Slide - MARIZA GEORGALOU

Placemaking & place identity
in social media:
Snapshots from Facebook
Dr Mariza Georgalou
Lancaster University
m.georgalou@gmail.com
www.marizageorgalou.com
3rd International Hybrid City Conference, University Research Institute of Applied Communication,
National & Kapodistrian University of Athens • September 17-19, 2015
Aim
“Events and actions happen somewhere and
who we are is entwined with where we are,
where we have been, or where we are going”
(Barnes 2000)
Web technologies fundamental shift in how
we perceive + experience place.
Social media writing + posting multimedia
content is a self-reflexive process not situated
in a particular location.
It can exist anywhere en route construction
of a hybrid place identity as mobile, shifting.
How do Facebook users refer to places? Where
are these references tied up to places? What do
they imply or infer about place identities in
these references?
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Agenda
Place, identity and language
Background of study
Placemaking on Facebook
– Verbal check-ins
– Representational locating of self
– Culinary experiences + placemaking
– Socio-political aspects of places
Concluding remarks
3
Place identity
Place = location + everything that occupies
that location, i.e. tasks, practices, routines,
everyday life integrated + meaningful
phenomenon (Relph 1973; Myers 2006)
Place identity = assortment of memories,
conceptions, interpretations, ideas,
attitudes, values, beliefs, social meanings,
preferences, feelings about specific physical
settings (Proshansky et al. 1983)
Ways we understand ourselves by attributing
meanings to places.
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Place identity
& language
How does place acquire its meanings?
1) representation
(written, talked about, photographed)
2) situated interactions
(Scollon & Scollon 2003; Thurlow & Jaworski 2011)
Language can form + transform everyday
experiences of ‘self-in-place’.
(Johnstone 2011; Tuan 1991)
Places constructed in ways that carry
significant implications for who we are, who
we can claim to be or where we belong.
(Dixon & Durrheim 2000; Taylor 2003)
Means to represent, describe + symbolic resource
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Background
Discursive construction of identity within
Facebook – Greek users (Georgalou 2014)
– construction + co-construction
– multimodality
– textual practices
Theoretical + methodological frameworks
∙ constructionist approach to identity
∙ discourse analysis
∙ computer-mediated discourse analysis
∙ multimodal discourse analysis
∙ discourse-centred online ethnography:
observation + engagement
(Androutsopoulos 2008)
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Participants
& data
Helen
∙ born 1979
∙ BA, MA, PhD – Language, Literature, Linguistics
∙ Lecturer in Linguistics / EAP tutor
FB profile information
Status updates
Comments
Video & article links
Photos
Interview excerpts
Field notes
Informants’ comments on
analysis
May 2010 – April 2013
∙ Athens, Greece & UK (2 months / year)
∙ Hungarian partner lives in Budapest
Carla
∙ born 1975
∙ BA in Translation and Interpreting
∙ translator of Latin American literature
∙ Athens, Greece
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Placemaking
Placemakingon
onFacebook
Facebook
Verbal check-ins
∙ Organise perspective +
orient readers (van Dijk 2009)
∙ Place + emotions + activity
∙ Entextualisation: extract +
relocate instance of culture
(Blommaert 2005; Leppänen et
al. 2014)
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
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Placemaking on Facebook
Representational
locating of self
∙ Performance of identity + belonging
∙ Validate experience of being at certain
places experiencing certain moments
Havana, Cuba
profile pic
(Mendelson & Papacharissi 2010)
∙ Posing as placement action which
indicates + locates self (Jaworski &
Thurlow 2009)
∙ Tourism vs place that matters
Hungarian
countryside
profile pic
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Placemaking on Facebook
Representational
locating of self II
∙ Multilingualism
(English, French, Greek, Spanish)
∙ Song lyrics, poetry verses,
film titles + lines
∙ Ideas, feelings, memories
attached to locations
∙ Linguistic + cultural capital
∙ Playful engagement
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(Proceedings, p. 365)
Placemaking on Facebook
Culinary
experiences
& placemaking
∙ Food makes place symbolic
construct deployed in discursive
construction of imaginative
geographies (Cook & Crang 1996)
∙ Food as metonymy for nation
∙ In motion series of place ids –
inclusive ‘we’
∙ Places constructed interactionally
Gemista (stuffed vegetables)
2 Greeks, 2 Iranians, 1 Austrian (former / current UK
residents) comment (Proceedings, p. 366)
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Placemaking on Facebook
Culinary
experiences &
placemaking II
∙ Culinary tourism
∙ Food = transportable symbol
of place, moveable sign of Otherness
(Molz 2007)
∙ Eat ‘differences mobilities make’
(Molz 2007)
∙ Openness + desire to consume difference
+ competence in the other culture
Polish Zapiekanka
Placemaking on Facebook
Socio-political
aspects of places
∙ Physical environments =
social environments
∙ Economic, political, social
upheavals, crises consequences for place
identity (Proshansky et al. 1983)
∙ Check-in vs discursive
practice embedded in
broader socio-political +
historical context.
Placemaking on Facebook
Socio-political
aspects of places II
∙ Transgressive semiotics
TO RENT
FOR SALE
∙ Place as symbol of resistance
∙ Citizen journalism
∙ Implied representational
locating of self
(Jaworski & Thurlow 2009)
∙ ‘I’m there, at the heart of the
events, protesting + documenting’.
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WE STAY AT SYNTAGMA
Placemaking on Facebook
Socio-political
aspects of places III
∙ During crisis places become
‘unattractive’ + cause stress displacement
∙ Discourses about places become
deterritorialised acquiring irritated
style (Blommaert 2005; van Dijk 2009)
∙ Renounce identification with place:
1) deictic with pejorative nuance
2) condemnatory coinage
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Concluding
remarks
Place id: components + overlapping layers geographical, social, political, cultural, emotional.
With Facebook, users can bring together these
components + layers from virtually anywhere.
1. Place identity is different for different users.
2. Users identify with different scales or types of
places.
3. Place identity differs with respect to role in
given places.
4. Place identity is associated with different
representations of personal meanings + sociopolitical meanings.
5. Place identity is associated with different types
of discursive means.
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Concluding
remarks II
Place identity on Facebook
1) fluid
2) interactive, collaborative
Communicate about + through place
akomi kai otan den
vriskomai stin Ellada kano posts
gia themata pou aforoun stin
katastasi edo
(even if I’m not in Greece
I write posts on issues related to the
situation here)
Helen (online interview)
Communicate ‘something about themselves
that goes beyond the descriptive characteristics
of a place’ (Humphreys & Liao 2011)
– assert or eschew belonging
– communicate openness + respect to other cultures
– affiliate with (or disaffiliate from) certain place
through different languages
– make political statements
– disidentify with stressful aspects of a place
– raise awareness about local + national issues
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Thank you!
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References
Androutsopoulos, J. (2008). “Potentials and limitations of discourse-centered online ethnography”. Language@Internet
5, 8.
Barnes, R. K. (2000) “Losing ground: Locational formulations in argumentation over New Travellers”. Doctoral
dissertation. University of Plymouth, UK.
Blommaert, J. (2005). Discourse: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cook, I. and Crang, P. (1996). “The world on a plate: Culinary culture and geographical knowledges”. Journal of Material
Culture 1(2): 131-153.
Dixon, J. and Durrheim, K. (2000). “Displacing place-identity: A discursive approach to locating self and other”. British
Journal of Social Psychology 39: 27-44.
Georgalou, M. (2014). “Constructions of identity on Facebook: A discourse-centred online ethnographic study of Greek
users”. Doctoral dissertation. Lancaster University, UK.
Humphreys, L. and Liao, T. (2011). “Mobile geotagging: Reexamining our interactions with urban space”. Journal of
Computer-Mediated Communication 16(3): 407-423.
Jaworski, A. and Thurlow, C. (2009). “Gesture and movement in tourist spaces”. In The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal
Analysis, C. Jewitt, Ed. London / New York: Routledge. 253-262.
Johnstone, B. (2011). “Language and place”. In The Cambridge Handbook of Sociolinguistics, R. Mesthrie, Ed. New York:
Cambridge University Press. 203-217.
Leppänen, S., Kytölä, S., Jousmäki, H., Peuronen, S. and Westinen, E. (2014). “Entextualization and resemiotization as
resources for identification in social media”. In The Language of Social Media: Communication and Community on the
Internet, P. Seargeant and C. Tagg, Eds. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 112-136.
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References II
Mendelson, A. L. and Papacharissi, Z. (2010). “Look at us: Collective narcissism in college student Facebook photo
galleries”.
In The Networked Self: Identity, Community and Culture on Social Network Sites, Z. Papacharissi, Ed. London: Routledge.
251-273.
Molz, J. G. (2007). “Eating difference: The cosmopolitan mobilities of culinary tourism”. Space and Culture 10(1): 77-93.
Myers, G. (2006). “Where are you from?: Identifying place in talk”. Journal of Sociolinguistics 10(3): 320-343.
Proshansky, H. M., Fabian, A. K. and Kaminoff, R. (1983).“Place-identity: Physical world socialization of the self”. Journal
of Environmental Psychology 3(1): 57-83.
Relph, E. (1976). Place and Placelessness. London: Pion.
Scollon, R. and Scollon, S. W. (2003). Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. London: Routledge.
Taylor, S. (2003). “A place for the future? Residence and continuity in women’s narratives of their lives”. Narrative Inquiry
13(1): 193-215.
Thurlow, C. and Jaworski A. (2011). “Banal globalization? Embodied actions and mediated practices in tourists’ online
photo-sharing”. In Digital Discourse: Language in the New Media, C. Thurlow and K. Mroczek, Eds. London and New York:
Oxford University Press. 220-250.
Tuan, Y. F. (1991).“Language and the making of place: A narrative-descriptive approach”. Annals of the Association of
American Geographers 81(4): 684-696.
van Dijk, T. (2009). Society and Discourse: How Social Contexts Influence Text and Talk. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
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Image sources
Slide 2:
Slide 3:
Slide 4:
Slide 5:
Slide 6:
Slide 16:
Where are you?, Netflix TV program House of Cards (http://i.stack.imgur.com/TgRju.jpg)
You are here (http://pixel.brit.co/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/5-youarehere.jpg)
You make this place so much better, © Morley (https://instagram.com/p/iUf_yLvRFm/)
comic book woman (http://i.huffpost.com/gen/2540662/images/o-WOMAN-COMIC-BOOK-facebook.jpg)
typewriter © Kat Von D (https://instagram.com/thekatvond/)
vintage camera © MonsterGallery (https://img0.etsystatic.com/000/0/5148979/il_570xN.52869580.jpg)
Facebook & Greece, © extend graphics (http://visual.ly/facebook-use-greece)
Map and place pins, © wersm (http://wersm.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/pinonmap-657x360.png)
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