Sutcliffe Dissertation Proposal: April 2014

1TAMI SUTCLIFFE

APRIL XX, 2014

Unexpected ways people use language in large personal digital image collections

THE ICONOLOGY OF PINTEREST

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TAMI SUTCLIFFE

COST OF LARGE INSTITUTIONAL IMAGE COLLECTIONSExpensive to maintain[Examples: Public art museums, metropolitan mug shot binders, corporate graphics archives] CONTROL OF LARGE INSTITUTIONAL IMAGE COLLECTIONSInstitutional funding = institutional controls[Examples: Official curators, institutionally-approved indices w/controlled vocabulary, limited access]

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TAMI SUTCLIFFE

WHAT IS PINTEREST? http://www.pinterest.com • Free web site• Open invitations began in 2012• Millions of people actively “pin”• Sessions average 40 minutes • “Social collecting” site (Zarro & Hall)

SOCIAL COLLECTING = USER/CURATORS•Create and manage personal image collections•User-centered perspective •Cataloger role = patron role

http://www.pinterest.com/

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TAMI SUTCLIFFE

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

• Institutional gatekeepers of large image collections are trained in official naming conventions.

• Large public digital image collections outside of institutional control are now a reality.

• Behaviors of individual social image collectors have yet to be studied in the online environment.

This project will examine the behavior of individual image user-curators as they construct pin and board names within their personal digital image collections.

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TAMI SUTCLIFFE

NAME GAMES IN PINTEREST Each user-curator in Pinterest is given the technical capability to name and re-name images (pins), as well as categorize and re-categorize collections (boards). NAMING ACTIVITY IS NOT EXCLUSIVELY FOCUSED ON EFFICIENT IMAGE RETRIEVAL • Embed additional layers of expression in the

presentation of individual images and collections

• Increase the strata of possible meaning available to all viewers

• Provide a sophisticated level of interpretive expression and cognitive association

• Display a personally expressive form of communication

OBSERVABLE NAMING BEHAVIORS IN PINTEREST

Names become part of the meaning behind the concepts being staged:

• Puns• Word art• Alliteration• Malapropisms• Spoonerisms• Obscure words• Rhetorical excursions• Oddly formed sentences• ASCII art• Emoticons• Double entendres• Unique uses of upper/lower case fonts• Coded abbreviations• Creatively malformed sentence/word phrases

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TAMI SUTCLIFFE

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

• How do people use language when naming their personal digital image collections?

• Focus is NOT on image retrieval.

• Analyze how often the image names selected by Pinterest user-curators correspond to the Panofsky, Rosch and Shatford Layne matrix of subject matter categories, levels of categorization and image attributes.

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TAMI SUTCLIFFE

PRIMARY RESEARCH QUESTIONS •How frequently do the pin and board names created by user-curators in Pinterest correspond to the Panofsky/Rosch/Stratford Layne matrix? •Will information which is factual, recognizable and not specialized occur most often in board names?

•Will information which relies on specialized knowledge beyond the immediately factual occur most often in pin names?

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TAMI SUTCLIFFE

LITERATURE REVIEW: VISUAL CATEGORIZATION IN IMAGE COLLECTION INDEXING•Interindexer consistency•Automated annotated image data•Cognitive economy and perceived world structure•Literal-ness in images•Triads of visual categories: Rosch’s basic, subordinate and superordinate•Two Stage (primary versus secondary) subject matter categories •Defining image attributes: Shatford Layne•User behavior in image file naming•Image Name Iconology: Tools for assigning meaning (Iconclass)•Iconology: Panofsky and Van Straten EXISTING PINTEREST “RESEARCH”•Gender, Misogyny, Commercial Use and “Social Networking” •Bias in Pinterest “Research”

PANOFSKY, ROSCH AND SHATFORD LAYNE MATRIX:•Panofsky’s three strata of subject matter•Rosch’s three levels of categorical abstraction•Shatford Layne’s four divisions of image attributes

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TAMI SUTCLIFFE

ALPHA DATA COLLECTION: JAN-MARCH 2014

120 unique Pinterest images captured: three search terms with 40 images per term• All captured images exported to Word “maps” with names and originator data intact• Visual image, board name, pin name and originator data stored• Language stripped from image names and sorted alphabetically• Word frequency in image names calculated• Text clouds generated for both pin names and board names

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TAMI SUTCLIFFE

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WORDS OCCURING IN BOARD NAMES FOR PRIMARY SEARCH TERM [tree] :

DATA ANALYSIS METHODMethodological issues:

Previously observed limitations of Pinterest data collection Gilbert noted that obtaining a truly random Pinterest sample is not possible without an API from Pinterest, allowing researchers to capture live site data samples. A Pinterest API remains unavailable as of April 2014.

Scope and limitationsPinterest users can chose to remain anonymous in terms of reported demographic data so limited information related to users (age, gender, education ) can be deduced from categorization activity.

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TAMI SUTCLIFFE

BETA DATA COLLECTION: APRIL – JULY 2014

• Create 4 – 6 new sets of three search terms (primary/secondary/intrinsic) • Use search term sets to collect corresponding images with board and pin names• Capture data (images, names, originators) and compile• Analyze words in names• Attempt to assign names to the Panofsky/Rosch/Stratford Layne matrix.

EXPECTED RESULTS

User-curator language used in both pin names and board names will correspond to diverse levels of the Panofsky/Rosch/Stratford Layne matrix, indicating that the level of creativity involved in generating new image names is greater than previously expected– and expanding.

Names which are factual, recognizable and do not indicate specialized knowledge (the strongest positive correlation to Panofsky’s category of “Primary”) would occur most often

in board names.

Names which rely on specialized knowledge beyond the immediately factual (the strongest positive correlation to Panofsky’s category of “Secondary”) would occur most often

in pin names.

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TAMI SUTCLIFFE

POTENTIAL SECONDARY RESEARCH QUESTIONS •How could an understanding of the language used in personalized naming by user-curators affect the development of other large digital image collections?

•Would large digital image collections become more relevant or less relevant as image collections when individual images can literally be re-ordered and re-named by every unique user?

•How can navigation/retrieval/meaning be assigned within a large uncontrolled digital image collection when no outside authority predetermines the indexing parameters? Is such assignment necessary?

•What is a “collection”? Should images selected and named by a user-curator be redefined as something other than a “collection” when no controlling authority is responsible for assigning text to image?

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TAMI SUTCLIFFE

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

SELF-CURATED IMAGE COLLECTIONS LIKE PINTEREST : Allow user-curators to break free from vocabularies/ gatekeepers

PINTEREST USER-CURATORS:Develop particular sense-making behaviors while naming large, unstructured collections

BEHAVIORS WHILE NAMING COLLECTIONS:Reveal previously invisible underlying user needs

UNDERSTANDING SUCH NEEDS:• Improvements in user naming tools within other

large social collection systems• Better methods for users in other collections to

contribute meaningful image names• Reduced factors which appear to discourage

users from contributing to the naming process

14TAMI SUTCLIFFE

APRIL XX, 2014


Education

Sutcliffe Dissertation Proposal: April 2014