What is the role of photography as a form of social communication?

Photography is an integral part of both personal memory and of social communication: When looking at my photos, many respondents were quick to underscore that they liked photography but that they generally took pictures of different things than what I had photographed. They took pictures of beautiful scenery and extraordinary events that they wanted to preserve. In this photo, a migrant worker is taking a photo of the scenery around the site where he works building wind turbines. He says that he is always ready to take a photo because you never know when you will bump into something of beauty.

He didn't used to share his photos online much, but started to share almost everything that he photographed after he moved from the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia to this area about six months previously. He uses photography to communicate the best parts of his life to his family and friends back home, but also uses it to preserve memories for himself and to share them with physically present friends. Immediately after taking this photo, he showed it to another worker at the site and then they watched together and laughed about a video that he had taken the day before, also on their work site. Visual communication through photography has become a very important aspect of preserving memories and of communicating events and emotions to others.

However, one of the most frequent comments that people in the town made on my photos is that my photos showed typical scenes or frequent actions. I had to explain that this was what I intended, that I wanted the photos that I took to show normal daily life and typical ICT usage practices in the town. When this goal was explained to research participants they were overwhelming positive about this opportunity to let people in other countries understand their stories, their cultural and social practices, and the extent and effects of Chinese economic development on the lives of regular people. However, the kind of photos that people in the town were used to taking and looking at in the media were very different than the kind of photos I was taking as part of this research project. The photos they were used to were often scripted rather than natural, and they generally aimed to preserve special occasions and solidify social connections rather than represent their everyday lives.