It’s not just WHAT you say

By Fiona Melita 

This week’s focus is on ‘self and community identity’, and how language can define these.  Advances in technology have brought a shift from real to virtual communities.  Pinterest is a virtual community that creates its identity through familiarity, images, and symbols. Further, Pinterest enables users to disclose their self-identity, rather than create one.  This disclosure, as opposed to creation of self-identity, is different to other networks.  I will now discuss these ideas, and why self-identity expression is different in Pinterest. 

Image 1:  The Language of Pinterest. (Pinterest, 2017).

We use language both to communicate and to understand what we experience.  It involves words, icons, symbols, images, diagrams, facial expressions, gestures, and body posture (Kuttainen, pers comm, August 23, 2017).  Language may influence our experience.  Many words commonly used on the internet such as troll, phishing, spam, and cyber-bullying give a negative impression due to their association with annoying or aggressive actions.  The words firewall, portal and platform could be considered inappropriate in the virtual world as they are names derived from physical objects (Tuan, 1991, p. 687).  However, there is a connection.  On the Internet, these words relate to the action or purpose of the physical object.  In this way, the words help us to imagine the object, relate the action, and therefore, understand.

TEDX (2013) explains how communication technologies spanning the telegraph to the “cell phone” and the internet, have brought us to now, where “there is no time, distance, or place, limiting human communication” (7:22).  Similarly, Kuttainen (pers comm, August 23, 2017) discusses modes of transportation, their connection to communication, and the subsequent bridging of distances.  Communication advancement has enabled a move from real to virtual communities. 

Language and naming play an important role in making a community identity.  Tuan (1991) discusses a “moral dimension to speech” (p. 684); that words we use can create and destroy atmosphere (Tuan, 1991, p. 684).  On Pinterest, language has a personalised touch.  In the ‘Notifications’ section, messages include the user’s name and are worded as if written personally to them.  Examples of this are; “You’ll be floored by these 12 boards, Fiona” and, “We think you might like these pins”.  A sense of warmth and familiarity is created.  Additionally, naming boards allows users to apply meaning of significance to them, thereby building their home page into ‘their world’ (Tuan, 1991, p. 686); or, building their home in the community.  Pinning images to named boards orientates the user in what would otherwise be an overwhelming sea of visual stimuli with no reference (Tuan, 1991, p. 687).  Standard categories, home page layouts, image placement, and location of function bars and tabs, maintain uniformity and familiarity.  Symbols unique to Pinterest, such as the ‘save’ pin shown in Figure 1, form part of its language. Familiarity and a common language contribute to place (Tuan, 1991, p. 689), and so, community identity. 

Sashittal and Jassawalla (2014) describe Pinterest as “An experience of authenticity” (p. 56).  The expression of self-identity is different to other social networks because Pinterest promotes meaningful connections over socialisation (Sashittal and Jassawalla, 2014, pp. 56-57).  Users are comfortable to show who they are, and what they are about.  Words name and describe boards, but predominantly, language is through visual images; connections are about common interests (Sutcliffe, 2014, p.16).  Users are searching for and collecting things that they are personally interested in, rather than trying to portray themselves as something they are not. 

Pinterest as a community, and one that promotes expression of a truer self, is an interesting revelation from the exploration of this week’s key concept. 


References 

Pinterest. (2017). The language of Pinterest [Image]. Retrieved from https://au.pinterest.com/ 

Sashittal, H.C., & Jassawalla, A.R. (2014). Why do college students use Pinterest? a model and implications for scholars and marketers. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 15(1), 54-66. doi: 10.1080/15252019.2014.956196 

Sutcliffe, T. (2014). Exploring naming behavior in personal digital image collections: the iconology and language games of Pinterest. (Doctoral Dissertation, University of North Texas). Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.elibrary.jcu.edu.au/docview/1725125661?pq-origsite=summon 

TEDX. (2013, January 13). The concept of place has changed forever: David Houle as TEDxSarasota [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ffEmsOgECg 

TUAN, Y-F. (1991). Language and the making of place: A narrative-descriptive approach. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 18(4), 684-696. Retrieved from http://learnjcu2017.jcu.edu.au