Books | The Social Photo by Nathan Jurgenson

For many of us, smartphones have meant that photography has become a key aspect of our lives, as we regularly use social media to share images of where we are and what we are doing. This book, while not specifically aimed at museums and galleries, is an interesting exploration of what the author calls the “social photo”, which has implications for how the sector engages with audiences. It might also encourage people to think differently about the display of photography itself in a digital age.

Museums are obviously already very active in digital communication, particularly social media, whether it is the Museum of English Rural Life using Twitter to spread the word about its quirky collection, or the Museum of Modern Art in New York sharing its work with a huge global audience of 4.5 million followers on Instagram.

Museums have also been using social media as the subject for exhibitions and displays. The most obvious example in the UK is From Selfie to Self-Expression, held at London’s Saatchi Gallery in 2017. This was described as “the world’s first exhibition exploring the history of the selfie from old masters to the present day”. Also in London, in 2012 the Photographers’ Gallery created the Media Wall, a permanent exhibition space to show digital work and to raise questions about the future of photography in the context of a globally networked audience.

Nathan Jurgenson is a social media theorist whose work centres on the idea of “digital dualism” – a phrase he coined to describe what he sees as the false belief that the internet is a separate social sphere, rather than something that is material and real. In The Social Photo, he argues that despite the fact that so many of us now use the cameras on our phones to capture and communicate our experiences, our thinking about photography has been slow to catch up. He says that this major fixture of everyday life is still seen in terms of art or journalism.

One of his key points relates to how smartphones have not only made it easier to take photos, but their use in conjunction with social media means that the barriers to photos being seen has also been lowered dramatically. Jurgenson goes on to argue that unlike analysis of traditional photography, which tends to focus on the photo as an object, the status of a social media image as an object, while still interesting, is not as central – the what and how of a social photo is less important than the why. 

He quotes new-media expert José van Dijck, who has written that young people “take less interest in sharing photographs as objects than in sharing them as experiences”.

Jurgenson also addresses the largely transient nature of social photography and how it is often briefly consumed and quickly forgotten: “Some photo apps embrace ephemerality by design – most literally Snapchat, which initially allowed users to exchange photos that would self-delete after viewing – but ephemerality is significant to all social photography.”

The fluidity and temporary nature of social photography is perhaps one of the most challenging areas for collecting institutions such as museums. But in recent years, the sector has started to debate ways in which to collect social media and represent it in displays.

The fact that lots more people take far more photos than they did before smartphones, and develop a strong visual literacy as a result of this, obviously provides opportunities for museums and galleries, in terms of engaging with wider audiences in new ways. Understanding people’s motivations for sharing images will help in this work. 

This short, thought-provoking book, which ends with a brief chapter on the social video, is one of several publications helping us to understand digital technology better. This is particularly important in such a fast-moving environment, where it can sometimes be a struggle to keep pace with the implications of changes and their impact on our work.