Thurlow, C, Aiello, G orcid.org/0000-0002-9636-1016 and Portmann, L (2020) Visualizing teens and technology: A social semiotic analysis of stock photography and news media imagery. New Media & Society, 22 (3). pp. 528-549. ISSN 1461-4448
Abstract
Previous research on verbal representations shows how the news media consistently depicts young people’s uses of digital media in a narrow, negative light. In this article, we present an innovative methodology for demonstrating how young people and their digital practices are visually depicted. We focus on stock photography produced by the commercial image banks which source the news media with much of its imagery. Following an indicative analysis of news media images, we present a social semiotic analysis (grounded also in a descriptive content analysis) of a dataset of 600 stock photos top-sliced from three major image banks. By pinpointing dominant representational, compositional and interpersonal meanings, we show how image banks and, in turn, the news media produce a rather pessimistic metadiscursive framing of ‘teens and technology’. These influential visualizations are often reductionistic – consistently centering technologies over relationships; they are also problematic in, for example, their inexplicably gendered and classist assumptions.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019, the Author(s). This is an author produced version of a paper published in New Media & Society. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications. |
Keywords: | Digital media, metadiscourse, news media, social semiotics, stock photography, visual content analysis, visual/media ideologies, young people |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Media & Communication (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 23 Sep 2019 14:10 |
Last Modified: | 04 Apr 2020 15:06 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/1461444819867318 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:151189 |