The Image of the City on Social Media: Case of İzmir City Centers

Currently, social media has become a significant phenomenon that changes the way we perceive our physical surroundings. It corresponds to a tool that has the power of reproducing/reshaping the image of the city in the digital environment—it reflects the physical reality in an augmented way in digital reality. Visual-based social media platforms play a significant role in the process of reproduction/reshaping. The current study aims to research and understand the role of social media in terms of how it reflects the image of urban space, through a content analysis on Instagram and the perceptions of social media users. For this purpose, the still images posted between May and July 2021—which refer to two important temporal axes to understand the public and individual activities taking place in Konak and Bayraklı, the old and existing city centers of Izmir. Besides a survey was also conducted with social media users who previously have physical and/or digital experience of these city centers. By this data, it was aimed to reach the general perception about the image of Izmir on social media. In the end, a new Lynchian categorization to read and understand the image of the city on social media was proposed.