Affording images: Digital imaging and media-sharing practices in a corpus of young people’s cameraphone images Paper presented at Multimodality in Education colloquium held at Mont Fleur, Stellenbosch on 10 August, 2011 by Marion Walton and Silke Hassreiter, Centre for Film and Media Studies. University of Cape Town The affordances of mobile phones as devices for creating, publishing and distributing images means that they are often seen as a threat to young people’s safety or to public morality. Alternatively, they are celebrated as having immense potential for supporting an individualised and highly networked mode of mobile learning or ‘m-learning’. These issues are particularly significant in the global South, where photographic practices and digital imaging are being adopted rapidly, as mobile networks reach over a billion people and feature phones with cameras become increasingly accessible. This paper documents the image-sharing and photographic practices of fourteen young people who participated in a mobile video-making project over four months in July-November 2010 in Makhaza, Khayelitsha. We analyse the corpus of images which they shared with us as researchers. We explore distinct communicative genres which, in this context, are associated with (i) personal photographs, (ii) photographic composites (iii) downloaded images from popular culture (iv) multimodal image messaging. In this paper, our focus is specifically on interpersonal meanings and the representation of interpersonal meanings and social distance. We argue that the social practices of young people and the marginal contexts of this appropriation play key roles in their domestication of mobile photography. Consequently, it is a mistake to assume that new genres and practices can simply be ‘read off’ by listing the features or affordances of the new generations of smart phones. Instead, it is necessary to consider a wider range of contexts and uses before the ‘affordances’ of the new medium can start to be understood. In particular, the differences associated with the specific contextual meanings of artefacts such as mobile phones, local genres of communication and interaction, and broader issues of access to communication infrastructure and mobility need to be considered. We argue that a contextualised study such as this should be conducted before embarking on the development of new curricula for learning or self-expression for young people.

1. affording images
Digital imaging and media-sharing practices in a corpus of young people’s
cameraphone images
Marion Walton, Silke Hassreiter, CFMS, University of Cape Town
Project funded by Nokia Research in collaboration with
NYU, October 2009
Gary Marsden, Sena Allen and the UCT Centre in ICT4D
Marion.Walton@uct.ac.za
Tino.Kreutzer@gmail.com
Download project report from www.marionwalton.com/publications-and-links
http://marionwalton.wordpres

2. mobile images
• This paper documents the image-sharing and
photographic practices of sixteen young
people who participated in a mobile video-
making project funded by Nokia Research over
four months in July-November 2010 in
Makhaza, Khayelitsha.

3. Started with 20
participants
Grade 10
15-18 years
Variable
participation
Ikamva Media, Image and Expression Class 2010

4. mobile in mzansi
• Mobile phones in the global South are ‘the first screen’
- only ‘fourth screen’ in North.
• What are the local and situated meanings of digital
and mobile photography for young people?
NYU, October 2009
Marion.Walton@uct.ac.za
Tino.Kreutzer@gmail.com
http://marionwalton.wordpres

5. makhaza, khayelitsha

6. makhaza, khayelitsha
• Large generally low-income urban settlement
on urban periphery of Cape Town.
• Established in the mid-1980s as apartheid
strategy ‘as far from the city as possible’ (Skuse
and Cousins, 2008)
• History of spatial and racial segregation,
political struggle and economic disadvantage.
• Only 38 per cent live in formal structures, many
without access to water, sanitation, electricity,
streets or lighting (Silber and Geffen, 2009).
• Swelling population, many migrants, successive
governments fail to keep up with the demand
for land, housing and other services.

9. ethics and privacy
• The young people agreed to share their cellphone
images with us – both from their own phones and
at the end of the project, from the Nokia phones.
• Sharing was voluntary and some students chose
to delete images or not to share at all.
• Our initial agreement was not to publish the
images – we would like to renegotiate this in
response to our findings about phones as a public
space for this peer group.

10. affording meaning
• Need for a contextual, situated understanding of
affordances.
• ecological psychology - perception as a
relationship between organisms and their
environment. Although physical objects have
objective physical qualities, these only become
affordances in relation to a particular organism
(Gibson, 1979).
• the ‘potential uses’ of an object and ‘signifying
potential’ of signs (Van Leeuwen, 2005).

11. systemic affordances
• ‘The cellphone’ and ‘the smartphone’ don’t exist.
• Phones are not ‘a’ single medium – affordances are
situational and arise from the interaction of a
complex range of factors.
• Hardware, software, battery, geographical
situation, network, network charges, money
• Crime, conspicuous consumption, local genres of
photography
• These ‘rules of communication’ shape discourse
(structure/code), but are also appropriated by
users (agency/semiosis).

12. mobile images
• Ongoing ethnography has identified distinct
communicative genres in this context,
– Private identity work
– Social sharing of individual photographs
– Creation of photographic composites and ‘photo cards’
(photos with messages)
– Sharing downloaded images from popular culture –
celebrities, ‘photo cards’ and pictures of commodities
• How do the young people use these genres to
represent and construct interpersonal meanings and
social distance?

13. Available feature phones
Allow internet, low res photos and videos,
limited memory and processing power

14. own phones
No
phone Feature
phone
Basic
phone

16. expensive facebook
Not
Quite
expensive or Very cheap
expensive Quite cheap
cheap or free
Very expensive
questionnaire
47 participants from Ikamva
Youth – all classes

17. affordable mxit
Not
Quite
expensive or Very cheap
expensive Quite cheap
cheap or free
Very expensive
questionnaire
47 participants from Ikamva
Youth – all classes

18. free bluetooth
Not expensive Quite
Quite or cheap Very cheap
expensive cheap or free
questionnaire
47 participants from Ikamva
Youth – all classes

19. corpus
Images retrieved from mobile phones
Named images Total images
S own phone 17
18
Y own phone 84
89
N own phone 51
81
L own phone 16
23
Z own phone 0
10
Z own phone 74
74
A own phone 0
3
L own phone 95
132
Y Nokia 44
105
Y Nokia 54
119
U Nokia 74
118
S Nokia 59
115
M Nokia 33
85
Z Nokia 41
51
N Nokia 108
219
S Nokia 78
308
V Nokia 56
149
Y Nokia 5
95
L Nokia 80
121
Z Nokia 79
177
A Nokia 3
33

20. I took this photo of myself to see how I look like with these shades. Instead of looking into the
mirror.
• Name of pic: 100823_130026.jpg
I was playing around with the phone back home when I was bored. Just to let people know how I
look like.
• Name of pic: 100831_134021.jpg
There was a lamp in the background. That photo did not work out.
• Name of pic: 100830_125051.jpg
I wanted to know how I look like with this hat / hat and shades on.
• Name of pic 1: 100823_170652.jpg
• Name of pic 2: 100821_084117.jpg
This is my boyfriend. We are together for 3 weeks. I like him a lot, that’s why I took the photo of
him. When I miss him, I look at the photo. We took this photo at his place.
• Name of the pic: Mzu.jpg
This little clip of sneakers I took from a friend’s (female) phone last Saturday. I connected via
Bluetooth to her phone and took it off. I like sneakers. *grins*
• Name of pic: evolutionary.gif
This photo of Ronaldo I also took from a friend’s phone via Bluetooth. Because I like him so much.
• Name of pic: C ronaldo.jpg
Photocards
I took this picture from a friend.
• Name of the pic: lover.gif
This one I also got from a friend.
• Name of the pic: Our-day.gift.gif
This one I got from my boyfriend. *blushing*

21. iKasi net

22. sharing practices
• Ego-centric social
network analysis
• With whom do you
share phone and
mobile media?
• Who shares with you?
• Default values –
collectivist among
peers.
• Some generational
differences in strength
of sharing ties.
questionnaire
20 participants from Grade
10

23. Sharing practices

24. ikasi.net
• SA – unaffordable broadband
internet.
• Intermittent access to mobile
internet
• Appropriation of channels for
free communication.
• Peer to peer communication
• Phone media galleries
• Proxemic networking via
bluetooth
(Walton and Kreutzer,
forthcoming)

25. p2p ‘Facebook’

26. p2p social networking
• Image networks - Phone gallery and phone are
used to represent social network
• Important role in image-management
• Face detection used to map visual social
network.
• 6 participants’ image networks analysed so far.

28. • Sub-sample of images
with faces detected
(n=1219)
• Ratio calculated
(image height:
detected face height)
• Detection algorithm
uses Processing and
Java OpenGL libraries

30. nokia phones (N=2129)
Images from Nokia
phones, mapped with
VisualCultures

31. own phones (N=2129)
Images from
participants’ own
phones

32. significance?
• Sub-sample of
images with faces
detected (n=1219)
• The distribution of
Ratio is different
across categories
of phone.
(p < 0.05)

33. intimacy
• In other words...
• When using cheap camera
phones, these young people
foregrounded faces to a
greater extent than when they
were able to use more
sophisticated phones.
• Social distance is more likely
to be constructed as intimate
or personal for photographers
using cameras on basic
phones with limited memory.

34. random sample (n=450)
VisualCultures allows
graphing of images

35. photographers
Images can be explored
in different ways e.g. By
photographer

36. Only one face detected
Number of faces
detected (only one in
most shots).

37. image:face ratio on own phones
Higher ratio between
detected faces and
image size i.e. close ups
(more found on
participants own
phones).

38. unnamed images
Individually named
images more likely to be
closeups (more found
on participants own
phones).

39. not just photographs
60.0% 52.7%
50.0%
40.0%
30.0%
20.0% 16.0%
12.2% 10.1%
10.0% 4.4% 2.3% 1.4% 0.6% 0.3%
0.0%
Annotated Framed Photo card' Celeb Graphic Commodity Filter Politics Porn

40. genres
• Self-portraits and ‘mirror mode’
• Advertising, popular culture and fashion genres
predominate
• Settings are often staged to foreground face and
conceal surroundings
• Importance of verbal annotations on image and in
filename suggests phone as publication platform and
interpersonal communicative function.
• Playful and strategic use of preset frames, graphic
elements and filters.
• Only a handful of documentary-style shots

41. conclusion
• Consider a wider range of contexts and uses before the
‘affordances’ of the new medium can start to be understood.
• The social practices of young people, local genres of communication
and interaction, access to communication infrastructure and
mobility, and the marginal contexts of this appropriation play key
roles in their domestication of mobile photography.
• Affordances are systemic - not everyone can afford to publish
online and new generations of smart or feature phones are
different to basic phones or feature phones with simple cameras
and without much memory.
• Importance of filenames and naming practices in bluetooth
usability.
• Design new curricula for learning or self-expression in relation to
existing ecosystem.

42. Videos
Now published online on Ikamva Youth website and YouTube channel
http://goo.gl/AWKVP
Silke’s Nokia project report
Hassreiter, S., Walton, M. and Marsden, G. (2011). Degrees of sharing.
Public voices, impression management and mobile video production
in a participatory media project for teens in Makhaza, Khayelitsha.
Project report produced for Nokia Research, February 2011.
Download from www.marionwalton.com/publications-and-links/

43. acknowledgements
– Gary Marsden
– Sena Allen
– Joy Olivier
– Luyanda Kota
– Winile Mabhoko
– And especially to all the student participants and
Ikamva Youth