Everyday Imagery: Conceptualizing Users’ Perspectives on Smartphone Cameras and Communication

• In Event: Smartphone Studies

Abstract

Smartphones are an increasingly ubiquitous technology yet scholarly enquiries into the practices and perceptions surrounding its various uses remain in the early stages. This is even more pronounced when we consider our current understanding of users’ perspectives on its personal image-making and photographic-sharing capabilities, and how these help shape communication in everyday life. Accordingly, this article explores this key feature, the in-built camera, to elaborate a conceptual framework addressing the negotiation of its interactive capacities for visual communication. Findings from an open-ended questionnaire with ‘millennial’ smartphone users in three countries (Canada, The Netherlands, and the UK) are examined to elucidate the varied technological, experiential, compositional, and spatiotemporal aspects of smartphone imagery’s embracement in self-presentation. In arguing for a critical understanding of this emergent ecology of connective visualities, this article aims to contribute to purposeful theory-building for sociocultural research.

Authors

• Chris Peters, Aalborg University Copenhagen

• Stuart Allan, Cardiff U - JOMEC