CITRIS-HP Day Presentation Prof. Nancy Van House University of California at Berkeley School of...

CITRIS-HP Day Presentation

Prof. Nancy Van HouseUniversity of California at Berkeley

School of Information Management and Systemshttp://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~vanhouse

The Social Uses of Personal Photos Understandings for

Emerging Networked Imaging Technologies


Problem

• Classic problem: predicting uses for new technology

• New tech enters into pre-existing sociotechnical ensemble of technology, artifacts, activities, practices, understandings, participants…

• Can we understand the social space that the tech will enter into?


Our Study: Social Uses of Personal Photos• Looking not just at what people do with digital

imaging technology, but why • Goals

– Identify social uses of photography to predict resistances and affordances of next generation mobile media devices and applications

– Use social science approaches to develop methods for understanding/projecting uses

• Methods– Situated video interviews– Review of online photo sites– Sociotechnological prototyping (magic thing,

technology probes)


Surprising observations

• “Resistance”: – Many are deeply attached to prints

• Can be created from either film or digital file, but many want prints as end product

– Reluctance to annotate photos• Hard, time-consuming; but that’s not all

• Innovation: Internet-based photo sites are catching on fast– Photoblogs, moblogs, internet-based sites for

storing, sharing photos


Approach

• Rooted in 2 social science analytical approaches– Social Construction of Technology (SCOT):

used to explain “stabilization” of technology post hoc

– Activity Theory: used mostly to examine work, relationships among activity systems, goal-directed actions, automatic operations, tools, and artifacts


Activity Theory 1:Hierarchy of Activities

activity

operation operation operation

actionaction

operation operation

activity


Activity Theory 2: Mediating Artifacts

• Include objects, tools, technologies

• Shape the way people behave (and think)

• Carry culture, history– Prior experiences, practices, understandings


Social Construction of Tech (SCOT): Groups have multiple problems …

Social Group

Problem

Problem

Problem


Problems have multiple solutions…

Social Group

SolutionProblem

Problem

Problem

Solution

Solution

Solution…some of which

solve multiple problems…


Multiple groups, multiple problems

Social Group Social Group

SolutionProblem

Problem

Problem

Problem

Problem

Solution

SolutionSolution

Solution

Solution


Interpretive Flexibility

Social Group Social Group

SolutionProblem

Problem

Problem

Problem

Solution

Solution

Same object can have has different

‘meanings’ for different groups.


Our approach

• Activities are slow to change• People seek to use new tech for on-going

activities• Technology, understandings, and activities co-

evolve• Interpretive flexibility: Photos are interpreted

as many different things• Hierarchy of activities: Higher level activities

for which personal photos are used = Social uses

• Photos are mediating artifacts: carry history, culture, understandings, practices…


Networked digital imaging technology

• For which pre-existing social uses of photos will/can this tech be effective?

• For which on-going activities for which photos have not been used will networked programmable imaging devices be used?


Photos

• As objects and as communication

• As symbolic objects and as pieces of information

• Cross time and space

• Make things real – appear to be just images of things as they are when they embody interpretations


Investigating the social uses of photos

• What do people take pictures of?• What do they do with them?• How do they understand them, think about

them?• What are the activities for which photos

are mediating artifacts?• How do the affordances of various media

articulate with these uses?


Subjects of photos


kids


travel


Art

• ADD PHOTOS


Fun


What people do with photos




Storage (w/o annotation)



Photo-sharing sites


freewisdom


Web version


Collective photoblogs & themes: “Gatherings”




Social Uses of Personal Photos

• Memory

• Relationships

• Self-presentation, self-expression


Memory

• “Off-loading” memories

• Evoking memories• Sharing memories


Relationships

• Representing• Maintaining • Creating


Self-expression, self-presentation


Media

• Physical

• Digital

• Oral


The Complex Interplay of Social Uses, Media, Affordances

• As society changes

• As technology changes• As conditions change (thanks to Patrick Scaglia):

– Global• Scale, distance, distribution

– More real time– Mobile– virtual


Surprising observations

• Attachment to prints • Physicality matches well with f2f uses, interaction, shared

experience, gifts (relationships, memory)• Display = unplanned encounters (relationships, self-

expression)• Embedded info about importance, age

• Reluctance to annotate photos• Counter to orality, f2f uses, interaction, shared experience

(relationships, memory)• De-situates the story (relationships)• Mortality: I won’t always be here

• Internet-based photo sites• Easy sharing x space (time?)• Access to vast audience (self-expression, self-presentation)• Create/maintain relationships (known and unknown others)


War blog


Digital photos and war

“Today’s soldiers…function like tourists, as Rumsfeld put it, ‘running around with digital cameras and taking these unbelievable photos and then passing them off, against the law, to the media, to our surprise.’…In our digital hall of mirrors, the pictures aren’t going to go away…”

Susan Sontag, “Regarding the Torture of Others,”

NY Times Magazine, May 23, 2004


Implications: Methods

• Further investigation of social uses for existing and emerging tech (all kinds)

• More interaction between technology design and social theory (where are the other social scientists today?)– Ethnographic data collection methods popular– Social theoretic approaches are not used/understood– Tie to other social concerns

• E.g., how people determine credible info, sources• People’s activities are continuous – not tied to tech but

use and are facilitated by tech, shape how tech is used

• “Magic thing,” prototyping


Design implications

• Add affordances of the physical back into the digital– E.g., showing how much a photo is used

• Enable real-time orality with photo sharing– Over distance– Over time?

• Facilitate sharing but also evaluation of sources across large scale, distributed, pre-existing and ad hoc social groups

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CITRIS-HP Day Presentation Prof. Nancy Van House University of California at Berkeley School of...

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