It has not been—it is. The signaletic transformation of photography

Visual communion: The photographic image as phatic communication

“…According to some scholars (Sandbye, 2012), this change that started in the early 21st century as the Internet gained prevalence is so dramatic that we can now talk about analogous ‘old photography’ and digital ‘new photography’. Today’s photography is ‘a ubiquitous, social activity’ (Sandbye, 2012), and sharing photographs has become ‘a pervasive routine communicative act’ (Lobinger, 2016: 475). As Peters and Allan (2018) have expressed, ‘When any observed scene can be quickly turned into a sharable image, the way social life is seen and felt becomes constantly intertwined with this potentiality.…”

“…While old photography stored dear memories, new photography is also a performative practice connected to presence (Murray, 2008: 151; Sandbye, 2012; Villi, 2012: 49). Hence, Roland Barthes’ (1983: 77) famous notion that the photograph shows us ‘that-has-been’ is partially replaced by the notion that the photograph shows us ‘what-is-going-on’ (Sandbye, 2012). This present tense of the photograph is accompanied by a fleetingness or ephemerality (Bayer et al, 2016) of the photographic act.…”

“…Overall, a new digital media culture is referred to as phatic, a culture dominated not by informational intent, but by social intent (Miller, 2008). Similarly, a mode of photo sharing where photographs are shared mainly to nurture and to confirm social relationships is becoming more common (Sandbye, 2012; Villi, 2012), and the concept of phatic is increasingly used when reporting research related to visual communication, current photo sharing practices and social media (Bayer et al, 2016; Jerslev and Mortensen, 2016; Kofoed and Larsen, 2016). In phatic photo sharing, neither the content of the photographs, their visual qualities nor the verbal stories about those photographs are seen as the key features of sharing; rather, the communicative significance, the pleasure of communication and the visual connectivity are focal (Lobinger, 2016: 481).…”

Some Aspects of Aesthetic Creativity in Journalistic Photography

“…Focusing on these points indicates the mutation generated by the post-modern culture from the sober and immobile state of classical photography to the alive, artistic, more natural elements of life. Such snapshots are sought after and appreciated, being appropriated by the online users and distributed, placed in new contexts, both because of their aesthetic qualities, and for amusement or debate, which are sometimes very intense (Sandbye, 2012).…”

Foreword

“…11 She argues that the concept of the signaletic enables an analysis of the new forms of photographic practices. Due to digital technology and Internet distribution, photography has reached a new social regime, as it were, creating relational situations and affective involvements between bodies and the photographic material.…”