How smartphone photos contribute to teenagers’ identity-formation
Dr. Michaela Kramer, media pedagogue at FAU, has investigated the influence of smartphone photography and the presentation of images on social media on the identity formation of teenagers and young adults. In doing so, she has developed a typology that describes different ways in which young people can present themselves through photos on Instagram, Snapchat and similar platforms and what this says about their process of personality formation.
In recent years, the smartphone has contributed significantly to the ubiquity of photography and its inclusion into our everyday lives. Especially among young people, users enjoy a the variety of options for photographic self-presentation and communication via social media. Based on this, Dr. Kramer’s qualitative study is dedicated to the significance of photographic practices for dealing with the questions of identity: Who am I, how did I become, who am I and who will I be?
For her doctoral thesis on smartphone photography during adolescence from the perspective of media pedagogy (“Visuelle Biografiearbeit. Smartphone-Fotografie in der Adoleszenz aus medienpädagogischer Perspektive“), Dr. Kramer had developed the term visuelle Biografiearbeit (approximated: visual biography-making) and with it a theoretical concept which shows the ways in which young people employ photography in their identity-finding processes. After receiving her doctorate at the University of Hamburg, she is now continuing her research at FAU.
“Life or biography is no longer just narrated, but photographed and filmed,” explains Dr Kramer. “It is no longer only events such as birthdays that are recorded, but everyday life in particular.”
Twelve teenagers aged 13 to 17 with different interests and social backgrounds were selected for the study. Their task was to tell the researcher about themselves and then choose five pictures from their social media channels, which were commented on and analysed.
Dr Kramer’s result is that the image motifs can largely be divided into body images (Körperbilder), reproductions (photographed photos and screenshots) and images of the surrounding world.
“Of course, this is only an excerpt,” Michaela Kramer emphasises, and explains: “Young people are complex as a social group and use smartphone photography in different ways and with varying intensity.” However, it can be said that social norms play a central role in smartphone photography and that teenagers hold different opinions in that regard. Using detailed interview analyses and so-called Bildpraktikanalysen in which both the photos themselves as well as the hashtags, likes and comments referring to them are interpreted, Dr Kramer identified three types of visual biography-making in her work:
- The artistic-ambitious type “Distinction”, who uses professional equipment to set themselves apart from their peers and takes artistic-aesthetic photos.
- The “Conformity” type, who exclusively uses the mobile phone for taking photos and focuses on pictures that put the body in the limelight. In doing so, they adopt poses that are ubiquitous on social media channels.
- The “risk minimisation” type, on the other hand, is insecure and only reluctantly and rarely presents themselves in photographs on social media. Therefore, these teenagers are more likely to share pictures of their environment or screenshots that carry a low risk of embarrassing themselves in front of others.
In her work, Dr. Kramer concludes that media have identity-forming value for young people. Her study has shown that visually representing their biography is important for young people; what is interesting here is that in doing this, they deal with their own past, present and future. The pictures not only show how they want to be seen by others in the future, but also trigger memories every time they look at them. This helps them to find answers to the question “Who am I?”.
The ongoing mediatisation and visualisation – communication via visual media becoming increasingly important among young people – offers opportunities and risks in equal measure and can now be further investigated by youth media research on the basis of this study.
The study was published by Nosmos-Verlag in the collection ‚Lebensweltbezogene Medienforschung: Angebote – Rezeption – Sozialisation‘: https://www.nomos-shop.de/titel/visuelle-biografiearbeit-id-89261/
From devices at FAU or using the FAU VPN, it can be accessed free of charge via https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9783748910237/visuelle-biografiearbeit