Selfies: New Visual Culture of New Digital Society

Introduction

Internet and latest information technology that create a revolutionary impact in our lifestyle has brought some hidden risks in the new environment that communication is fast and easy, actually. While selfies are evaluated within these risks, a number of elements that can especially effect mental health negatively in the long term in terms of psychological has come to the fore. It draws attention in this technological environment to the harmful consequences for the millennium generation of the selfies which is likely to cause an identity crisis in terms of socially and proposed to be used with productivity purpose (Gupta & Pooja, 2016).

In this study, digital culture emerging with new communication technologies after oral culture and the written culture will be examined in a critical perspective with the example of selfie. As expressed previously, many studies conducted with the same content has focused on the individual psychological effects of selfies. But study will be focusing on the social effects of selfies which are considered as a new visual culture of the new digital society in this study. The new cultural environment in Turkey created by the selfies in which the impacts of globalization can be observed is being discussed in this study and it will try to evaluate the sociological dimensions of selfies shared publicly by the most widely followed users in Instagram which is among the social media network based on visualization while highlighting the disappeared properties of oral and written culture. Clothing, jewelry-accessories, space, hair style, make-up, gestures and facial expressions will be defined as analysis code in the assessment. This regulation system of the indicators, which we confront in more than one dimension with certain regulations in real life, is called coding. All codes are generated and used depending on social communication. We are based on learned-acquired social codes while explaining the image and language. The form of the message is transformed into the form of appearance in coding. We should pay attention to social and historical reasons, which explain why we use physical properties that enable us to express our feelings (Türkoğlu, 2000). These concepts, which are defined as analysis code in the study, are important especially in terms of reflecting cultural values. In the modern world, fashion is considered as one of the main resources that they establish their identities and position themselves relative to others. The analysis codes selected in the study also communicate visual messages about the status of the individual who is closely related to fashion and is the essential feature of the cultural function that fashion shows in everyday life (Bennett, 2013).

At the end of the studies, it is aimed to comment about the social dimension of selfies and find traces of cultural codes which are transferred to different cultures via new communication technologies or disappeared with the effect of globalization via selfies which are New Visual Culture of New Digital Society

Culture based on word and oral which is the basis of the communication between people and exist before writing should constitute the starting point for every researcher who study the cultural development of communities. Sounds piece by piece that makes the language to be heard and the language which mainly dominate the communication not only connected with communication but also with thought in a special way. After writing, words wrapped into a concrete object view and turned into a structure that we can touch as visual cues can tap (Ong, 2003).

Verbal lecture has a different significance in terms of participation, social interaction and integration. Verbal lecture has also an importance cannot be underestimated in the development of interpersonal relationships and the creation of a network of the experiential relationships. In the tradition of Verbal lecture; storytelling, communication based on words and the words to be used constitute important dimensions. Verbal lecture in which sometimes didactic competence and sometimes pragmatic competence come in the forefront, a smile or a tear drop has even a special effect. (The power of the spoken word: Orality in contrast with literacy, nd.)

Culture which includes all social relationships and holds our beliefs, our values, our attitudes, our traditions and social institutions as together is also an important unifying force position in social, environmental and economic sustainability. Oral culture has played an important role in analyzing the behavior of the dominant culture with regard to this important function of culture (Polistina, 2009).