The spectacularization of oneself in social media: The spectator-reader and the pedagogies of visibility

Abstract

This article proposes to present the main themes that emerged from the posts of Facebook interactors “Skoob: what are you reading?”, as well as to discuss the concept of visibility pedagogies. It is considered relevant to address the meaning of the concept of visibility pedagogies, which in the current context, constitute symbolic materialities of a new way of making oneself exist in the face of the emergence of social media. Content analysis was used as a research technique. The results show that what is valued in a social network, as a community of readers, are the themes that most enhance the visibility of readers. Moderate discretion and introspection, as a hallmark of the reader personality, is not a significant feature in the reader/a-spectacle of social media. The study pointed out that this reader claims visibility and its survival in virtual spaces depends on it, and these, in turn, encourage him to assume a selfcelebration behavior. This text also presents a matrix of the pedagogies of visibility of the spectacle reader based on the typification of posts in the observed group. It highlights that the matrix allows for the addition of information about the pedagogies of visibility that readers used to be seen. The final considerations point out that on social networks, by behaving like a celebrity, the reader leaves aside the silent introspective and lonely spaces in which he performed his readings and was guaranteed the inviolability of his reader’s gestures in exchange for visibility through the spectacularization of you. Keywords: Reader. Social media. Society of the Spectacle. Visibility pedagogies. Transparency society.