The social media image

Bibliographic Data

ID5260569
AuthorsNadav Hochman (University of Pittsburgh, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume1
Issue2
Pages1/2/2053951714546645
Publication date2014-07-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueBig Data & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2053-9517 • E-ISSN: 2053-9517
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/2053951714546645
OpenAlexW2135893477
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited30

How do the organization and presentation of large-scale social media images recondition the process by which visual knowledge, value, and meaning are made in contemporary conditions? Analyzing fundamental elements in the changing syntax of existing visual software ontology-the ways current social media platforms and aggregators organize and categorize social media images-this article relates how visual materials created within social media platforms manifest distinct modes of knowledge production and acquisition. First, I analyze the structure of social media images within data streams as opposed to previous information organization in a structured database. While the database has no pre-defined notions of time and thus challenges traditional linear forms, the data stream re-emphasizes the linearity of a particular data sequence and activates a set of new relations to contemporary temporalities. Next, I show how these visual arrangements and temporal principles are manifested and discussed in three artworks: "Untitled" (Perfect Lovers) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1991), The Clock by Christian Marclay (2011), and Last Clock by Jussi Ängeslevä and Ross Cooper (2002). By emphasizing the technical and poetic ways in which social media situate the present as a "thick" historical unit that embodies multiple and synchronous temporalities, this article illuminates some of the conditions, challenges, and tensions between former visual structures and current ones, and unfolds the cultural significations of contemporary big visual data

Data science · Epistemology · Social media · Sociology · Temporalities · World Wide Web · Computer Science · Data Visualization and Analytics · Law

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Open DOISci-HubOpen Access