How
is it possible to sum up an entire course of social media in one blog post? The
truth is, I am not sure if it is. From gazing into the minds of some of the
most academic critics and advocates of social media of our time, reading
articles on some of the latest platforms, and discussing everything from
creating a collective college memory via Flickr to twitter handles of fake
celebrities (I still like Lord Voldemort’s the best), this class has been a
journey through the history, relevance, and omnipresent nature of social media.
Throughout
the class, the one thing that has remained constant for me is my food blog. As
a lover of all kinds of cuisines, writing, eating, and photography, this blog
has been a great medium for me to share my food experiences and memories with
the class. I decided that I wanted to share my food memories from study
abroad on social media for my final assignment. However, I have nearly 100
pictures that I love relating to food during my four months of travel in
Europe. I had only used Flickr once in the past, for our class assignment, but
I decided it was worth trying to prove my point (check out my photos on Flickr HERE). After
captioning, describing, and tagging almost 100 pictures, I realized that sharing
pictures on Flickr itself acted as a catalyst of how I could connect my love of
food and blogging to the class in a deeper sense. My collection of photos on Flickr,
detailing my entire food journey through Europe, led me to discover some truly
critical truths and critiques about some of the literature that we have read
for this particular class. Although most of the authors that we have analyzed
voice the importance of social media for widespread networks and emphasize the
vitality of collective memory, in my opinion, I find my small, specific, and
personalized network to be much more meaningful.
In
Jose van Dijck’s journal article “Flickr and the culture of connectivity:
Sharing views, experiences, and memories” van Dijck explains how Flickr firmly embeds our culture of
connectivity, which is deeply rooted to our daily routines. In this analysis,
the author explains how Flickr creates a naturalized, common view of the world.
Van Dijck focuses on uploading pictures to Flickr creates a collective memory
and shapes how we watch the world. More so, he believes that Flickr is a
cultural heritage platform that allows users to view past events in a new form,
based on a translated view of past events. In this article, our author also
explains Hoskin's view on today’s culture as a culture of connectivity, meaning
that perspectives, experiences, and productions are greatly influenced by social
media sites. Through this, conscious and sometimes unconscious technological
interaction, people’s singular memories become a part of the collective memory.
Van Dijck also focuses on the idea of connectivity through examining the idea of
a continuous photo stream in addition to the idea that Flickr grants people
answers to the ever prominent questions of “what’s happening?” and “what
happened? The author explains that the site serves as an image aggregator and
experience aggregator, meaning that not only does it bring together visuals,
but it also collects memories. This piece is smart, concise, and yet a lot of
the information is repetitive and one sided.
Although
I don’t disvalue or even necessarily disagree with anything the author
communicated in this piece, I think that his main idea is only one side of the
argument. Sure, people use sites such as Flickr in order to combine their
experiences with others to create a culture of connectivity and collectivity,
but not everyone does this, needs to do this, or benefits from doing this. I
studied abroad in Barcelona, Spain, from January to May of this year. During my
time abroad, I wrote a blog and uploaded Facebook pictures from my travel
experiences. However, my blog was only connected to my family and close friends
and my Facebook albums were really geared towards a small network of close
family and friends rather than the world. For experimentation purposes (and
because posting 100 pictures in one blog entry could get annoying), I decided
to try using Flickr for my final project in order to share these photos.
However, what I noticed is I have no interest showing these pictures to
strangers and contributing to some sort of collective memory in our society. I
do not mean this in a selfish way, but these pictures represent special,
intimate memories with my best friends. You may be reading this and be
thinking, “wow Lauren is crazy, how can pictures of random food be special or
intimate…that’s a little much”, but in reality these pictures are very
personal. They come from times that are near and dear to my heart and as cheesy at it sounds, I am not really concerned with a bunch of strangers connecting to them; I am much more concerned with connecting to my friends, classmates, family, and the people that I shared these experiences with.
When I studied abroad, I made a group of very close friends. I could
call any of them at any time when we were abroad and if I needed anything, they
were there. My group of friends was about 15 people and dominated by boys, but
my core and support system of friends during this experience were my five best
girl friends: Gabby, Becca, Brittany, Caroline, and Rachel. Rachel was the only
friend I knew in this group before the experience. We quickly became best
friends when we studied abroad together in Israel in high school and somewhere
across the line we decided that we would study abroad together in college. The
other girls and I became best friends very quickly and the rest is history.
Nevertheless,
my memories that I posted come from deals backed by personal jokes, profound
experiences, and deep chats over countless glasses of wine. Why do I want
complete strangers to see all of these pictures? Sure, it may seem fun to brag
about 75 different types of pasta it seems like I tried in Italy, or the fresh
fish I ate on the coast in Barcelona, but at the end of the day these pictures
are for me. These pictures would have the same, if not more meaning, if they
were shared in the other ways I have them stored: pictures on my wall,
scrapbooks, and private photo albums. Showing these pictures to others do not
make them more special to me; I already have a shared, collective memory with
my best friends and I do not feel as though I need the same shared, collective,
and connective memory with the entire world. To be fair, the reason I shared
photos and memories through blog and Facebook when I was abroad was to keep me
family and friends at home updated, not to connect to my entire Facebook
friend-base. Although I am sure a few other people saw my photos, the intention
of any of my social media interactions regarding abroad was to share with my
family, friends, and create a collective and connective memory with the small
network of people that I met abroad, rather than a large collective and
connective memory with the entire world. Nevertheless, for the sake of the
project, this is how I am attempting to share my memories, but still with the
small network of this class and hopefully not a bunch of random Flickr lovers.
Going
back to our studies in class, we also concentrated on DIY culture and
convergence. In Amy Spencer’s book, “DIY-The Rise of Lo-Fi Culture”, Spencer
talks about Do-It-Yourself culture. Although her examples focus on independent
publishing through “zines” and the creation of alternative music forms, I think
Spencer’s logic also greatly relates to my point. Although DIY is more punk,
more of a social movement backed by the rejection of mainstream culture, I am
also rejecting a mainstream concept in my analysis of social media. In an
interview with Spencer, she says, “to me, lo-fi culture
is a rejection of the idea that you need to be professional about what you do
for it to have value. You can record a song on an old tape recorder and I think
it can be as great as a song that costs thousands of pounds to produce. You can
write your own blog, publish your own zine or newspaper using the resources you
have and it can still be a valuable contribution. And it can be more exciting
too.” In full honesty, Spencer has a point. Does it really matter if 500 people
see my photographs or if five people see my photographs? I would almost rather
it be the latter; It is more important to me to have something of my own as my
own blog and have it be personalized than to completely engage in a culture of
collectivism and creativity with complete strangers. Off of what Spencer discusses, I began
to think of what really would define the mainstream in terms of social media.
In my opinion, the mainstream idea that I have gathered is that social media
allows all of these great or detrimental thinks to happen.
A good example of
this is Jenkin's book that speaks about convergence culture, participatory
culture, and collective intelligence. I agree with Jenkins that convergence culture,
as he describes it as the cooperation between multiple media industries, is
upon us. Many, if not all, things are shared across multiple platforms.
However, Jenkins seems to present that convergence and participatory culture is
new because of social media. I understand that we are undergoing a “digital
revolution”, but when it comes to me sharing my photos of abroad, I would like
to argue that I could share it to the same, small network without social media.
After re-accessing Jenkins’ ideas on conversion, I would like to respectfully
argue that what is happening over the Internet has always happening just in a
different way. In my changing media technologies class, we talked a lot about
the leggo effect. This means that basically any new technology is a combination
of past technologies. In other words, you need pieces from past to build
together to create something new. This is how I feel about DIY/convergence
culture; I think it has always happened, but now it just happens in a new and
different way because of the Internet. If what I am arguing sounds crazy, think
of it like this. If I made a scrapbook and captioned each picture and showed it
to my family and close friends or bought it in to class and verbally explained
this to them, wouldn’t I be accomplishing the same thing that I am trying to
accomplish now? I think that I would be, just across a different platform.
Don’t
get me wrong: I love social media, or else why would I have taken this class?
Part of me is arguing for arguing sake because analyzers of social media seem
to think that is has certain implications that reach to everyone. Although I
would never disvalue this research, their intelligence, or the truth behind
these studies, I do think that there are people who use social media for
different reasons that what is considered the majority. Not everybody uses Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and all of these other sites for the same reason,
which is what I want to clarify. In my research for this assignment, I found
many blogs titled “10 reasons to use Flickr” or “why you need to get on Flickr”.
Although each of these blogs generally has many of the same suggestions, it
ignores one important idea: no one needs to
be on any of these media sites (unless it is for a job or class). This is an
added bonus to daily life rather than something that has become peoples daily
lives without a separation. Kennedy and his co authors discuss in his article how sites such as Flickr add depth and breadth in addition to generating new advantages and challenges. I think that this is true and because of this, I don't think I need to be on Flickr; I think it is an added aid as a student, but I would never refer to it as a necessity. Many of the skilled, intelligent authors that we read and analyzed also framed their ideologies in such a way. Many of these authors feel that you need to do something: you need to join Flickr, you need to be a part of participatory culture, or you need to connect to the virtual community.
Rheingold explains the importance of a virtual
community through an entire novel. One of the most important points that I have
found he makes is in his introduction when he talks about the importance of
virtual communities to ordinary citizens. He discusses the social leverage that
can be gained through these communities. Rheingold says, “my direct observations of online behavior around the world
over the past ten years have led me to conclude that whenever CMC technology
becomes available to people anywhere, they inevitably build virtual communities
with it, just as microorganisms inevitably create colonies.” This quote
directly shows that virtual communities are just a different way of creating
communities; communities existed well before the virtual world. I know that it
is different that someone in Tokyo could potentially see what I ate for
breakfast nine months ago and that creates a whole new dynamic, but the same
idea is still there: people search for communities. With that being said, I
still feel that the most important community for me to share my thoughts,
pictures, and experiences with is the small, specific community I know. Because
of this, I decided to end my final blog post/project with a mini blog entry. My
flickr account my have a large amount of cool pictures from this amazing
experience, but I decided to reserve the detailed descriptions of my top five
favorite meals for my blog so here it goes.
As
I said before, but may have not emphasized enough: EUROPE HAS AMAZING CUISINE.
In four months I went to nine countries: Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Prague,
Ireland, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and France. Throughout this experience, I met
some of the coolest and best people I know, say some of the most beautiful
sites in the world, and of course, ate food that I still think is some of the
best food that I have ever had. Here are the five best meals I ate while
abroad:
#5: ITALY: I am starting this out
unconventionally by not sticking exactly to what I said because for Italy, I
cannot choose just one meal. Italy as a whole had some of the best food I have
ever tasted. The bread and olive oil is simple yet delicious. The pasta is
perfectly cooked. The pizza is an amazing consistency (and I am picky about my
pizza) and the gelato is so sweet and flavorful, like nothing I had ever
experienced before. The ingredients in Italy are fresh, appetizing, and all around
amazing. Bellow I have posted some of the best pictures from my time in Italy.
Some were shared already via Flicker and some of these are brand new.
 |
| Gelato in Cinque Terre |
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| Pesto Pizza in Cinque Terre |
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| Wine Bar in Florence, Italy |
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| Cannoli in Rome, Italy |
#4: My Classic Meal from La Rita: I sadly only took one
picture at La Rita, so I am relying on Google to help me showcase how amazing
this restaurant is! Anyway, as I explained via Flickr, La Rita is my favorite
restaurant in Barcelona. It is gourmet, cheap, easy to get to, and delicious.
The meal always begins with fresh sourdough bread. On some days
(Sunday-Thursday), they would bring you a free appetizer or Sangria. If I went
on the weekend, my friends and I would always order house wine. Every time I
went to La Rita I ordered the same thing: seared tuna with apples and onions.
It is SO good. The tuna is perfect: cooked but seared. The apples are tangy,
yet sweet and the onions are delicious. This is one of the best meals ever!
Also, as for desserts, I’d recommend the crema catalonia, chocolate cake, apple
cake, or cheesecake…my friends and I clearly tried everything.
 |
| Interior of La Rita: Courtesy of Google |
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| Crema Catalonia at La Rita: Courtesy of Google |
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| Exterior of La Rita: Courtesy of Google |
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| Tuna with Apple and Onion: Courtesy of Google |
#3: La
Taberna Coloniales: My friends and I(a group of around 15) waited two hours
to eat here and man, it was so worth it. We went to eat here in Sevilla and
EVERYONE told us we had to make sure we got in. It was so busy that we ended up
sitting down at our table at about 11:45. I remember I ordered two tapas: one
was a goat cheese plate with berry preserves and the other was the most amazing
eggplant dish I have ever tasted. My friends all got this chicken dish that
they loved as well.
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| Eggplant from Taberna Coloniales: Courtesy of Google |
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| Exterior of La Taberna Coloniales: Courtesy of Google |
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| Goat Cheese and Preserves: Courtesy of Google |
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| Attempt at drinking Wine at Lunch |
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| Wine Round Two |
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| Calcots and Romesco |
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| Meat Tray |
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| Conchita's Appetizers Close Up |
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| Table Set For Special Lunch at Conchita's |
To conclude, food was an integral part of my abroad experience. When it comes to sharing this experiences, there are many options. For low tech options, I could share it via scrapbook or simply by showing people pictures and verbally explaining my experience. I can also use online platforms such as Facebook, Blogger, or Flickr to share these experiences. What I have learned from this class and through my research and counter analysis of different authors is that there is more than one option when showcasing your experiences via social media platforms. As the person utilizing social media, I have learned that I can reach of to a large virtual community. Through exploring terms such as convergence culture and participatory culture in addition to collectivity and connectivity, I learned that this is the option that seems to be most often written about and analyzed. However, personally, I enjoy reaching out to a small network of individuals I know. I enjoy utilizing the technological platforms; tools such as Blogger and Flickr especially have many interesting features and I believe that aesthetically, my work looks clean, vibrant, and well thought out when conveyed over these platforms. Nevertheless, it is important to me that my experiences are focused towards the people that I care about rather than a community of strangers. At this point in my life, networking and interacting within my smaller community is what is vital to my success. When looking back at the readings I described regarding social media, I was drawn to a specific quote from Kennedy. He says "the results suggest that community-contributed media and annotation can enhance and improve our access to multimedia resources – and our understanding of the world." I think it important to focus on the idea of improvement through social media. Although my analysis may have seemed pessimistic, I think that it is important to focus on how sites such as Flickr have the potential to "change the world". Maybe, in years to come or even next semester, I will further explore the larger virtual community, connect more so with participatory culture, and connect with collective memory. Furthermore, I truly enjoyed this class and learned so much about social media that will be beneficial to my career experience, and life in general. I hope my small network enjoyed this post and look forward to more posts soon!
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Works Cited/Consulted
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Works Cited/Consulted
-Jenkins, H. (2006.) Convergence Culture. New York, NY: New York University Press.
-Jones, Laurie and Lerman, Kristina (2006) Social Browsing on Flickr. Retrieved from http://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0612047
-Kennedy, Lyndon and Naaman, Mor and Ahern, Shane and Nair, Rahul and Rattenbury, Tye(2007)
How flickr helps us make sense of the world: context and content in community-contributed media collections. New York, NY: ACM.
-Rheingold, H. (2000) "The Virtual Community." Harper Collins. Retrieved from http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/
-van Dijck, J. (2010, October 18.) Flickr and the culture of connectivity: sharing views, experiences, memories. Sage Publications.
-Van House, Nancy A. (2007) Flickr and public image-sharing: distant closeness and photo exhibition. Retrieved from http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1240866.1241068.
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