Hello all, On Friday I was the examiner for Heli Rantavuo's dissertation at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki. She wrote on the social consequences of camera phones. The dissertation might be of interest to some on the list. The process of the dissertation was quite formal, but it was also a lot of fun. There was a lecture by Heli, the defense where I got to ask a lot of questions and afterwards there was a nice Finnish party to celebrate the new Ph.D. I am attaching my comments to the dissertation below . Rich L. Comments on the Dissertation Connecting Photos: A qualitative study of cameraphone photo use by Heli Rantavuo A short review by Rich Ling, IT University of Copenhagen & Telenor
Introduction Heli Rantavuo has written an engaging and timely study of camera phones. That, however, is not a completely accurate description of the document. The reader will not get an analysis of their usability, a taxonomy of photographs (portraits vs. landscape, etc) or a discussion of which socio-demographic groups are the most enthusiastic users, though there is some discussion of the gendering of the technology. In short, this is not a study of photos or of the technology in itself. With those disclaimers out of the way, the reader will get a very interesting analysis of how the camera phone plays into the way that use of the camera phone helps social groups define themselves. Rantavuo examines how people decide which situations are/are not seen as being worth documented and she studies how people to define themselves vis-à-vis the device. This is a study of the folk understanding of camera phones and the photos that they produce. This is a study of how people give meaning to the camera phone and the resulting photos. Method The study is based on qualitative analysis. Rantavuo discusses how she has carried out several previous analyses and how, based on this experience she developed an approach that was applied in this study. As noted, her focus is not on the way that participants took photos, but how they manipulated, moved and viewed the photos. Rantavuo worked with the informants individually in order to understand "their individual contexts and points of view" (p44). The data used in the analysis is somewhat limited only being only 16 persons. Rantavuo was, however, quite good in her analysis of this data. These 16 persons varied in age and gender. They were treated as a series of case studies in that she was interested in the informant's general focus of attention, their views on "digital snapshot photography" and their background and experience as a photographer (45). The restriction of the focus was a very positive dimension of the study in that it avoided the problem of letting the analysis bleed out into interesting, but less relevant dimensions of the photography. Rantavuo developed a multi-tiered approach to the data analysis. Using first about half of the cases, she examined the raw data and developed a series of what she called issues. These were further reduced down to themes and then finally into issue questions. Based on this analysis she then took the other half of the cases and checked them against the findings from the first analysis. Vulgate photography One of the most interesting dimensions of this dissertation is that it examines the way that we define social interactions vis-à-vis the use of different artifacts. In the case of this discussion, Rantavuo describes a basic division in social interactions we consider worthy of documentation. On the one hand there are those special occasions where the informants chose "traditional" photographic equipment and on the other hand there were social interactions that were more casual (perhaps "throw away" situations) where the camera phone was used. Our sense of which situations are important can vary and change over time. In addition, the requirements for documentation can vary. A wedding often requires a professional photographer where high school graduation or summer vacation is often recorded my mom or dad. Moving to the more casual end of the scale, the camera phone facilitates photography in situations that where previously thought too ordinary. For example, up until now, a Friday evening party for teens was not often seen as a venue for photography. Indeed, it could represent a threat to the participants if the goings-on were photographed. This is obviously changing for two reasons, one is that cameras are increasingly portable and a part of our daily kit and also digital photography changes the economics and physical constraints of image production. However, another thing that has changed is the skill set needed to produce and circulate photographs. Portability and the economics of photography The portability and the relaxation of limitations is documented by Rantavuo when she examines the way that people have started to use their camera phones to take photos of banal activities. This is because with the camera phone, we always have a camera at hand and thus the realm of candid photography has dramatically grown. This is not the first time that we have seen this development. Indeed the introduction of Kodak "You push the button, we do the rest" photography in the early 20th century dramatically increased the scope of image production. It is only with this development that photography emerged from the studio. Before this, in order to take a photo out of doors, the photographer needed to be a dedicated soul who was willing to transport fragile equipment and deal in exotic chemicals. The Kodak camera and the introduction of the Leica 35 mm camera enabled the development of what we call snapshot photography. This was the first step in the development of what we might call vulgate photography. It meant that we were asked to decide what was worthy of photographing for two reasons. It was not always possible to have a camera with us and secondly, the film-based camera was rather limited in the number of images that could be captured, indeed, there was an economic consequence of taking a picture. This resulted in new ideas as to when and where photography was possible and to be desired. Amateur photography has often concerned itself with those occasions that were not special enough to require a professional photographer, but were nonetheless out of the ordinary. The decision as to which activity fell into which category was a matter of discussion. Indeed, this is the background against which Rantavuo starts her work. As documented in the comments of Rantavuo's informants, the photographing of a ceremony is an established social form. When seen from the perspective of group cohesion, photographing ceremonies has two dimensions. First, the photo, that is the physical object as in traditional paper prints, is a type of totem associated with the event. It has the potential to inform both participants and non-participants as to the nature and, to use Durkheim's term, the effervesce of the event (Durkheim, 1995). Before the examination of the photo-as-artifact, however, the actual process of making the photograph marks a social event in a special way. It indicates to the participants that the situation is sufficiently out of the ordinary that it needs to be documented (65). The participants need to line up, smile, check to make sure their hair is properly arrayed, etc. While these situations are still to be found, the lowering of the threshold for photographing is opening new horizons for candid pictures. Rantavuo has, however, done the important job of being a witness to the change in the traditional constellation of ideas and practices associated with film based photography. Digital photography and the embedding of the camera in a mobile phone means that we often have a camera on our person. Rather than only having a dedicated camera with us on certain occasions, it is literally there all the time. She writes: The camera phone disrupted the cultural convention associated with domestic photography of taking photos only of events or environments that were out of the ordinary (p. 62). In addition, there are not the same limitations on the number photos that we can take with a digital camera. We can see the result immediately. We can delete a poorly framed shot then and there. Instead of budgeting the number of photos based on the length of a film roll, we can take hundreds and even thousands of photos that are digitally stored on the device until they are moved to another platform. Thus, there are fewer limitations on when and where we can take photos. It is not only ceremonies that are of interest, but photography is spilling out into everyday affairs. Her informants are dealing with these issues. On the one hand, camera phones were not seen as being up to the task of the capturing of special occasions (though they were pressed into service in this capacity). The camera phone photos were seen as being too "small and blurred" (p. 57) in the words of Harri. Paula says ". . . somehow the photos taken with the digital camera are more like photographs, the phone photos are, like, for messages or, not so much for keeping, I think" (p. 61). A little later Henri says that he uses a dedicated digital camera "when I know that I want to keep the photos." Obviously there are exceptions to this boundary (pp. 66 - 69). Camera phones are being used to capture images of our ceremonies and special events. In spite of this, as Rantavuo notes, the camera lowers the expectations related to photography. The ritual of taking a photo and the photographic artifact are not as highly prized. The new complexity of photography The other broad change in photography is the circulation of the material. In the film era, photos were on paper and if you wanted extra copies you needed to take the negatives to the photo shop (a physical place not a software package), in order to get them made. Now, the viewing of photos is often done on screen and the photoshop has become a software package and not a local store. Ironically, this has become a barrier. Rantavuo documents how erstwhile photographers (often women in her sample) take some photos on their camera phone, but they never got any further than that. Unlike the marketing phrase of Kodak "You push the button, we do the rest", contemporary photographers have to press many buttons, connect many cables and subscribe to many services in order to move their photos from the camera/camera phone onto a PC and eventually the internet. Rantavuo documents how this is a barrier for some. Indeed, it is a paradox that while on the one hand the limitations of photography have been relaxed, there is a new skill set needed in order to complete the circle. There is an irony in this. Namely, that it is often women who are the most dedicated snap shot photographers (Evans in Rantavuo, p. 115) and it is also the women in Rantavuo's sample who were least likely to work through the process of getting the photographs off their camera phones (p. 103). The photographs were then, by definition, perishable. Since the completion of her data collection there is a new element that has arisen here, namely the online sites where photos are a significant element. To be fair, Rantavuo talks about moblogging (p. 89). If the individual is able to master the cables and the software of the digital world, he or she can transfer photos to a wide variety of internet sites (Flikr, facebook, Picasa, etc.) where they can be viewed by a variety of publics. This phase of the transition was only starting to become possible when Rantavuo was collecting her data. Thus we will have to await her next dissertation in order to get her views on this development. Conclusion The writing in the dissertation is quite good. Rantavuo does an excellent job of bringing up issues and not over intellectualizing them. There is a solid core. The interested reader has to stretch him/herself in order to follow the arguments. However, that effort is rewarded by insight and understanding. This is a positive approach. Rantavuo does not develop overly complex categories and arguments that are more designed to confuse the reader than to develop an interesting and stimulating line of argument. Bibliography Durkheim, Emile. (1995). The elementary forms of religious life (K.E. Fields, Trans.). Glencoe, IL: The free press. Rich L. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "mobile-society" group. To post to this group, send email to mobile-society@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to mobile-society+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mobile-society?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
