The Sociocultural Forms of Mobile Personal Photographs in a Cross-Media Ecology: Reflections Starting from the Young Italian Experience

Increasingly, snapshots taken with mobile phone appear to be living a less autonomous life, as they are ever more involved into intense processes of circulation and cross-media mobility. While camera phones are a well-established means for the production and display of pictures in contexts of physical co-presence, the archival and exchange functions appear to have been absorbed by online communicative and social practices. Our research revolves around three main issues: a) the effects of the new internet/photography merge (particularly, the new opportunities for transmission and sharing) on the social uses of personal photographs; b) the changes in the status of mobile photography and of its audience due to the online re-location of image collections; c) the implications for mobile communication studies. These points will be addressed in two steps. I will first trace an overall picture of these practices in the context of teens and young Italians digital cross-media consumptions (drawing on empirical qualitative data). My discussion is then contextualised in light of other recent contributions on the topic. I argue that the social uses and meanings of personal mobile photographs that are reiterated and reinforced in the present phase were already well-established in the pre-web 2.0 Italian camera phone culture. I interpret this as underscoring both the intrinsically relational nature of these practices, and their basic orientation towards micro-community maintenance and strengthening.