The place of emplaced visualities: A case study of smartphone visuality and location-based social media in Shanghai, China

As camera phones become more commonplace in the explosion of smartphones – along with new contexts for image distribution like microblogging and location-based services (LBS) – we are witnessing emergent types of visuality. In particular, through LBS such as Facebook Places we see ways in which users create new contexts for the overlay between place, ambient images, and geographic locations. While globally camera phone genres like self-portraiture have blossomed, we are also witnessing the flourishing of vernacular visualities that reflect a localized notion of place, social, and identity making practices (Lee 2009). As LBS transforms the context, and thus content, for camera phone images, there is a need to reassess the role of such visualities. Can we speak of ‘smartphone visuality’? This paper considers the shift through a case study of Jiepang users in Shanghai. As an emergent area in mobile communication, we reflect upon some of the ways it rehearses and extends earlier studies on networked visuality as well as reflecting a localized notion of mobility and place.