Picturesque wounds:

Narrative

performance of self-

injurers on Flickr

October 12, 2011Yukari Seko (York/Ryerson

Universities)

Photo by Sebastian R

Internet and self-injury (SI)

Internet as a low-risk venue to search info, express themselves, find peers with similar interest, and formulate SI subculture

Rapid increase of user-generated multimedia SI content

Existing studies: predominantly text-oriented Tend to to rely on medical

interpretation Focus mainly on “communities”

Social media “Ego-centered,” relatively centralized

“I” network

Constant identity performance: “write themselves into being” (boyd, 2007)

Variety of social network besides cocooned “community,” through metadata and indexing activity (tagging, friending, linking, commenting etc)

Photo-sharing social media (6 billions photos by Aug 2011)

Folksonomy: user-generated indexing, collective knowledge building

Relative tolerance for content (user-led regulation, flagging)

Multi-layered social space (personal space, p2p network through “contact,” loose interaction via tag, comments, and group)

Flickr’s Multi-layered social

network1. peer-to-peer

contact

2. Via photo (comment/favorite)

Like it!

Thanx

4. Flickr group

Shared

topic

Join

3. Via Tag

boat boat

Modified the figure from Hansen, Shneiderman & Smith (2010)

Method Flickr as symbiotic assemblage of

technocultural entities

1. Identify Semantic Landscape through quantitative tag analysis

2. Interrogate social interactions between photo-uploaders and viewers (discourse analysis)

3. Visual content analysis of individual photographs

Research Subjects photos retrieved through text (keyword)

and tag 1051 photos retrieved via keyword “self-

injury” 864 photos via tag search

All photos are publicly accessible without Flickr account, marked as “Safe”

Textual info & metadata attached to each photo were retrieved via Flickr API

Image generated by www.taggalaxy.de

Flickr photos tagged “selfinjury”

Search style Keyword Tag

Mean # of photo 1051 864

#of unique tags 2161 1971

total# of tags 7949 8234

Average# of tags

8.7 9.5

Photos with no tag

137 N/A

Keyword vs. Tag

* Overlap btw 2 datasets = 508

self

inju

ry

self-

inju

ry

depre

ssio

n

cuttin

glo

ve

twlo

ha

scar

s

(no

tag)

blood

Self h

arm

To W

rite

Lov

e on

her

Arm

sse

lf

arm

s

inju

ry

Suicid

e

write her

arm

self-

harm

cuts

portrai

tcu

t

Addiction 36

5gir

l0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

Top 25 tags for photos found via keyword search

cuttin

g

blood

scar

s

depre

ssio

n

self

harm cu

t

Self-har

m

selfh

arm

cuts

girl

self-

muti

lation

scar

skin

anxi

ety

suicid

e

TWLO

HA

self

arm

self

muti

lation

to w

rite

love

on h

er a

rms

cutter

pain

addic

tion

portrai

t

wou

nds0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

Top 25 tags for photos found via tag search

Tag appearance frequency

59%14%

7%

4%

3%

2%4%

Tag Group

1 2 34 5 6

66%12%

6%

3%

2%

2%

4%Keyword Group

_x0001_1_x0001_2

Tag network for “selfinjury” tag generated by Nodexl

Medical interpretation

SI-specific term

Photography

Body Parts

SI-awareness

Photo by inju

Photo by SarahWynne

Photo by Cherry C.

Discussion SI photographs as potential modality for

self-disclosure that facilitates performative social communication

SI as an act to deal with emotional pain in a visible manner may provoke aesthetic impulse of self-injurers to visually narrativize their life

Flickr, as a social site of display, seems to encourage SI photo uploaders to label and share their life freely, not necessarily bound to medical diagnosis

Works cited boyd, d. (2007). Why Youth Social Network

Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life. In D. Buckingham (Ed.). MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Learning – Youth, Identity, and Digital Media Volume. Pp. 119-142.

Hansen, D., Shneiderman, B. & Smith, M. (2010)Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXLMorgan Kaufmann

Thank you!!

Yukari Seko

yukaseko@yorku.ca

@doggyjelly

Photo by DesolationSmile