Symbols are the meaning to life

There are symbols everywhere. Your life is surrounded with symbols that have many different meanings. What you see in the internet is what influences you in the outside world. All sorts of social networks have that idea of showing and even hiding these simple symbols anywhere when looking on a social network.

Tumblr has a broad artistic demographic. This makes for a space where all sorts of people can utilise their preferred artistic expression in various ways. Within this social network there are two main categories that Tumblr focuses on. Visual bloggers and verbal bloggers, which allows for a network that provides a range of both visual or verbal insights. An interesting model of this is posts that display both modes, for example often on Tumblr a writer will post a funny idea or short story. However, with Tumblr being such a diverse network, frequently sparking the interests of others, an animater will come along and add their visual interpretation on the concept, in the form of a comic strip or similar illustration.

Transformations in technology causes transformations in culture (Kuttainen, 2017), social networks wouldn’t exist without recent major technological advances. Therefor neither would online networks like Tumblr that contain these kinds of spheres, where different artists inspire each other and merge their ideas and modes of communication.

"The many elements that create the Tumblr space"

Depending on the person’s artistic specialty the mode of communication is just as important as the message. On Tumblr, the first thing you see at the top of your dashboard is a variety of ways to post content, this creates a unique space where you can view your desired subject in alternate styles.

The social network all have a similar way of communication. They may be different social networks but they do the same thing. The different techniques of communication are through symbols and these symbols can either tell a story or even strike power which can affect the individual. The techniques that Tumblr have done to create power and tell a story is by the pictures and Gifs. They individually have their own power to struck interest to each of the users.

Tuan (1991) said Naming is power the creative power to call something into being, to render the invisible visible, to impart a certain character. Creating power in the social network was simple for the Tumblr makers they had the knowledge to gain the power of the bloggers. An example of making something that is invisible visible are the users posts and this becomes visible by using the hash tags. How this works is that once the hash tag has been used it expands into another wide range of other interoperations to that hash tag. With this information that the user can see is that it brings a broader variety to a whole another meaning to a specific symbol or item.  

References

Tuan, Y. (1991). Language and the Making of Place: A Narrative-Descriptive Approach. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 81(4), 684-696. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2563430

Kuttainen, V. (2017). BA1002: Our space: Networks, narratives and the making of place, lecture 5: Power. (PowerPoint slides). Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au

Tumblr. Retrieved from google images

Sawyer, D. (2017). Corporate Knights. Retrieved from http://www.corporateknights.com/channels/climate-and-carbon/trade-exposed-14902613/