The Image and Digital Culture: Understanding the Changing Nature and Role of the Image within Emerging Forms of Human Communication and Interpretation View Digital Media

Focused Discussion
Thomas Marotta  

This presentation examines the changing ways people make themselves visible to the world as a result of new devices and social practices that enable the capture and sharing of photographic images. Obviously, many twenty-first century folk enjoy using the affordances of new systems of representation to express, interpret and make sense of the conditions of their lives - through online networked spaces we perform visual representations of ourselves and our lives. Here we actualise the human need for affiliation with others and engage in the dynamic performance of relatedness and connection in everyday encounters. These interactions form part of the ubiquity of digital information permeating our lives being pushed from our smartphones offering us the digital potential for an endless stream of texts, updates, notifications, emails and increasingly social interaction through images.