Introduction: The digital self(ie) and world-making

With the increasing use of digital media as a space not only for communication but also creation and curation of identity, the selfie becomes an object of scholarly interest from multiple disciplinary perspectives. This introductory chapter lays out the theoretical foundations that the volume draws on and departs from, opening up questions of production, circulation, and reception of the digital selfie in its myriad mutable forms, while teasing out the contextual and material contexts within which these processes occur. We argue that the existing modes of theorizing self-portraiture (as in photography and art) may be inadequate when attempting to understand this digital mode of [re]presentation, and offer a different set of frames within which to view and examine the digital self(ie).