The Politics of Image
This paper explores the politicization of the image in social media and how image can be attributed different values in the online environment. Facebook’s decision to invoke its obscenity clause to bar users from posting pictures of breastfeeding ignited a controversy. Members protested against the ban both offline and online. The controversy raised various issues between lived offline experiences and the rules of engagement in social networking sites. Image economies on the Internet present new problems and challenges. Whilst they are crucial in the construction of profiles and identities in social networking sites and may therefore function as a referent of social values and norms, there may be disparities in the ways they are gazed at and interpreted as published content online. This paper examines the salient issues which emerged in the breastfeeding controversy with relevance to the image economy in social networking sites. In particular, it discusses the politicisation of the image, users’ notions and construction of public and private spaces in social networking sites, and the use of the image as symbol of dissent and activism in such online communities.