Kuvien virtaa ja välitöntä valokuvallista viestintää: Mobiiliteknologia ja valokuvan uusi viestintäkulttuurinen konteksti [Flow of images and immediate photographic communication: Mobile technology and the new communicative context of photography].

Villi, M. (2011). Kuvien virtaa ja välitöntä valokuvallista viestintää: Mobiiliteknologia ja valokuvan uusi viestintäkulttuurinen konteksti [Flow of images and immediate photographic communication: Mobile technology and the new communicative context of photography]. . Lähikuva, (4).

Abstract: The focus in the article is on mobile technology and camera phones, and the influence of the conventions of mobile phone communication on personal photography and photographic communication. Importantly, the practices of camera phone communication cannot be explained only by the conventional modes of photography, but rather by practices familiar from mobile communication. Mobile communication is tied to the cultural form of the telephone, which is manifested in interpersonal, direct and real-time interaction between people. The camera phone differs noticeably from the stand-alone camera, which as a communication device has not been able to provide a real-time photographic link between individuals. The screen of a mobile phone differs from the screen of a stand-alone digital camera in that it is a telecommunicative screen, it can show photographs of distant, yet contemporaneous occurrences. According to studies on camera phone use, mobile photographic communication is characterized precisely by immediacy; a photograph is sent forward from the camera phone quite immediately after the capture of the photograph. In order to further contribute to the research on photography, the author focuses expressly on personal photography as a communicative practice, and presents results from an empirical case study with Finnish camera phone users. There exists an extensive discussion of professional photographic practices but relatively few accounts of personal photography, such as family photography. This has led to leaving the uses of photography as a part of people’s everyday life and personal communication to a great extent out of consideration in the main corpus of studies on photography. However, after all, the great majority of photographs are taken and shared by ordinary people. In the article, mediated presence and the ritual and transmission view of communication are utilized as an overarching framework. The main argument is as follows: when photography becomes an organic and elementary part of telephone communication and the telecommunicative culture, the conventions of photographic communication turn partly toward the ephemeral, ritual and interpersonal. Many personal photographs act and exist only in the flow of images, where their main function is to mediate presence and create a momentary connection between individuals separated by distance.