a sample of 18 young people (predominantly young women) in the UK to explore how they navigate and use celebrity selfies on Instagram. Adopting a feminist Foucauldian approach, it seeks to hold in tension the disciplinary power of celebrity selfies and participants’ resistance to these images. Overall, this thesis highlights the complex and myriad functions of celebrities and their selfies on Instagram, as well as it disrupts the ‘obviousness’ assumed in textual readings and wider public debates.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Art, Media and American Studies (former - to 2024)
Depositing User:	Nicola Veasy
Date Deposited:	06 Mar 2025 14:49
Last Modified:	06 Mar 2025 14:49
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/98702
DOI:

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