Visual Communities and Social Imaging
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Photography has evolved immensely over the past century, most notably with the development of digital photography and then the development of social media. Prior to digital photography and social media, people used to take analog pictures of either moments in their lives they would like to treasure and share with family and friends in a photo album, or as artistic photographs to sell or display. At the end the photograph was the product.
The development of social media and digital photography have paved the way for a new kind of photography sharing where the actual photo is not the product but the discourse around it (Jurgenson, 2014). These developments have made it much easier for individuals to share their photographs and videos with those they affiliate with to a certain degree. People started to find affinity in such activity and belonging to certain elements of the online digital imaging world. Lange argues that “Videos of affinity try to establish communicative connections to people, often members of a social network. Some people might equate videos of affinity to amateur video blogs 9 because they are both assumed to focus on home-based forms of videomaking” (Lange, 2009).
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Platforms such as snapchat and Instagram were purely built on the idea of photo sharing. Snapchat became popular among users do to the fact that they could decide whether the images disappear after a certain amount of time. This in turn brings up two notes regarding this platform, one is that it helps some users who would consider themselves “camera shy” to experiment knowing they had some control over how and what they share. The second is that the idea of the photo has now become the conversation starter and not the point, as Jurgenson explains it, the ends is the communication and meaning expressed through the photo, the actual photo is irrelevant (Jurgenson, 2014).
Social media platforms have also given the users the most important element of desire and that is to have those images seen by the widest possible audience. Users can tag their photos with keywords through hashtags and geotags, these tags make the process of finding or being found much easier, especially in a space where millions of photos and videos are added daily.
Reference:
Jason Farman 2014, Photography, Self Documentation, & Social Media: An Interview with Nathan Jurgenson, 16 June, viewed 28 January 2018 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnPtZ5lKDHo>.
Lange, P 2009, ‘Videos of Affinity on YouTube’, in P, Snickars & P, Vonderau (eds), The YouTube Reader, National Library of Sweden, Stockholm, pp. 70-88.








