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Aesthetic and family frames in the online sharing of children's birthday photos Li Wang, Pertti Alasuutari and Jari Aro Visual Communication 2014 13: 191 DOI: 10.1177/1470357213516722 The online version of this article can be found at: http://vcj.sagepub.com/content/13/2/191

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VCJ0010.1177/1470357213516722Visual CommunicationWang et al.

visual communication article

Aesthetic and family frames in the online sharing of children’s birthday photos

L i W ang , P ertti A las u u tari and J ari A ro School of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Tampere, Finland

A b stract

This article reports on a social semiotic investigation into children’s birthday photo sharing and textual interaction in the public photo sharing website Flickr.com; the analysis shows that the aesthetic frame becomes more prominent in the online context. In other words, people share their family photos as a form of self-expression, and that can be seen in the semiotic organization of the verbal and visual texts they publish. However, the aesthetic frame is often entwined with the family frame both in the postings of the image publishers and in the comments that the photos gather. It could have been assumed that the aesthetic frame assumes a particularly dominant position on Flickr, which as a social media site specializes in publishing photographs and discussing their qualities. Since the family frame nevertheless retains an important role on Flickr, it can be expected that the same is true of more general social media services such as Facebook. K e y words

children’s birthday photos • family photos • new media • photo sharing • photography • social function • social meaning • social media

I ntrod u ction

The ways in which photographs are taken, produced, distributed and used convey various social meanings in people’s everyday lives. It is commonly recognized that the social functions and meanings of photographs are greatly dependent on the context. For example, the same children’s photo can be used in diverse contexts: carried by their parents in wallets, published in a magazine about parenting, displayed in a photography exhibition in an art museum, or distributed in a police notification. The same photo can be interpreted in different ways when it is used in different contexts. This dependence of social meanings on the context has also been reported in previous studies of photography. For instance, family bonding, documenting personal and collective memories and constructing domestic SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC: http://vcj.sagepub.com) Copyright © The Author(s), 2014. Reprints and permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalspermissions.nav/ Vol 13(2): 191–209 DOI 10.1177/1470357213516722 Downloaded from vcj.sagepub.com by Pertti Alasuutari on June 3, 2014

space are important functions in a domestic context (Bourdieu, 1990; Chalfen, 1981, 1987; Chambers, 2003; Holland, 2000; Musello, 1979; Rose, 2003, 2004; West, 2000). In an online sharing context, either through camera phones or computers, socialization, self-presentation and identity construction are commonly recognized as emerging social functions (Miller and Edwards, 2007; Van Dijck, 2008; Van House, 2007, 2009). Existing research also shows that a particular social use of photography can fulfill a number of social functions at the same time (Chalfen, 1981; DongHoo, 2010; Pauwels, 2008). For example, when a child’s photo is stored in their parents’ wallets, it can maintain the family bond and express parental love, construct the parents’ identity and express their selfhood when they show it to others. Photography entails a cluster of all these social functions and meanings which shift and intermingle through people’s interaction, instead of staying as a static entity in a particular context. When the context of a communication situation is switched, the predominant meanings and their hierarchy change. In other words, when the context of a photographic practice varies, different social meanings continue to coexist, though in a restructured way. The online sharing of family photos as examined in this article is a good illustration of the reorganization of social functions and meanings. On the one hand, snapshots of family members shared on the web perpetuate the familial functions of amateur photography. On the other hand, as visual and verbal texts picturing individuals familiar to the intimate circle are exposed to the vast number of web users, emerging functions such as enhancing social relationships and creating self-expressions become more prominent. This reorganization of meanings is evident in the semiotic organization of the discursive practices taking place. There is, however, a lack of research on how the discursive restructuring of the meanings of family photos takes place on the web. While most of the existing studies focus on the users by for instance interviewing them and reporting on the various functions and meanings of their online photo sharing, the way in which the participants actually manage their online context and how it can be seen in the interaction has thus far been ignored. In this study, we aim to shed light on this issue by studying the meaning making process in a sample of verbal and visual texts evidencing family photo sharing on the Flickr.com website. The article is organized as follows. First, we present a theoretical framework, within which meanings of photographic practices will be interpreted later. Then, data and methods of analysis are introduced. The textual analysis itself is split into three sections: the first of these is concerned with the semiotic construction of image-publishers’ postings to the site Flickr, and the other two sections focus on how these postings are commented upon by others. The article is concluded with a summary and discussion of the results in relation to studies of the meanings of photography.

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Visual Communication 13(2)


T he F a m il y F ra m e A nd T he A esthetic F ra m e O f P hotograph y

A number of studies have examined how the social meanings of photography are changing as a consequence of changing social contexts affected by new communication technology. On the basis of existing research we suggest that there are two primary frames within which photographic practices and interpretations of photos can take place, and that the change has to do with the mutual relationship between these frames. They are the family frame and the aesthetic frame. The concept of frame has been used in multiple ways in previous research. Some researchers conceive of it as a cognitive phenomenon, whereas others emphasize that culturally shared frames also orchestrate interaction. Drawing on Erving Goffman’s (1974) use of the concept, we define frames as clusters of rules which help to define and constitute specific activities (Alasuutari, 1992: 1). Multiple frames can be applied simultaneously to address different aspects of a situation. Within the family frame participants focus on the traditional domestic photographic practices of reproducing reality with the documentation and solemnization of high points in family life. For example, the study by Hirsch (1981) documents the conventional organization of family photographs in terms of place and time, faces and bodies and family images that are represented in the photos. Shove et al. (2007: 73) put it succinctly: This research underlines the point that despite the infinite variety of possible photographic subjects, family albums depict memorable events, holidays and moments of happiness; representations of sadness, routine activities or ordinary and familiar locations are rare.

The family frame can be seen as an interpretive resource consisting of several sub-frames such as the birthday frame scrutinized in the case analysis of this study. Instead of treating photos as a means of documenting family, friends, events and places, within the aesthetic frame participants view photography as a form of art. Photos are perceived from the viewpoint of their ability to capture or create the beauty of nature and other objects. They are also thought to express the identity and artistic views and skills of photographers and their interpreters. In other words, the aesthetic frame addresses the social functions of self-expression, identity construction and socialization, which are based on a common interest in the photograph as an aesthetic object. By applying these two concepts, the existing literature on the changing meanings of photography can be summarized by saying that due to economic and technological development, the aesthetic frame has become increasingly important alongside the family frame. In other words, the wide adoption of personal cameras gave rise to the aesthetic frame when photography became an amateur hobby, in which artistic ambitions play an impor-

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tant role. Hence for instance, the early study by Bourdieu (1990) reports that the members of camera clubs disdained family photos and snapshots because such photos undermined their identities as serious amateurs or professional photographers. Recent research shows that communication technologies have facilitated the enmeshment of family and aesthetic frames when personal photo sharing goes online. For example Luc Pauwels’ (2008) study of family photo websites reports on new social uses, such as socializing with people with mutual interests and hobbies, and propagating values and views. At the same time, photographs are also used online in traditional ways, such as preserving fond memories, maintaining family bonds and sharing experiences and views with remote family members. The study by Sarvas and Frohlich (2011) on the history of domestic photography suggests that technological innovations occur in an evolutionary manner. The replacement of old technologies by new ones does not happen overnight. In terms of the social functions of domestic photography, the authors conclude that the traditional uses of photographs to improve memory, support communication and reinforce identity have remained constant throughout history. On the other hand, socialization and communication are becoming more prominent uses with the advancement of snapshot media. The prevalent use of online photo sharing services has increasingly mixed all these functions, and simultaneously facilitated new social uses. This multiplicity of social meanings of photography has also been reported in a number of studies that have investigated the emerging social uses of the photo sharing site Flickr.com,1 which is where the data of this study are collected from. For instance, Murray (2008) has explored the overall impact of this platform on people’s increased engagement with photos. According to Murray, on Flickr and comparable sites, photography has become less about documenting precious moments of domestic life and more about an immediate display of small and mundane objects. Snapshots and professional photographs intermingle in the pools and they are appreciated equally in terms of their aesthetic value. Hence the site contributes to the development of a ‘nonhierarchical community aesthetic’ (p. 159). One good starting point to understand this multiplicity of social meanings is Fairclough’s (1993) account of how the processes of text production, distribution and consumption are socially constrained by two types of resources. The first consists of the internalized social structures, norms, conventions, and orders of discourse that have been accumulated from people’s past social lives. The second type is the nature of the particular social practice they are engaged in, which determines what aspects of the former type of resources should be drawn upon. Therefore, the intertwinement of discourses is prevalent in the course of meaning making, when a discursive practice is simultaneously constrained by multiple resources. For instance, a text of a tourist map or a university brochure can be an entwinement of information-

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giving and advertising; a television talk show can be a mixture of entertainment and performance; and so on. Such an enmeshment of discourses can be documented by analyzing the discursive structure of the texts. The existing studies provide excellent insights into the transforming functions of domestic photography. However, the way in which the online interaction around pictures posted on Flickr is discursively organized has been left as a mystery. Since previous research suggests that when domestic photography goes online, social networking and artistic self-expression become important functions alongside the cherishing of family values, how does it work in practice? How do people go about commenting on family photos of people unknown to them in culturally relevant and acceptable ways, and how does such online interaction draw on and reproduce the intertwining family and aesthetic frames? The exploration of this question is important from the broader viewpoint of trying to understand how the internet and social media both draw on existing cultural understandings and practices, and change them. When talking about Flickr as an example of an online photo-sharing site on which people manage the interweaving of public and private spheres, it is obvious that the organization of the site imposes its own conditions but cultural traditions also play a role. On the one hand, the organization of social meanings is rooted in the order of the institution in question. That is why context always precedes text and plays a primary role in the regulation of meaning making. Therefore, it can be expected that there is indeed a recognizable Flickr aesthetic as described by Murray (2008), which can be identified in the discursive practices on the site, even though there can be variations in the local construction of this aesthetic in different sub-communities. On the other hand, new institutions such as Flickr never develop in isolation but rather are constituted by existing cultural frames and values. The patterns of interaction on Flickr draw upon conventional practices in other established institutions. Therefore, although the formative role of the platform is important, no discursive construction is entirely dominated by the aesthetic meaning. Therefore it can be presumed that in family photo sharing on Flickr, domestic and aesthetic meanings are intertwined. D ata A nd Methodolog y

To study how family-related photos are shared and commented on in online contexts, we scrutinized threads of discussion initiated by children’s birthday photos published on Flickr. In the data collection and empirical analysis we followed the principles of theoretical sampling and saturation, which are well established in qualitative research (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Gobo, 2008; Strauss, 1987). We decided to collect data from Flickr precisely because it is an online site that is particularly designed for publishing photos and appreciating them. Many participants practice photography as a more or less


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serious hobby, and hence it can be expected that the aesthetic aspects of photographs receive special attention. If cultural assumptions about the family as an institution still do not disappear from the discourses that publishing a child’s birthday picture triggers, it is justified to assume that the family frame continues to be employed also in different online contexts. The ways in which it is used and intertwined with the aesthetic frame were studied by analyzing conversations triggered by children’s birthday pictures accompanied by the publisher’s comments. At an initial stage of the analysis we studied randomly chosen pictures. Eventually it turned out that the pictures that had gathered numerous comments would be the best choice, because they would enable the study of interactions involving multiple participants. Hence it can also be assumed that those other than family members have commented on the picture in question. Following the principle of saturation, the research process evolved in several steps by gradually increasing the number of cases analyzed, until nothing new arose in additional cases. Such a point of saturation was reached at 15 cases, so data collection and analysis was ended when 20 threads of discussion had been amassed. The data set comprises 617 pieces of verbal comments from the viewers. The number of comments varied from 11 to 138 for each picture. Almost all of the verbal texts were in English. As stressed in the qualitative research methodology, generalization of the results of this kind of study cannot be made on the basis of statistical reasoning. Rather, what can and cannot be generalized from the results of empirical analysis must be argued by relating the case analysis to existing knowledge about the phenomenon in its larger social context (Alasuutari, 1995). For instance, the data do not allow us to draw inferences from the proportions of the family frame and the aesthetic frame found in the data; those interested in such measurements would need to collect a much bigger sample. On the other hand we argue that the focus on Flickr as an example of social media services allows us to make inferences from other services such as Facebook: if and when the family frame can be found even in Flickr, which as a site probably enhances the use of the aesthetic frame, most likely it can be found even more commonly on sites in which publishing snapshots is only one activity among others. Yet we also know from our own experience that the aesthetic frame is not uncommon on Facebook or similar social media services, though there can be variation in the particular semiotic construction of discourses. The analysis of interaction between the participants has great significance because a single speaker cannot determine meaning making. Rather, meaning making is a collective process (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2001). In this process, participants make their interpretations clear and work out a common understanding. As Heritage (1984: 259) puts it: To summarize, conversational interaction is structured by an organization of action which is implemented on a turn-by-turn basis. By means

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of this organization, a context of publicly displayed and continuously updated intersubjective understandings is systematically sustained.

Due to the multimodal property of the data, we adopt the approach of social semiotic multimodality as categorized by Jewitt (2009). It emphasizes the shaping effect of the communication context on the signs and meaning. Social and cultural factors as well as norms and values are important in explaining meaning making within this approach. The tools used in textual analysis were selected from both Fairclough’s (1993, 2003) discourse analysis and Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2006) visual design grammar. The concepts selected from Fairclough’s theories were applied to the verbal text, and those from Kress and Leeuwen’s were applied to the visual texts. Both of them draw from Halliday’s (1978) social semiotic theory. This common heritage from Halliday’s theory makes the two frameworks compatible. The discursive processes of text production and text consumption are explored with concepts selected from Fairclough’s theory of discourse (1993, 2003). In this study, text production refers to how domestic photos are shared by the image publishers, and text consumption refers to the way the viewers respond with comments. We also use interdiscursivity as an analytical concept that probes the text production process. It depicts particular configurations of genre, style, activity type and discourse, which can be identified in the process. In this instance, a genre means ‘a relatively stable set of conventions that is associated with, and partly enacts, a socially ratified type of activity’ (Fairclough, 1993: 126) such as a poem or online photo sharing. In such configurations the genre can be considered as the most decisive element. When talking about the use of the family frame in public online sites, this means that when genre is changed, it affects the style, activity type and discourse. In studying text consumption we also employ the concepts of coherence and politeness. Analysis of coherence focuses on how a text is interpreted by readers as a coherent whole. Coherence is not a property of a text but a feature that readers assign to the text by drawing upon their own assumptions. Politeness on the other hand refers to the fact that in social interaction, participants conform to forms of talk that do not threaten each other’s face – that is, the positive consistent self-image claimed by interactants (Brown and Levinson, 1987). In this case politeness can be explored by studying the forms of text through which commentators express their appreciation for the image publishers. The visual texts were investigated by focusing on the following aspects suggested by Kress and Van Leeuwen (2001). First, social distance was examined by studying the size of the frame. Close-up pictures suggest an intimate social relationship, while long shot pictures suggest an impersonal one. Second, the subjective attitude indicated by the angles of the pictures was analyzed.


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Frontal, oblique, and vertical angles establish different degrees of audience involvement. Third, in children’s portraits, we also checked whether the represented children gaze at the viewers. How the contact is made determines how the viewers are invited to participate in the interaction. Finally, the modality of the pictures was examined. In this instance modality refers to the ability of pictures to represent some kind of truth. According to Kress and Van Leeuwen (2001), pictures in which there is a detailed background for the portrayed individuals have a higher modality than abstract pictures. T he se m iotic organi z ation of i m age p u b lishers ’ postings

Each entry on Flickr is composed of three elements: photo, title of the photo (usually stating the theme of the photo), and description (background information on the photo). In the webpage layout, the photo is topmost and takes the very center of the view prior to the title and the summary. Comments on the original entry are right below the summary, turning the entry into a string of online conversation. In this section, however, we concentrate on the verbal and visual texts provided by the publishers. In the 20 photos, a close social or personal distance is realized by the medium-close and close shots which are used most often. In other words, the photos usually show some parts of the children, i.e. either the upper body or head and shoulders. In a few cases, the medium-long shot is also used and the full figure of the children can be seen in the frame. The frontal angle is used in all the photos, which shows the involvement of the image producers. An attitude of attachment and engagement of the image producers is maximized, and a ‘we-ness’ is developed between the represented children and the image producers. In most of the images, the represented children do not gaze at the viewers. In Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2006) theory, presence and absence of direct gaze are respectively described as ‘demand’ and ‘offer’ contacts. In other words, the images in the data are more often presented as ‘offers’ to the viewers. Regarding the composition of the photos, in general the children are the most salient element. Both the represented children and possible other elements connected to them, for instance balloons held in a child’s hand, are demarcated from the background. The focus is sharp and color is highly saturated or black and white, which makes these photos more like studio works than family snapshots. The theme of birthday is hardly identifiable. Alternatively, the placement of the elements follows what we see in typical family albums, for instance a little girl gazing upon a lovely birthday cake with flaming candles in a household background. A higher modality is presented in this group of photos than in the former. This means that all the elements are somehow connected and the visual boundaries are hard to draw. Usually

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Table 1. Examples of intersemiotic interaction.

Figure 1(a) (Title:) “[…] 2006, 2007, 2008”1

Figure 1(b) (Title:) “Happy 4th Birthday to my sweet boy!”

Description:) “This is […] and she is 2 years old now.[…] was holding a picture taken on her 1st birthday holding a picture taken when she was one week old. This is still an ongoing project……. to be continued!!”

(Description:) “I love you! Thanks for being the wonderful, joyful, kind, loving, fun, happy boy that you are! I am proud and humbled to be your mama!”

1. “[…]” indicates that the words (mostly people’s names) are omitted due to considerations of anonymity.

the birthday theme is concrete and detailed, presented as a naturalistic part of family life. One factor shaping the semiotic construction of the visual genre is the context of Flickr. All the selected photos can be considered as popular in the sense that they have gathered a lot of comments. In order to catch attention on Flickr, image publishers need to make good use of the facilitation of the platform and organize content in certain ways. When viewers browse a certain category of photos, what they first see is an overview web page of thumbnails. Only when a particular thumbnail arouses the viewers’ interest, do they click it and then see the full size picture in a new window. A close shot and a confronting angle with a simple composition can help make the thumbnails attracting and appealing in the overview webpage. To show how these semiotic elements of social distance, contact and attitude interact with the verbal genre to construct the social relations and style, consider Figure 1(a) in Table 1. In the picture a little girl is holding a picture from her last birthday, in which she was holding another picture from an even earlier birthday. The verbal and visual texts redundantly make the same point. The verbal text is subordinate to the meaning of the visual text and takes a supporting role. These two semiotic modes are integrated to illustrate the creative idea as a fact or piece of information in a relatively neutral fashion. Interaction is set up between the image publishers and the viewers, with the represented birthday child referred to as a third person.


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In Figure 1(b), the most striking visual element is the interesting costumes in the photo. As can be inferred, these three boys aged 1, 4, and 6 years old are wearing T-shirts with numbers corresponding to their ages. The background and the color scheme are well designed and decontextualized from the background. It gives an objective impression in presenting the aesthetic and entertaining value of the photograph to the viewers. The kids represented in the picture look at the viewer with a smile or cute facial expression, which directly addresses the viewers. The eye contact is made as a demand for a reciprocal friendly gesture, similar to the fact that when someone smiles, waves, or says “hi” to us in the real life, we will respond with the same gesture. The only clue to the birthday occasion is the decoration on top of the birthday boy’s head, which is not a highlight in the picture. In Figure 1(b), the birthday children are framed as a separate element in the composition, disconnected from the other components. The colors of the birthday children are distinctive from other elements, with empty space between each child. In this sense, the disconnected elements of children and the background can be read as separate units. The birthday children are foregrounded both in the composition of the photo and the verbal text. In contrast, in Figure 1(a), most of the elements, for instance the birthday child, the photo she is holding, and the furniture, are all connected and integrated with each other as a whole. It displays the photo as a cohesive piece that appeals to the viewers’ attention as a creative idea. In the descriptive verbal text of Figure 1(b), the message is associated with the portraits, but not just to provide information about the image. It is the mother announcing her love for the children in a sentimental way. There is a unidirectional actor–object transaction between ‘I’ (the image publisher) and ‘you’ (the kids represented in the picture); e.g., ‘I’ love ‘you’, (‘I’) thank ‘you’, ‘I’ am proud of ‘you’. The agent of the mental process and state is clearly specified and foregrounded. The image publisher is actually identifying herself as the parent in the verbal text, and the viewers as the onlookers of the announcement. With the title of “Happy 4th birthday to my sweet boy”, the mother is calling upon the viewers to join her in the birthday celebration. In contrast with the dominant aesthetic frame in the visual text, the verbal text represents self-expression and identity construction. Children are represented as a social object associated with emotion instead of a photographic object such as food. When compared with the consistent meaning presentation in Figure 1(a), Figure 1(b) is an example of a mixture of meanings facilitated by intersemiotic interaction. The two entwined meanings demonstrated in Figure 1(b) could be depicted as the aesthetic frame and the birthday frame which is a subcategory case of the family frame discussed in the previous sections. As discussed earlier, the aesthetic frame is concerned with the expression and appreciation of beauty and creativity in photography. It is articulated either by novelty of photographic representation or by mechanical and technical treatment (Bourdieu,

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1990). The birthday frame on the other hand directs attention to the event in which a child’s birthday is celebrated. These two frames are configured differently in terms of style, especially concerning the relational setting and stance taking. In the aesthetic frame, the represented children are relatively objectified and stay in the background. Consider for instance the two titles of “Amy in 2006, 2007, 2008” and “Happy birthday, Amy!”. The former assumes a rather categorical modality to present a fact, thus utilizing the aesthetic frame, whereas the latter sets up the position of the addressee more directly. In that sense it evokes the birthday frame. The relational setting in the birthday frame is more complex. For example, it can be a dialog between an image publisher and the viewers with the represented child absent or left in the background of the conversation (e.g. “Today is my daughter’s birthday”). Alternatively, the text may be a dialog between a parent and his/her child (“I love you, Amy!”), or between a child and the viewers as his/her birthday celebration participants (e.g. “Today I am three years old”). As a whole, the aesthetic frame is more information-oriented and descriptive, while the birthday frame is more emotionally expressive. The aesthetic frame is more salient in the 20 photos and in the attached verbal texts. The image publishers’ attention seems to be focused more often on the formal quality of the photos than on the birthday celebration narrative. The predominance of the aesthetic frame is obviously affected by the values propagated and conditions imposed by Flickr as a business enterprise. Stressing the central importance of the photo is a positioning strategy for Flickr to differentiate itself from other popular social media such as Facebook. Users are encouraged to share photos anytime and anywhere or keep up with their friends by checking their photos. Creative and entertaining ways of photographic expression are promoted by institutional features such as the ‘interesting collection’, which guide the users’ browsing. In Flickr, the power balance between image publishers and viewers is not exactly the same as in the Instant Relay Chat or Instant Messenger, where the producers and receivers of messages are more on a par with each other. To establish producers as the primary target group, Flickr provides a wider range of options. In other words, image publishers are endowed with greater power to control the meaning of what they publish. However, as will be shown in the two subsequent sections, it does not mean that image publishers are able to determine the forms of interaction and the interpretations of family photos on Flickr. P oliteness as a co m m u nit y b u ilding device

Although the strings of comments triggered by images published on Flickr comprise communication among strangers, participants are able to form an online community and create the impression of a cozy discussion on a living room sofa. That is because they resort to certain shared cultural resources.


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One of them is composed of general rules of politeness evidenced in face-toface interaction (Brown and Levinson, 1987; Goodwin and Heritage, 1990). That is, compliments and agreement with previous speakers are the default choice. In that way the participants resort to the basic rules of sociability and are hence engaged in forming a community, even though it is an online one. For instance, participants observe the basic rule that positive remarks and agreement with the previous speaker are the default option. This can be seen in compliments such as “Adorable!” or “So cute!” – in other words, participants use complimentary words redundantly to enthusiastically comment on the photos. In some cases a comment is ambiguous, such as “Isn’t it lovely?” or simply “Great!” The expression leaves the agent unspecified and makes it hard to accurately understand what is so great or lovely. Yet, nobody takes up the confusion or requires explanation. These expressions are a flattering gesture that is taken for granted and established as a conventional practice. One of the most outstanding ways of enacting this norm of complimenting is lexical repetition. In all the 617 pieces of comments, the word “happy” is used 117 times. Likewise, the words “great”, “beautiful”, “cute”, “sweet”, and “nice” are used highly repetitively. In one thread of comments, 80 per cent of the viewers use the same word “cute”. This redundancy functions in a similar way as lexical cues such as “I agree with the others” and “just like Mark said”. It makes the texts take on a smooth and homogeneous tonality of celebration with flattering gestures. Beside lexical redundancy, modality is another marker of mutual agreement and politeness. It expresses the degree of affinity or certainty with which a speaker holds on the proposition or claim. “You could be right” and “you are totally right” respectively deliver low and high modality. In the sample, manifestations of modality can be demonstrated with examples such as “She must have had a blast!!!!” (modal auxiliary verbs); “That is so cute!” (simple present tense to realize a categorical and determinate modality); “OMG!! This is soooooooo adorable!!” (modal adverb hedges); “I am sure she had a great time!” (modal adjective hedges); and “ohhhh… wonderful!!!!!!!!!!” (exclamation mood). While agreement is the default option in commenting on the photos, disagreements are expressed with particular carefulness. One example of disagreement is shown in Table 2. The most typical way to express disagreement is the adversative extending clauses, with the principal marking conjunction words of “but” and “though”. Another common strategy to express disagreement is the use of hedges such as “I think the framing is just a li’l tight though” and “I’m not really liking this”, in contrast to the compliment, such as “yes, this is pretty darned good” and “it is truly magical.” When making negative comments, people tend to minimize the imposition with special treatment. The third strategy is nominalization. Nominalization refers to syntactic transformation from predicates to nouns, such as from “compose” to “composition”

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Table 2. Example of politeness strategy.

Figure 2.

Extract of the verbal comments

1. I like this… especially the expressions on their faces… I think the framing is just a li’l tight though. Interesting choice for a BW conversion. Good luck with the voting and please vote for others in the pool if you haven’t already. 2. I agree with […] 3. like their expressions. 4. I like this. (Title:) “Magic” (Description:) […], 2, tries to help pass out 5. yes, this is pretty darned good. plates while the birthday girl, […], 4, steals a 6. I’m not really liking this. 7. it is truly magical … beautiful girls with taste of the birthday cake. January 2006 equally beautiful expressions do it for me They are the two littlest loves of my 8. Th e cute kids make me want to save it but lifeCheck out my photo blog here: […] the underexposure and the motion blur on the hand kill it. 9. t he motion blur _is_ distracting, but at least you didn’t use a flash. i could also find fault with the composition/framing, but its a beautiful candid double portrait. 10. i like 11. i also like it but the blur is bugging me.. close to being a wonderful shot and i think the choice of b&w is really good with this.. real photography 12. ok im giving u a save but i DONT like that hand 13. blurry hand and underexposed. 14. cute kids 15. very nice pic, but it’s too dark for me.……. 16. i wish the kid on the right didn’t have a motion blur. 17. It certainly is magic. Well captured.

as in “I could also find fault with the composition/framing” in the example of Table 2. Nominalization is a way to avoid attributing the fault directly to a specified agent; e.g., “You make it wrong in that…” or “This picture is poor.” Therefore, the imposition is played down. The disagreement strategies analyzed above are used to either give priority to the consensus (the use of adversative extending clauses) or to express the recognition of the achieved consensus and norms (the use of nominalization and lexical hedges). When people discuss children’s birthday photos on Flickr, they tend to regulate the language use and avoid potential conflicts.


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This finding echoes Maynard’s (2003) study on the way people report good news and bad news with different linguistic treatments. T he fa m il y fra m e in online interaction

Although the aesthetic frame has a dominant position in the image publishers’ postings, the family frame also has a role in publishing and discussing family photos online. As pointed out in previous sections, image publishers may also evoke the birthday frame in their verbal texts, but image consumers – i.e. those who comment on the images – may invoke it even if it is absent in the contents provided by the publishers. Although the participants do not necessarily know each other personally, they can trust that family values such as parental love or the birthday as a family event are widely shared among the participants. Therefore the threads commonly resorting to and simultaneously reproducing the family frame end up resembling an exchange of compliments around a photo album in a family setting. The family frame can for instance be utilized to build up coherence between different elements of an image publisher’s posting. According to Fairclough (1993), speakers avoid fragmented discourses with totally conflicting meanings, and therefore they generate coherence in giving an interpretation of a certain text. Such building of coherence does not have to be rational or logical. For example, in the comment, “Great shot! You are such a wonderful mom!” we can see how coherence is typically constructed. Behind this sequence is the assumption held by the viewer that a good mother possesses the capability to arrange a nice birthday party to make her child happy and to document the kid’s happiness skillfully. A wonderful capture of a kid’s birthday proves a successful fulfillment of the social role of the mother. This assumption builds a self-evident connection between a “good photo” and a “good mother” and enables a coherent interpretation of the texts. The birthday celebration represented and the quality snapshot are interpreted as expressions of parental love. The consensual character of the family frame can be further illustrated by re-examining the disagreement case presented in Table 2. There are two conflicting opinions voiced about the picture: some like it, while others do not. However, the specified reasons given about like and dislike are exclusive. The reasons why people like the pictures include the mentions that the girls are pretty, the facial expressions are cute and that the black and white treatment is interesting. On the other hand, those who do not like the picture mention the treatment of the frame, inappropriate exposure, and the blurring of a hand due to motion. Nobody announced that he or she does not think the children are cute, and vice versa no one claimed that he or she enjoyed the blurring. People could say that they do not like the photograph for a certain reason, but it is highly unlikely that someone criticizes the image publishers as parents or doubt that the children are indeed lovely. The self-evidence of

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parental love rests on the fact that family values are commonly respected in human societies. The beliefs in family values are asserted without any justification because they are a moral starting point. A celebration must be perfect. Children must be happy and lovely. The birthday greeting “Happy Birthday” is uttered repeatedly. The announcement of a child’s birthday is naturally viewed as something calling for communal attention, rather than being conceived only as an extrinsic object of artistic presentation. This self-evidence of the birthday ritual and tradition therefore restricts the autonomy of individuals and guides the patterns of their action online. C oncl u sion A nd D isc u ssion

The objective of this article was to study the way in which family photos and children’s birthday pictures in particular are introduced and discussed in social media by using Flickr as the case example. By concentrating on analyzing the online contents themselves – both the entries of image publishers and comments on them by other participants – we aimed to study how people adapt to the new context in which strangers comment on pictures normally only shown to family members and friends. As could be anticipated on the basis of previous research, the empirical analysis suggests that the aesthetic frame becomes more prominent in the online context. People share their family photos with the vast number of web users not so much to celebrate or announce the occasion of a child’s birthday but rather because of artistic ambitions and as a form of self-expression. That can be seen in the semiotic organization of the verbal and visual texts they publish. However, the aesthetic frame is often entwined with the family frame both in the image publishers’ postings and in the comments that the photos gather. Image publishers also greet the child or otherwise celebrate the occasion, and in politely complimenting the images the commentators commonly refer to the occasion and its familial meanings and emotions. The analysis also shows that in addition to utilizing the aesthetic frame and the family frame as interpretive resources, in their interaction participants observe general rules of politeness as a default orientation. Agreement with the previous speakers is the baseline assumption, and disagreements are softened up with various linguistic means. As a whole, we suggest the case study shows that the interaction through which online communities are built follows the same basic patterns that can be found in face-to-face communication. When people do not know each other, they resort to what they assume to be shared values and interpretive resources, of which the aesthetic frame and the family frame are prime examples. Although one could think that family bonding and love are only of interest in the private sphere, we have to bear in mind that the family is a universal concept and that the values and emotions related to it easily


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communicate not only across a family circle but also across national and cultural differences. Similar to the way in which nations as imagined communities (Anderson, 1991) are often constructed by utilizing the metaphor of the family, online communities probably also draw from the imaginary of the family. This is particularly the case with the online sharing of family photographs such as children’s birthday pictures. Because the data only comprise threads from Flickr, it could be assumed that the empirical results reflect its particular technical features that impose conditions for content production and online interaction. However, the choice of Flickr as the object of the case study only strengthens our main point and allows us to argue that the results have more general significance. It could have been assumed that the aesthetic frame assumes a particularly dominant position on Flickr, which as a social media site specializes in publishing photographs and discussing their qualities. Since the family frame nevertheless retains an important role on Flickr, it can be expected that the same is true of more general social media services such as Facebook. A cknowledge m ents

We would like to thank the photo owners of Lisa Roberts, Beth Rankin and David Chang for their generosity and permission to use their pictures in this article. The support from the Academy of Finland funded projects ‘The Domestication of Ubiquitous Communication’ (code 129234) and ‘The Moderns: A Study on the Governmentality of World Society’ (code 218200) is gratefully acknowledged. N otes

1.

Studies on Flickr include the geographic composition of the uploaded photos (Serdyukov et al., 2009); the characteristics of photo viewing and interactions (Valafar et al., 2009; Van Zwol, 2007); how users practice social networking and memory sharing (Prieur et al., 2008; Van Dijck, 2011; Van House, 2007); how participants share photos as funds of knowledge and literacy (Davies, 2006; Lankshear and Knobel, 2006); writing on Flickr as an emerging vernacular practice (Barton and Papen, 2010); how Flickr users pursue photography as leisure, in contrast to participation in photographic club (Cox, 2008); and motivations for participating in Flickr (Nov et al., 2010).

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LI WANG is a candidate for a doctor’s degree in Social Sciences, majoring in Sociology. New media is her major research interest. Currently, she works at the University of Tampere as a researcher. Before her doctoral study, Li obtained an MA in Psychology and had over 4 years’ working experience in marketing communication in China. Address: School of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Tampere, Kalevantie 4, FI-33014, Finland. [email: [email protected]] PERTTI ALASUUTARI is an Academy Professor at the University of Tampere, School of Social Sciences and Humanities. He is the editor of the European Journal of Cultural Studies and has published widely in the areas of social theory, cultural and media studies, and social research methodology. His books include Researching Culture: Qualitative Method and Cultural Studies (Sage, 1995), An Invitation to Social Research (Sage, 1998), Rethinking the Media Audience (Sage, 1999), and Social Theory and Human Reality (Sage, 2004). Address: as Li Wang. [email: [email protected]] JARI ARO is a Doctorate in Social Sciences and Senior Assistant Professor in Sociology at the University of Tampere, Finland. Currently, he is working as a researcher in The Domestication of Ubiquitous Communication research project (Motive, Academy of Finland). His current research interests are in sociology of technology and social theory. Address: as Li Wang. [email: [email protected]]


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Visual Communication

Visual Communication

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