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Abruzzi Facebook’s images: the iconic net-presentation of an earthquake
Alessandra Micalizzi
IULM University – Communication dept.
Thinking, Doing and Publishing Visual Research:The State of the Field?
International Visual Sociology Association - University of Bologna 20-22 July 2010
Framing the research…
Social Representation of Moscovici (1961): the result of a social process that is:
«collective elaboration of a social object by the community for the purpose of behaving and communicating»
A social representation is made up of:
Conceptual dimension Iconic dimension A narrative structure (Di Fraia, 2005) socio-
narrative representation
Framing the research: the concept of “net-presentation”
The Net is a narrative technology that integrates a lot of communicative languages (such as video, audio, textual etc)
The Net is also a collective environment of great exchange and circulation of contents that construct the common sense
So it is a privileged social place where negotiate the conceptual as well as the visual dimensions of the social representation
With the expression Net-presentation I indicate the results of this process in the specific case of the earthquake in Abruzzi
Framing the research: virtual images
In the world wide web circulate a lot of virtual images
that have the following characteristics. They are:
Digital: manipulability
Shared: open circulation and multi-authorial
products (sometimes “orphan” without a precise
origin)
Ri-mediatized: the results of trans-media
circoulation
Framing the research: virtual images and collective memory
«l’immagine è un mutaforma. Un desiderio. Un pensiero. Una proiezione. Una rappresentazione. Un calco. Un impasto. Un coagulo. È ciò che è stato. Ma a volte non lo è affatto (…) tradizione, traduzione, tradimento» (E. D’Amico, 2009)
(I hope it is a good translation)
«the image is a shapeshifter. A wish. A thought. A projection. A representation. A cast. A dough. A clot. It is what it was. But sometimes not at all (...) Tradition, translation, betrayal»
Framing the research: the collective trauma
Studies about the collective elaboration of traumatic emotions describe two common processes:
The need of social sharing of emotions (by narrating to others) Rimè 2008
The importance of reconstruction a collective narrative about the event, negotiating different stories, images, objects of memory, experiences etc --> the trauma becomes more acceptable by the consciousness (Pennebaker, 2004)
The research
Methods, sample and results
The goals of the research
The results I propose in the next pages are a part of a wider research carried out in order to answer to this question:
Could the Net be considered a new socio-anthropological context where sharing and elaborating collective traumatic emotions?
More specifically, the research wants to understand:
The goals of the research
More specifically, the research wanted to understand: the characteristics of the fragmented narratives
shared on Facebook; the motivations (of Facebookers) connected with the
act of publishing personal feelings in a public space; the expectations about the effects of the posting
action; the functions of the Net in order to elaborate a
collective trauma; the collective representation of the earthquake (above
all on a visual level) on Facebook.
Objectives: the Net-presentation
What characteristic have the images proposed in the
groups about the earthquake opened on Facebook?
What are the conceptual and emotional messages
proposed by the images?
What is the facebook’s net-presentation about the
earthquake that emerged?
Methods and sample
Narrative qualitative content analisys of 21.000 posts of the first 5 groups about the earthquake;
E-mail interviews with authors of the posts (25 on 100 contacts);
visual analysis of 500 photos, chosen in order to represent the first 500 groups
The schedule for qualitative analysis
The theme: What kind of content is proposed on the picture? Real: a framed part of the reality Symbolic: icons, pictures, social symbols etc
The subject: what or who is the main character of the picture? The earthquake The helpers The victims The offenders The territory
The schedule for narrative analysis
The hedonic tone connected with the image proposed Positive Negative Neutral
The level of activation of what is represented:
Active action Passive action Neutral
The analysis: three macro-themes
Doing: (30,5%) rescue Denunciation
Being: (53,3%) people catastrophe the past
Giving: (16,2%) support memory mourning
Images of doing
Sub-typology Theme Subject Hedonic activation
rescue Real/symbolic Helpers Positive Active
Denunciation Symbolic offenders Negative Active
denunciation
rescue
Images of being
Sub-typology Theme Subject Hedonic activation
People Real Victims Negative Passive
Catastrophe Real/symbolic Territory Negative Passive
Past Real/Symbolic Territory Neutral/Positive
Passive
Catastrophe
The past
people
Images of giving
Sub-typology Theme Subject Hedonic activation
(emotive) Support
Symbolic Helpers Positive Active
Memory Symbolic Guilty Negative Active
Mourning Symbolic Victims Negative Active
MourningSupport
Memory
The Net-presentation
rescuecatastrophe
People
DenunciationPast
Emotive support
Mourning
Memory
Symbolic
Real
Negative
Positive
rescue
Tragedy Re-action
Re-membering Hope
SoccorsiCatastrofe
La gente
DenunciaPassato
Supporto emotivo
Lutto
Memoria
Simbolico
Reale
Negativo
Positivo
Soccorsi
Catastrofe Re-azione
Re-membering Speranza
Characteristics of images
Trans-media images
Rhetorical
Without specific cues connected with L’Aquila (the
content is “earthquake” not “L’Aquila earthquake)
Focused on the tragic aspects of the event
Recursive (redundant)
Low quality images (because of re-mediatization)
The Net-presentation
The net presentation is congruent with the characteristics described before, so it is:
Coherent with the collective imaginary about an earthquake
Reductive: limited to familiar representation of the event
Negative: semantic connected with the idea of a disaster
A map of the net-presentation of the Abruzzi earthquake
(conceptual)
CRAIarmy
desperation loneliness
Destroyed country
memorymourning
helpersCaritas
Disruption
Fire fighters
Tent camps
Move to action
solidarity
funeral
Italian flag
reconstruction
commemoration
suffer
participation
compassion
helpers
Civil Protection
How we were
New houses
People
A map of the net-presentation of the Abruzzi earthquake
(iconic)