The visual communication of everyday life

TY - ABST

T1 - The visual communication of everyday life

AU - Thorhauge, Anne Mette

PY - 2014/11/14

Y1 - 2014/11/14

N2 - This paper discuss and exemplify how everyday life is continuously documented and communicated by way of mobile technologies and how it is integrated into networked communication at a broader scale. On one hand, we increasingly use smartphones to document everyday practices such as commuting, exercising and socialising. On the other hand these "documents" may be distributed into a broader network of communication through social media such as Facebook where they blend in with other types of media-texts. On particular occasions, they may even "go viral" and turn into national or global media phenomena detached from their original context of production. This visual communication of everyday life has been described to some degree. For instance, Hjort & Pink (2014) describe the "new everyday visualities" brought about by "contemporary camera phone practices" and Marshall (2010) describes "the celebrity discourse of the self" as an important aspect of user's selfexpression on social media. The aim of this paper is to track these everyday visualities and discourses back to the everyday contexts and conducts from where they origin. It will be based on a qualitative study of two usergroups in different types of contexts: students and families, to show how the different life situations and types of social conducts they represent involve different documentation and communication practices. The study is documents smart phone with a combination of gps data, screendumps and follow-up qualitative interviews in order to contextualise use patterns in relation to everyday conducts. On the basis of these data the paper will describe and analyse how mobile media are embedded into people's everyday conducts, how this creates various sorts of visual documentation and representation and how these are circulated beyond the individual context by way of networked communication. In particular, the practices of documentation and selection involved in this production of shareable experiences will be discussed. The main argument will be that the visual communication of everyday life represents a new type of text that differs considerably from those professional genres of news and entertainment it blends in with in social media with regard to their basic principles of production and distribution.

AB - This paper discuss and exemplify how everyday life is continuously documented and communicated by way of mobile technologies and how it is integrated into networked communication at a broader scale. On one hand, we increasingly use smartphones to document everyday practices such as commuting, exercising and socialising. On the other hand these "documents" may be distributed into a broader network of communication through social media such as Facebook where they blend in with other types of media-texts. On particular occasions, they may even "go viral" and turn into national or global media phenomena detached from their original context of production. This visual communication of everyday life has been described to some degree. For instance, Hjort & Pink (2014) describe the "new everyday visualities" brought about by "contemporary camera phone practices" and Marshall (2010) describes "the celebrity discourse of the self" as an important aspect of user's selfexpression on social media. The aim of this paper is to track these everyday visualities and discourses back to the everyday contexts and conducts from where they origin. It will be based on a qualitative study of two usergroups in different types of contexts: students and families, to show how the different life situations and types of social conducts they represent involve different documentation and communication practices. The study is documents smart phone with a combination of gps data, screendumps and follow-up qualitative interviews in order to contextualise use patterns in relation to everyday conducts. On the basis of these data the paper will describe and analyse how mobile media are embedded into people's everyday conducts, how this creates various sorts of visual documentation and representation and how these are circulated beyond the individual context by way of networked communication. In particular, the practices of documentation and selection involved in this production of shareable experiences will be discussed. The main argument will be that the visual communication of everyday life represents a new type of text that differs considerably from those professional genres of news and entertainment it blends in with in social media with regard to their basic principles of production and distribution.

M3 - Conference abstract for conference

T2 - ECREA

Y2 - 12 November 2014 through 15 November 2014

ER -