From selfie to #sealfie: Nature 2.0 and the digital cultural politics of an internationally contested resource. Issue 79 (February 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hawkins, Roberta; Silver, Jennifer J.
• Is Part Of: Geoforum. Issue 79(2017)
• Page Start: 114
• Page End: 123
• Publication Date: 2017-02
• Subjects: Canada -- Celebrity -- Political ecology -- Sealing -- Social media; Geography -- Periodicals; Human geography -- Periodicals; Regional planning -- Periodicals; Sciences de la terre -- Périodiques; Géographie -- Périodiques; Géographie humaine -- Périodiques; Aménagement du territoire -- Périodiques; Earth sciences; Geography; Human geography; Regional planning; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 304.205
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.06.019
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0016-7185

Abstract

Highlights: Tracks Twitter 'hashtag' that promoted roles and values of seals/hunting in Canada. EmploysRose's (2015) suggestions for researching digital cultural production. Finds that Web 2.0 enabled and shaped the form and function of posting. Attention to digital dimensions of 'environmental politics after nature' is needed. Abstract: This paper examines an iteration of debate about seal hunting in Canada wherein the politics of nature and celebrity culture intersected via Web 2.0 in an unanticipated way. Our analysis focuses on a spike in social media posting that took place after celebrity Ellen DeGeneres took a 'selfie' photo with a group of movie stars live during the 2014 Academy Awards. 'Nature 2.0' is a relevant framing for this case because, in the weeks and months after the 2014 Oscars, many seal hunters and other pro-hunt advocates took to Twitter and posted personal photos and/or accounts of seal hunting and its significance. In a play on DeGeneres' Oscars selfie, both types of posters often labelled their tweets with the following 'hashtag': #sealfie. Our analysis shows that, while important, the Oscars spectacle and the star-studded selfie did not alone the scene for #sealfies and their circulation. Moreover, we demonstrate that some #sealfie posters challenged the authority of anti-sealing organizations and employed Web 2.0 functionalities in ways that took debate about sealing beyond engrained moral and environmental binaries. We conclude that Web 2.0 not just enabled, but actually shaped, the form and function of #sealfies and the journalistic attention that the phenomenon received.