PHOTOS: VISUALIZING THE STORY
Lambert warns that in today’s society, the vast amount of commercial imagery creates people “defined by consumption” and therefore “less able to surface a sense of unique voice and individuality” (18). However, he insists that Digital Storytelling can counteract this “packaged” selfhood and help people define their own identities. According to Lambert, Digital Storytelling encourages people to reflect on themselves and their own lives if they so desire (44), allowing people to build their own identity instead of assuming one offered by mass media. For Lambert, these Digital Stories “often start with the pictures” (90) and that “the dominant approach is using still images, usually in small numbers” (38). In short, the personal photograph helps illustrate a person’s story and “brings things to life for the audience” (61).
Interestingly, Instagram fundamentally echoes Lambert’s Digital Stories in this way by also privileging the personal photo as a way to tell stories about “the lived experience of the author” (37-8) and helping ordinary people construct a personal identity instead of building one from media imagery. Up until this summer, when the company allowed users to upload 15 second videos, photographs comprised the entirety of Instagram’s uploads (Instagram Blog). Users post photos on Instagram that are mostly personal, either featuring them or shot by them. Of course, there are exceptions like giveaways that require people to repost an image as an entry requirement, but for the most part, people post pictures of their normal lives that they’ve either taken with their camera phone or had others take of them. Instagram makes a strong case that the “fragments” displayed are not simply “jumbles” of information and that screen culture doesn’t always fracture our sense of self or replace our individuality with mass-produced, brand-based identities. Rather, the photos on Instagram are selectively and thoughtfully chosen images that people post in order to tell stories about their lives and help people self-consciously think about who they are.
On Instagram, users can reflect personally on a certain subject or tell a longer story centered around a common theme, such as a trip, a personal journey, or an important experience, by combing multiple images and reviewing numerous scenes. We can see a clear example of an individual constructing a larger narrative by looking at Instagram user Diana Smith’s account, livylovestorun. She posts almost daily on her Instagram to document her journey to lose weight. Looking through her account, we see that the collection of images is not a disorganized mess of disconnected fragments. Rather, she:
Interestingly, Instagram fundamentally echoes Lambert’s Digital Stories in this way by also privileging the personal photo as a way to tell stories about “the lived experience of the author” (37-8) and helping ordinary people construct a personal identity instead of building one from media imagery. Up until this summer, when the company allowed users to upload 15 second videos, photographs comprised the entirety of Instagram’s uploads (Instagram Blog). Users post photos on Instagram that are mostly personal, either featuring them or shot by them. Of course, there are exceptions like giveaways that require people to repost an image as an entry requirement, but for the most part, people post pictures of their normal lives that they’ve either taken with their camera phone or had others take of them. Instagram makes a strong case that the “fragments” displayed are not simply “jumbles” of information and that screen culture doesn’t always fracture our sense of self or replace our individuality with mass-produced, brand-based identities. Rather, the photos on Instagram are selectively and thoughtfully chosen images that people post in order to tell stories about their lives and help people self-consciously think about who they are.
On Instagram, users can reflect personally on a certain subject or tell a longer story centered around a common theme, such as a trip, a personal journey, or an important experience, by combing multiple images and reviewing numerous scenes. We can see a clear example of an individual constructing a larger narrative by looking at Instagram user Diana Smith’s account, livylovestorun. She posts almost daily on her Instagram to document her journey to lose weight. Looking through her account, we see that the collection of images is not a disorganized mess of disconnected fragments. Rather, she:
1. Provides split-images comparing her old body with her ever-slimming shape
2. Records her diet efforts through meal photos
3. Documents herself exercising at the gym or running outside
4. Shows her clothes fitting better and better
While there are certainly some photos interjected that are not related to her weight loss, and the images are obviously only small pieces of her life, Diana clearly tells her followers a coherent, meaningful, and deeply personal linear narrative through her Instagram account as they trace through her archive or get updates via their own feed.
Within an individual’s Instagram account, multiple narratives, relieved scenes, and personal reflections coexist and coalesce with one another to help tell the broader story of one’s life and help people construct their personal identity. People are products of all the stories in their lives, and Instagram combines these singular narratives into a larger personal history. Looking through an entire account, we can see how the “fragments” Lambert criticizes become “building blocks” rather than remaining isolated, dislocated, and meaningless floaters. As Bryan Alexander, a senior fellow for the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education, explains, it’s possible to consider anecdotes and “short narratives as data points: too small to consider whole stories, but useful as material out of which to build stories...Anecdotes are also concrete, while stories build toward abstract knowledge out of them” (7). On Instagram, singular photos that seem to interrupt the flow of one larger narrative might actually help individuals construct a more complete self or personal identity. Collections of stories might appear unrelated, but they too work together to show how multi-faceted and complex we are as individual people. The meaning of the story told on Instagram comes from the fact that we are perpetually telling our personal life story by reflecting on and piecing together the little “nuggets” of people, places, and actions in our everyday lives. As we see how the so-called fragments work together and become a coherent whole, we begin to make sense of the world and the significance of our everyday lives. We can see this possibility by peering at my personal Instagram account by clicking here. While my account is composed of seemingly unrelated and random photos, they all help tell a story about my life and help share my personality or identity with others. Some photos work together to tell about a trip, some are about things I've seen on my daily runs, and others are about significant people or events in my life. Together, these "fragments" help tell my story and reveal my personal identity (or at least what I've decided to share with the public).
Above all, however, the photographs posted on Instagram problematize Lambert’s notion that ordinary people have largely lost the ability to be selective about the information constantly facing them everyday, and his insistence that this barrage of data hampers their ability to produce and share their personal stories. He claims that “Only people who develop effective filtering, indexing, and repacking tools in their minds can manage to successfully and consistently articulate meaning that reconstructs a coherent story” (17). What’s clear from Lambert’s statement is that he believes that people must be trained or taught how to filter and organize information and memories in order to create meaning and document their personal stories. For Lambert, his workshops and Digital Story approach are the best ways to help people learn these skills necessary to produce a succinct and meaningful story. But examining myself as an Instagram user who has never taken a CDS workshop, it’s clear that I know how to effectively filter information and digitally construct a meaningful story about my life as it currently happens. If we take a look at my personal digital photo archive on my iPhone alone, I have 281 photographs, but I only have 65 photographs posted on Instagram.
Within an individual’s Instagram account, multiple narratives, relieved scenes, and personal reflections coexist and coalesce with one another to help tell the broader story of one’s life and help people construct their personal identity. People are products of all the stories in their lives, and Instagram combines these singular narratives into a larger personal history. Looking through an entire account, we can see how the “fragments” Lambert criticizes become “building blocks” rather than remaining isolated, dislocated, and meaningless floaters. As Bryan Alexander, a senior fellow for the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education, explains, it’s possible to consider anecdotes and “short narratives as data points: too small to consider whole stories, but useful as material out of which to build stories...Anecdotes are also concrete, while stories build toward abstract knowledge out of them” (7). On Instagram, singular photos that seem to interrupt the flow of one larger narrative might actually help individuals construct a more complete self or personal identity. Collections of stories might appear unrelated, but they too work together to show how multi-faceted and complex we are as individual people. The meaning of the story told on Instagram comes from the fact that we are perpetually telling our personal life story by reflecting on and piecing together the little “nuggets” of people, places, and actions in our everyday lives. As we see how the so-called fragments work together and become a coherent whole, we begin to make sense of the world and the significance of our everyday lives. We can see this possibility by peering at my personal Instagram account by clicking here. While my account is composed of seemingly unrelated and random photos, they all help tell a story about my life and help share my personality or identity with others. Some photos work together to tell about a trip, some are about things I've seen on my daily runs, and others are about significant people or events in my life. Together, these "fragments" help tell my story and reveal my personal identity (or at least what I've decided to share with the public).
Above all, however, the photographs posted on Instagram problematize Lambert’s notion that ordinary people have largely lost the ability to be selective about the information constantly facing them everyday, and his insistence that this barrage of data hampers their ability to produce and share their personal stories. He claims that “Only people who develop effective filtering, indexing, and repacking tools in their minds can manage to successfully and consistently articulate meaning that reconstructs a coherent story” (17). What’s clear from Lambert’s statement is that he believes that people must be trained or taught how to filter and organize information and memories in order to create meaning and document their personal stories. For Lambert, his workshops and Digital Story approach are the best ways to help people learn these skills necessary to produce a succinct and meaningful story. But examining myself as an Instagram user who has never taken a CDS workshop, it’s clear that I know how to effectively filter information and digitally construct a meaningful story about my life as it currently happens. If we take a look at my personal digital photo archive on my iPhone alone, I have 281 photographs, but I only have 65 photographs posted on Instagram.
Obviously I’m highly selective in which photos I post and I constantly filter what information I want available online. There are pieces about my life I don’t want to share with the entire world, but instead I only provide information I want people to know about me. While I might be “bombarded with millions of on-digestible and non-memorable story fragments every time we pick up a phone, bump into a friend, watch TV, listen to the radio, read a book or a newspaper, or browse the web,” I certainly know, despite Lambert’s argument otherwise, how to “process [my] own experience and invent stories” (16), and I’m certainly not alone.
