The Selfie Study: Archetypes and Motivations in Modern Self-Photography

Photographic self-portraits have existed since the mid-19th century, but the emergence of digital photography and social media as tools that facilitate rapid visual communication have contributed to a surge of self-photographs, or selfies, and the practice has become a ubiquitous part of today's culture. This exploratory research employed a Q-method analysis to quantitatively and qualitatively identify what archetypal motivations exist among individuals who take and share selfies. The findings largely validated past scholarship on the uses and gratifications of photography, new media, and visual rhetoric individually, but also identified that the motivation to take and share selfies is a complex balance of preservation, communication, and entertainment for most individuals who engage in the practice.     

传播学视野中视觉文化研究的谱系

在传播学的发展脉络中,贯穿着视觉文化研究的谱系。这一理论判断包括两方面的含义:一是在传播学的演进中,关于摄影、电影、电视等视觉媒介的研究都有自己相应的理论位置;二是依据英国社会学家伍迪维斯(Woodiwiss)的观点判断,传播学是一种具有视觉性的学科体系,因为视觉是大部分现代媒介得以有效传播的感觉基础。     

Genre systems and “keeping track” in everyday life

Keeping track of what needs to be done and where and when and by whom is a common practice in Canadian households. The documentary tools used to coordinate the work of keeping track in everyday life are the focus of this paper. We consider these documentary tools as belonging to genres. On the basis of four in-depth interviews, observation, and photography, we identify four genres common to all participants: check-ins or status reports, lists, reminders, and calendars. We map examples of these genres to show that they are socially and intertextually connected—in genre systems—with institutions and organizations beyond the home. Archivists have much to gain by applying the concept of genre-as-social-action and using ethnographic methods to study personal records from the creator’s perspective. Such approaches provide insight into the contexts within which personal records are created and used, including the intertextual linkages between personal and institutional recordkeeping.     

The zine anthology as archive: archival genres and practices

Jessie Lymn is a PhD Candidate at University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and a casual academic in the Information Studies programs at both UTS and Charles Sturt University. Her doctoral research focuses on the archival practices of subcultural communities and how this furthers temporal and spatial understandings of archives.

Building on Eichhorn’s concept of ‘archival genres’, this article considers the recent spate of zine anthologies published in Australia and the United States as examples of these genres. It proposes that the anthologies are archives of content, form and practice, given that they commonly reproduce entire zines as visual material, not just text, and are produced by members of zine communities. This article argues that the anthologies’ narratives, presentation and distribution preserve ideologies of zine culture and that archival genres create spaces for the preservation of practices.     

A Gate in the Wall of Sound

This study examines how gatekeeping aspects of photography, particularly embodied gatekeeping, interact with a subset of photojournalism that faces numerous barriers to access—music photography. Through in-depth interviews with concert photographers in a large metropolitan city, this study expands upon what is known about gatekeeping when it comes to visual media. While much has been studied on photojournalists as a whole, little is known about particular subgroups, such as music photographers. As a part of lifestyle journalism, concert photography contributes to the interaction of popular culture and society, showing us visual evidence of the spectacle of musical performance. Gatekeeping practices are found not only in the managers who issue credentials for access and control where photographers can shoot from but also in the community of photographers themselves. This is extended into embodied gatekeeping in how they jostle for access to space in the pit and enforce the rules with their bodies, such as physically pushing a camera out of the way.     

EDITORIAL PHOTOGRAPHS AND PATTERNS OF PRACTICE

This paper proposes a new theoretical method to analyse patterns of photographic practice of editorial photography—using an “action genre” approach. That is, rather than taking final photographic forms as being definitive of genre, this new method identifies patterns of “activity types” involved in the production of editorial photography to be identified. While there has been much written on editorial photography, there is no organised body of scholarship that distinguishes between different modes of presenting patterns of photographic practice. Claims about the degree of influence of visual images and their ability to drive public opinion have not sufficiently considered the full impact of photographic production processes. Although patterns of activity in the image-making process are not directly evident in the published photograph, the process does impact upon the resulting meanings made.     

ONLINE FEATURE JOURNALISM

Although online journalism is still dominated by breaking news coverage, new genres are emerging that differentiate it more and more from old media journalism. This article explores the emergence of feature journalism in online newspapers. Through comparative qualitative text analysis of feature journalism in the US online newspaper palmbeachpost.com and the Norwegian online newspaper dagbladet.no, two widely different approaches to the production of feature journalism on the Web are uncovered and a critical perspective on the remediation of journalistic genres in online newspapers is elaborated. The analysis shows that both these approaches display a clash between discourses of traditional feature journalism and discourses of online communication. It further reveals that genre development in online journalism is a complex process marked by contradictions and inconsistencies and that online newsrooms are struggling to find solutions on how to differentiate online journalism from old media journalism.     

"To Keep the Present and Future in Touch with the Past"- Lewis Wickes Hine:

Lewis Wickes Hine exploited the powerful impact of the visual image to arouse the reforming spirit among the middle and upper classes and to inspire them to do something about the living and working conditions of thousands of America's poor. Hine was acquainted with many of the men and women who were involved in the Progressive social reform campaigns that were popular in the United States during the early twentieth century. A trained sociologist, he became interested in photography while teaching at the Ethical Culture School. Hine quickly realized that photographs could be powerful instruments of social reform and was able to effectively combine his interests in social welfare and photography. Hine believed that this efforts as a photographer should be guided by a social conscience and referred to his work as "social photography." His photographs of men, women and children enduring dangerous and inhuman working conditions were both sensitive and intense. As a result of his social conscience and artistic commitment Hine raised the cultural and social awareness of his contemporaries and made a significant contribution to social reform efforts in the United States.     

Nesta Pain

The ‘cultural translator’ is an individual who expresses the essence of entanglement in their career choices, moving between genres, media, or nations. This article suggests that the BBC producer and writer, Nesta Pain, was such an individual. Over the course of her career, Pain not only wrote and produced radio features and radio dramas but was also a successful journalist and author. She translated her experience in radio production onto the stage and on television by exploiting the different possibilities offered by these visual media—all evidence of her transmedial cultural translation. Further adding to the transgressive nature of her career, was her place as a woman in male-dominated radio production arenas.     

The Tyranny of the Empty Frame

This study explores the notion of the “tyranny of the empty frame” within the online departments of the two leading Slovenian newspapers, Delo and Dnevnik, where online journalists—newsworkers with little or no training or experience in photojournalism—are required to provide each news item with at least one photograph. By adopting newsroom observation and in-depth interviews with online journalists working for Delo and Dnevnik, we investigate paradoxes associated with this imperative. Despite often being faced with a desperate search for “any image,” online journalists at both institutions are reluctant to use citizen-produced photographs—their use appears to be an aberration rather than a norm. Instead, they frequently resort to using what they refer to as a “symbolic photograph” to overcome the lack of visual material originating from the reported event. This move from indexical–iconic nexus to metaphoric visual communication signals challenges to the dominant paradigm of press photography. At the same time, we suggest that we should not view the phenomena of citizen photojournalism as a radical break with the past but as the latest development in a series of interrelated processes, intellectual projects of modernity, such as ocularcentrism, journalism, capitalism and the nation state.     

Pictures,patience, and practicalities: lessons learned from using photovoice in applied communication contexts

The unforeseen trials of arts-based research may suppress creative and innovative explorations. Photovoice, a visual method of investigation employing participatory photography, presents a host of apprehensions. Yet, photovoice is both a valid and rich methodology that can greatly expand the reach and scope of applied communication research. In this essay, we – three applied communication researchers – discuss the complexities of photovoice, highlighting areas of consideration that interested researchers should contemplate before utilizing this methodology. Briefly exploring three of our research studies and their varying topics (i.e. long-term cancer survivors, domestic violence organizational advocacy, male body culture), we discuss three broad areas of difficulty in photovoice research: analysis, control, and exposure. Despite the unique obstacles that photovoice presents, we argue that it, along with other forms of arts-based research, are profitable and definitely worth the challenge.     

健康管理系统研究可视化分析

文章通过搜集国外有关健康管理系统的文献,利用Citespace软件对这些文献可视化分析,对文献的年度分布情况,国家、机构分布,高频关键词与关键词演化,高频作者及作者合作情况,以及引文情况进行分析,结果表明,健康管理系统领域起步晚,发展迅速,研究中心分散,各国、各科研机构之间缺乏合作交流.     

Networked Cultural Diffusion and Creation on YouTube: An Analysis of YouTube Memes

Web 2.0-based cultural diffusion occurs not only through viral word-of-mouth communication but also through Internet memes in which cultural consumers review, resemble, and recreate old cultural components, resulting in the creation of new cultural forms. YouTube features a platform for memetic creation with a host of user-generated parodies, reviews, and mashups derived from viral videos. This study examines the cultural ecosystem of YouTube memes inspired by Korean artist Psy’s viral production “Gangnam Style.” The study focuses on the salience of various genres of YouTube memes and structural connections between memetic videos. According to the results, the viral video of “Gangnam Style” sparked a sizable amount of user creativity, including remixes, parodies, self-directed performances, and reviews, among others. A network analysis of connections between memetic videos shows that various memetic genres drew different levels of audience attention and actions across various stages of the 3-month-long diffusion process. In addition, the content of the traditional mass media played a key role in giving the viral video wider publicity and acknowledgement, but this role was later shared by user-generated content.     

Textual DNA

For the first time, this paper studies the evolution of photojournalists' bylines compared to reporters' bylines, which proved a sensitive barometer of longitudinal changes in reporters' status, professionalism, creativity and authorship. Based on a sample of 8800 photographs and news items published across the twentieth century in five quality national dailies: New York Times, The Times of London, Le Figaro, Irish Times and Ha'aretz, this paper shows that photojournalists were discriminated against substantially, consistently and internationally throughout the entire century, lagging not only behind reporters, but also behind the growing centrality of their own photographs. This paper suggests that attribution of photojournalists was hindered by the perception of photography as an objective reproduction of reality that has a weaker claim to attribution; by publishers being attributed of photographic authorship; by the efforts of textual journalists to preserve their superior jurisdiction over news reporting, constructing the inferiority of photojournalism and restricting it to denotative functions; and by the conceptual separation between the growing significance of photography, and the secondary status of its creators, who remain visual creatures in a predominantly textual kingdom. Findings indicate how textual the DNA of the Western press is, which makes its survival more difficult in an increasingly visual world.     

A rhetorical schema for the evaluation of visual imagery

In this essay, a schema is proposed for the evaluation of visual imagery from a rhetorical perspective. In the schema, judgments of quality about a visual image are made in terms of the function communicated by the image. Three processes are involved in such judgments— identification of a function or functions communicated by an image, assessment of the degree to which substantive and stylistic dimensions of the image support the communication of the function, and evaluation of the legitimacy of the function. The schema is illustrated in applications to a chair from the Memphis design consortium and to The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.     

INSIGHT Telling and Showing: The Intersection of Visual Communication Content Knowledge and Pedagogical Strategies in STEM

Decades of research in (oral) communication across the curriculum can provide a firm foundation for many forms of communication, but the related research focused on discipline-specific visual modalities is sparse. For this pilot investigation, we interviewed 12 faculty members across STEM fields about how students are asked to use visual communication within a course and what kind of visual communication instruction or guidance they are given. The results provide an empirically supported investigation into the perception of the value of visuals in STEM, how students in STEM disciplines learn how to create and use visuals, and how this instruction is accomplished through communities of practice. Based on these results, we argue that it is not enough to teach students discipline-specific writing and oral skills with a quick nod to visuals, but instead there should be special attention devoted to unique pedagogical strategies in teaching visual communication construction.     

THE INVISIBLE MADE VISIBLE

This article focuses on the early history of X-rays. It argues that, during the first years after their discovery in 1895 by German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, they were regarded as a technological attraction and a visual medium. While their application in medical practice was not yet fully established, the possibility of seeing into the realm of the invisible encouraged pioneers of this technology to actively exploit their visual powers. By using a media-history framework, and relying on primary and secondary sources in English, German, French, and Italian, the article takes into account three aspects of the rays' early display: its character of technological attraction; its association with photography; and its connection to beliefs in the supernatural and the occult.     

Deep classification: pornography,bibliographic access,and academic libraries

This study examines the mainstreaming of pornography in the context of current economic, popular culture, and academic trends. As pornography becomes part of popular culture, it simultaneously becomes an area of focus for academics and therefore presents particular challenges for college and university libraries. Both physically and conceptually, academic libraries must find a place for pornography on the shelves and in the array of knowledge structured by bibliographic access systems. This study looks at how the variety of issues, concepts, and genres of pornography considered in academic discourse could be accommodated within access systems by examining the way in which the adult industry itself classifies pornographic films. Specifically, the terms used by the adult industry to classify these films could be grouped within newly developed categories. The identification of the categories would not be predicated on characteristics of porn films alone. Instead, the categories would encompass specific topics, concepts, and subject areas that connect pornography to mainstream culture. Using classifications from four different adult industry sources, four sample categories are presented that could serve as a model for how pornographic concepts could be accommodated within existing bibliographic access systems.     

Discovering Differences in the Nature of Verbal and Visual Messages

Objective: Students will identify several unique characteristics of verbal vs. visual messages, including the superior ability of language to communicate objective, factual, philosophical content in past, present, and future terms; and the superior ability of visual images to communicate social-emotional meaning and concrete information limited in time to the present

Courses: This activity could be useful in any class that includes units on the nature of verbal and nonverbal messages, such as a basic survey course, communication theory, media literacy, language and communication, and verbal and nonverbal communication

A version of this assignment was presented at the 2004 Central States Communication Association Convention, Cleveland, Ohio