#wk9post

You know when you jump on Facebook and you see the notification blahblah has tagged you in a photo, and you get nervous?

Well I do. I have this big thing about bad photos of me, if I really hate it I will make my friends take it down. What blows my mind is the young girls today who post inappropriate pictures of themselves, mainly provocative "selfies". I have always been thinking about my public profile, ensuring its on private and not posting things that may make me unemployable in the future. 

I roll my eyes at the 2,348 skanky picture floating across my newsfeed. 

These days social media is only used for flirty pictures - such as snapchat. What a stupid and annoying app. I don't wan't to see you taking a selfie just because you are at gym. Instagram used to be actually about good creative photos, now it's selfies too...

Rant over.

But in all seriousness, it is a very important issue. Consent is a sticky subject when uploading photos of people. On social media platforms we all assume it is fine to upload any picture we take, but it can actually get you into trouble. Lucky, Facebook has the ability to allow other to report photos or posts which helps govern people doing the wrong thing. Images posted online need a degree of privacy and  safety as they can be manipulated, abstractions, substitutions and re-enactments (Vivienne & Burgess 2013). 

Photos and videos are an intrinsic part of everyday life now. You go to a party -you take a selfie and upload it to Facebook, you go on a holiday- you take a photo of your hotel room view and upload it to Instagram, you make a nice lunch at home and no surprise here you upload it to Facebook and Instagram and then you take a Snapchat eating it. Everything we do we record and post it to our virtual lives. I mean yesterday at uni my friend pointed out a tree that looked really pretty with its red and green ombre leaves and my first thought wasn’t to just appreciate the beauty in it but instead my first was thought was to take a photo of it and post it to Instagram.

It isn't even just the things around us but us as well! We get a new hair cut so that calls for a selfie, we buy a new dress and just have to share it with everyone -we are putting ourselves out there just as much as the things that make up our lives. Because of this we have been incredibly camera conscience. Most of my friends know their 'better angle' and refuse to take a photo from any other direction. If a friend posts a bad photo of us we beg them to take it down or at least untag ourselves from it. It hasn’t yet been decided if this is a good or bad development yet and there are varying arguments for both sides.

 One party in support of this new visually connected world are companies and brands who are looking for an in. A cost effective way to be recognised, talked about and made to look cool. This is where the Instagram advertising campaigns come into play. Who ever thought up this model of launching brands is a genius. It plays on all of our cultures desires to appear ‘cool’ online and also our love for aesthetically pleasing visuals. 

The first contact I had with one of these cyber brands was Triangl swimwear. An Australian model who is Insta famous with quite a few thousand followers had posted a photo of her new Triangl bathers with the brand tagged. Over the next few weeks many of my friends posted their own photos of their new Triangl bathers in the same manner. The Triangl swimwear Instagram account was filled with of Instagram celebrities –pretty girls who take lots of pretty selfies with and pretty clothes and pretty friends- wearing these bathers. None of their models (and there is a new one each day) were actual celebrities and you would never know who they were if you weren’t on Instagram and up to date with the latest Insta IT girls. Every few model picture they would upload a picture of a luxurious yacht in bright blue water, or a white sand beach with a hammock hanging from two palm trees. Obviously I started following them straight away! I mean who doesn’t wasn’t to look at pictures of a beautiful sunset over a beaches or your favourite Insta celebs! 

 Since then I have now seen Frank Body Scrub, Bondi Sands fake tan and many other sweep my insta feed, all using the same techniques. This phenomenon only takes place on Instagram as it is the only platform that’s sole focus on the visual can accommodate it.

Looking at someone’s Instagram can sum up the lives they want us to see with a rosy filter over the top of it but is it real? Are these companies taking advantage of societies –and particularly young teenagers- desire to appear cool and fashionable and up with the latest trends in our online presence?

All I know is that these companies are cunning social media users and that I desperately want my own Triangl bathing suit and Frank Body Scrub! 

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The Photo as Reality The photographic image had long been seen as the art of reality; an unmediated capturing of the real world. This is known as the Ontology of the Photographic Image, an idea thought up by André Bazin (pictured) in the late 1950s. And while this is an idea that held some truth at the time, with the arrival of image manipulation tools and the manner in which photos are taken, this is clearly no longer the case. Photos are not reality. Never mind tools such as Photoshop, the very manner in which people plan photos automatically mediate the image. It is an image of an ideal of an event; a photo of a memory.

Identity Construction through Images Online, images hold a powerful role in the creation of identity. This is largely due to the permanency of these images when linked to an account. The permanency leads to mediation, as the content and discussion around online images directly impacts an individual’s reputation. This is understandable, but it means that individual expression can be stifled in favour of maintaining appearances. This means that the selfie, a photograph taken by an individual of the individual in a personal setting (which should inherently be intimate), is mediated as well because of the implications of permanency.

Traditional Social Media The traditional view identity in social media is entirely dominated by the profile. The profile of a user is the mediated permanent recording of their life, summed up nicely on a single page. It encourages a duality between offline and online: a user has experiences in real life, and then records them online in order to share their memories. The most prevalent way of sharing these memories is being posting photos or videos. The degree to which these are shared is determined by the number of likes or favourites they receive, which leads to the deliberate creation of photos and videos that will garner the highest number of likes or favourites. This strangles individuality, as the most popular themes and ideals become the most valuable ones, and are therefore propagated more widely.

Image sharing and video streaming on the online community has become a social norm as part of communicating our experiences with others to create a emotional or social connection. The problem with this is the ability of images to be published online without or knowledge or without permission that can have an irreconcilable impact on the reputation of a person, how their peers see them and how the larger communities view them. There has been more and more hype around our profiles and what we share on line crossing into our offline lives, from potential employees using Facebook to get a representation of someone’s personality to damaging images posted from disgruntled friends and exes, or an embarrassing picture from the past.

I think one of the main problems is the differentiation between mediated images posted online and those that are uploaded without consent. Looking at Facebook there is a stigma of tagged photos verses uploaded photos and the profile picture, the profile picture is a representation of how the user wants to portray themselves. The tagged photos show people in their real light, their often seen to be more true and less candid and can capture embarrassing images that you would not choose to upload yourself. Many images circulating out there are not derived by the person in the image, and that image, even if it is only visible for 30 seconds can leave an invisible footprint in the digital world, as soon as it is uploaded it is free to view whether restricted to friends or the wider public. The ability to upload with ease to social networking platforms via mobile devices is making it easier and easier from people to share images and photos from wherever they are in what ever state their in. Posting a drunken Selfie has never been easier, opening your Instagram or Facebook and clicking on a link that allows you to upload an instant image and post means people often post images they may regret, or maybe judged for. By the time they take it down or untag themselves it has already be seen by the mass.

The Selfie culture that has come into strong prominence in social networking over the past few years, creates an intimacy with people in their online communities. While the idea of self portraiture has always been around mobile devices with front screen cameras allows people to frame themselves in a shot. It is one of the cultural norms on social media and I believe it has become a way to connect people and share experiences with more ease. It is dependent on the context of the Selfie that makes it harmful or not by what you show and what is alluded by the image, it can have many connotations the user hasn't even thought of. Traveling around Europe my camera phone became my best friend for capturing moments of the trip, I also took a point and shoot camera as  which captured more scenic photos but my phone became a library of tourists selfies and shared experiences due to it's portability and ease of use. If I was separated from my friends I could still get a photo in front of a attraction without trusting a stranger with my camera. Similarly on nights out my phone was easier to carry around. Technology is making it easier for us to communicate through visuals, but we also have to be more aware of what we are posting.

The number of #selfies taken on Instagram is over 100 million and is constantly increasing. So I think it’s fair to say that most of us (or at least a lot of us) aren't afraid to post a photo of ourselves online and aren't afraid that strangers all over the world are seeing it.

There has been a shift in the way we post online with image posting taking over text based posts. Burjgess & Viviene (2013, p.280) said that changes in media technologies have changed the way we capture personal and family photos. 

There are a number of image sharing apps out there and they all serve different purposes. Image sharing platforms allow us to become a part of a visual database so users no longer need to set up their own websites to share their images (Burjgess & Viviene 2013, p.281). Socially networked photos play a role in cultural citizenship but this opens up concerns about our personal and public lives blurring (Burjgess and Viviene 2013, p. 282). At what point do we draw the line or are we becoming closer to there being no distinction?

Instagram allows us to share images with people all over the world. Hashtags allow us to share that image with more than those who follow us. The way the images are displayed and the number of editing tools such as filters mean that people probably put a lot more thought into the type of image they post. 

I love Instagram and use it everyday. But whenever I post an image I always think about who is going to be able to see it. There is a sense of it being permanent even though I can easily delete it at any time. The images I post are a collection of who I am and what I want to present as a representation of my life.

Snapchat on the other hand is very different from other image sharing platforms. Snapchat was designed for images to have a life span of 10 seconds before they disappeared forever. (However, there are ways of saving the images.) People tend to care less about the quality of the photo they are sending. Uglier photos tend to make their way onto Snapchat.  One of the best parts is that you get to choose exactly who sees the photo rather than them being public for the whole world to potentially see. That is of course, assuming the receiver doesn't save that photo and put it online.  Something that I have noticed in the past week is that my friends constantly say "Omg I need to snapchat this" or "Hang on, let me take a photo for Instagram."  One of those moments was right now. I'm drinking my coffee and thinking about how good it tastes when I suddenly felt the urge to take a photo and put in on Instagram. Why? I have no idea. I just wanted people to share my coffee experience. And I did in fact share it on Instagram with reference to this assignment. 

These days there is a new type of paranoia and tension that is unique to our generation. People have more everyday power in one aspect, as cameras are often now on mobile phones to complement/enhance all of our social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and so on. 

Is it good that potentially all of us with a smart phone can document and take photos of whatever we want? In a way, I think it's great people have cameras in their pockets which i'll touch on further down in this post.

A lot of negative talk has been spoken for obvious reasons. Embarrassing photos, bullying opportunities, stalking, sexting... if you think of these words, you question the positive side of the new camera consciousness we now have. 

Although Instagram may suggest a narcissistic society with most tags reflecting a very big interest in one's self, with things like #selfie or #me, I feel it's deeper than that.

Instagram and the consciousness that has now developed because of cameras can be positive. I mean, people can express themselves now through images that may be frowned upon in mainstream society. Think about it, as much as people like to put up a front on Instagram and act like something they're not, there ARE cases of people putting up the REAL person they are, on Instagram, the one they can't show in real life for any reason. 

Honestly, a lot of what I put on the internet under my own name, is what I like and you could probably very much predict my hobbies or interests, or even music taste... through the photos i've posted, or the photos I reblog, they're all a part of me in some regard.

Not everyone takes this personal view and use to Instagram, tumblr or photos in general and that's where things are misconstrued. There definitely are people out there that are nothing like what they like to portray themselves as online. People are more confident online, even seemingly "prettier" to some people, but we must not be ignorant to the fact that images can do amazing things to people like inspire and motivate and even express. 

Just as easily as people can fake an identity online, they can show their real one.

The new age of camera consciousness has shown benefits anyway, through amateur journalism covering major stories and giving us images that inform. For example, yesterday James Packer, a big media conglomerate, got into a fight and someone was there to get a photo and in turn, it was made into a major news story... it made headlines. It informed the public, whether or not it's a great, fun, exciting or inspiring story, it is one that obviously the public is interested in somewhat.

Banksy

My generation is one of the first that has grown up with cameras pointed everywhere. We saw the fall of film and the rise of digital photography and phone cameras becoming more and more prevalent in society. Everyone seems to be okay with the fact that CCTV is everywhere and people are constantly filming each other without the knowledge of the person being filmed. Has nobody read 1984? 

The thought of having no escape from being watched frightens me immensely. I'd hope that nobody would want to, but it's becoming easier and easier to watch people or a specific person constantly. Someone with nefarious intentions could take advantage of any one of us because of this thing we call "camera consciousness". I feel as though this whole idea of camera consciousness is just being fed to us to slowly turn us into a submissive group of sheep that don't want to step out of line because we're being watched. Street Artist Banksy in the photo i've posted above created this piece of street art earlier this year thought to be made in response to the recent developments regarding Edward Snowden's  release of goverment surveillance information. Although looking at this piece I believe Banksy only partially shares my point of view. The fact that he portrays the government listening in on a crappy little phone box makes me think that he believes the information the government collects about us is uselessly mundane. Although this may be the case currently, if ever there came a time when the government suddenly tuned into a dictatorship- hey it has happened before- we'll all be screwed.

On the topic of Snapchat, i've never really understood the appeal. For the longest time I didn't bother to install it, however i've had it for a few months now and still don't really see the point. From what I understand, you're meant to feel free to send photos of whatever you like because the photos you take are only in existence for a few seconds. This makes sense to me, it's a solid rule, but in practice it doesn't work. Snapchats can be saved with apps, they can be screen shotted, and a system of trusting that your friends won't save your photos is deeply flawed. At least in my circle of friends.