#networkpublics

Digital innovations have made many marks on history, but in recent times few have been as dramatic as the evolution in the way we capture, store and share images. 'The best camera is the one that's with you', is the perfect summary of the digital photography revolution that we are living through (Jarvis,2009) I reflect back on the recent purchase of my new iPhone and the reasons behind my purchase was not due to the call functionality, but due to it’s 12 megapixel dual camera which is designed to mimic a DSLR. No longer do I need to carry my camera bag along which at times I would get annoyed at it’s weight, now my DSLR is sitting in my back pocket! and I must say the portrait functionality on my new phone is exceptional. Now, personal photography:

”includes those photographic practices and images that are inextricably part of personal life – whether the individual taking pictures, the images we use to represent ourselves, the pictures we collect or display for ourselves, or the sharing of pictures with others as part of personal communication” (Martin Hand 2012, p. 5) 

Photography and video are coming to take a central position within our social media platforms to foreground visual communication (Swinburne 2018) and this is evident in the social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram who are also known as “Networked Publics”.  A public can be thought of as ‘a concrete audience, a crowd witnessing itself in visible space, as with a theatrical public’ which implies a bounded totality. Or it can be ‘the kind of public that comes into being only in relation to texts and their circulation’. (Warner 2002) A feature that explains this better is “Tagging”. Tagging is defined as any form of annotation to add information to an image; but it also makes images searchable and connects them for instance around events, places, venues, people. Tagging is thus both a way of finding and being found (Swinburne 2018) While people use tags to show hey I have been here, businesses use tags to expand their reach and build more brand awareness. Twitter for example has a #trending list a user can refer to if they are wanting to read up on a particular subject or see what the talk is about over twitter.  While some people are very happy to use this feature and share their location, it can often raise privacy concerns with automatic tagging or where tagging has not been authorised.

Selfie Culture

Is one feature I cannot relate to. Known as taking a picture of yourself by yourself ! I still don't get the hype and all the popularity amongst millennials in taking a picture of yourself, pouting and looking silly! Guess it’s a generation thing I am old school!  But so popular amongst my sisters and kids! 

Youth use networked publics to gather, socialise with their peers, make sense of and help build the culture around them (Boyd 2007) Boyd further goes on to argue that social network sites allow teens a space to work out identity and status, make sense of cultural cues, and negotiate public life. Sadly, I think they are becoming to consumed with being immersed in using social media platforms, and become less interactive when in a group or one on one. You only have to look around to see, that people out together are on their phones using Facebook instead of engaging or interacting. Known as dinner date with  your  IPhone.

Youth participate in a visual community it to create a sense of sociality, being where their friends are, while businesses use it to reach a certain audience or demographic to increase brand awareness and convert.

“Publics play a crucial role in the development of individuals for, as Nancy Fraser explains, “they are arenas for the formation and enactment of social identities.” (fraser 1992)

ref

Boyd, D & Ellison, M n.d., 2007, ‘Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship’, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 210-230.

Chase Jarvis – ‘The best camera is the one that’s with you’ 17 Oct 2009 published in USA

Hand, M 2012, Ubiquitous Photography, Polity Press, Cambridge.

Mizuko, I 2008 ‘Introduction’, in K, Vamelis, ed. Networked Publics, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 1-14.

Nancy Fraser, Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy, Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), 125

Images

Network Publics are online spaces that facilitate the interaction of people, technology, and practice. They function and serve the same purpose as other publics- to allow people who have similar interests to gather, socialize, and make connections. Such publics overlap constantly and most people are part of multiple publics at the same time.

One example of a network public is the YouTube community. No matter what your interests are, from gaming and animation to beauty and DIY, there’s a plethora of videos for you. Fans of creators create individual publics over their love for a specific person. Bethany Mota, a beauty guru, and has over ten million subscribers/followers on YouTube and twitter combined and calls the people in her network her “Mota-vators” and many bond over fan accounts. It is common for people follow multiple YouTube creators, therefore belong to multiple network publics.