Creating Place Through Language

Place and language are integral parts of social networks as they assist in creating a unique atmosphere for the network as well as allowing the network to be identified by its language. As Tuan stated, ‘language is a component in the construction and maintenance of place’ (1991), which suggests that without language, a place cannot be created or maintain its specific ambience. Different language is used for different places, which is why it is such an integral part of establishing a place. If all social media platforms used the same language, they would not be able to be specifically identified and they would not have their own individual atmospheres. Not only does each social media platform have their own sense of place, but the internet in general has its own identity that differs to the real world. Again, language plays an important role in creating this as there are certain words used to refer to the internet that would not be used to refer to real-life objects. For example, words such as uploading, tagging, hashtag, etc. are only used when discussing the online world and not any aspects of reality.

Snapchat has a very unique sense of place as it has its own language used to describe features of the app. For example, words such as snaps, geofilters, stories, streaks, and facial lenses are all words unique to Snapchat and are associated with the app. ‘Naming is power- the creative power to call something into being, to render the invisible visible, to impact certain character to things’ (Tuan, 1991). By naming the apps features with specific names, it gives the app a unique character and allows the features to become part of this character. When people use these terms, you automatically think of Snapchat and imagine the virtual world created by Snapchat, such as the stories page and the different filters. This is because these words are only used in Snapchat, creating an exclusive virtual place.

 Image One: Snapchat Features (Veres. S, 2016).

As Kuttainen stated in this week’s lecture ‘ideas of the world are filtered by language’ (2017), and this is reflected in Snapchat as our ideas about the app are created by the terms used to describe Snapchat’s features. An example of this is Snapchat stories. The actual meaning of the word stories is ‘a narration of an incident or a series of events’ (Dictionary, 2017), and the creators of Snapchat have used this term to describe people’s daily posts. This

automatically makes you think that you have to post a series of photos to create a ‘story’ of your daily life. By using this specific word, it creates a specific idea for this feature which shows the power of language. If this feature was given a different term, it would have an entirely different perception.

The specific language used for different features not only in Snapchat but also in general life, assists in creating a unique place and allows people to associate the feature with the language used to describe it. Without language, these unique places would not be created and we would not be able to identify these specific places. 

References

Dictionary.com. (2017). Define Stories. Retrieved from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/stories 

Kuttainen. V.  (2017). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, narratives and the making of place lecture four: Maps. Retrieved from https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au 

Read. A. (2017). Getting to Know the Ghost. Buffer Social. Retrieved from https://blog.bufferapp.com/snapchat

Tuan. Y. (1991). Language and the making of place: A narrative-descriptive approach. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 18(4), 684-696. Retrieved from https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au

Veres. S. (2016). How to Use Snapchat for Small Business. Bannersnack. Retrieved from https://www.bannersnack.com/blog/snapchat-help-small-business/ 

By Jessica Bell.