Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) / Digital photography has not only changed the nature of photography and the photographic process, but also the manner in which we share photographs and tell stories about them. Some traditional methods, such as the family photo album or passing around piles of recently developed snapshots, are lost to us without requiring the digital photos to be printed. The current, purely digital, methods of sharing do not provide the same experience as printed photographs, and they do not provide effective face-to-face social interaction around photographs, as experienced during storytelling. Research has found that people are often dissatisfied with sharing photographs in digital form. The recent emergence of the tabletop interface as a viable multi-user direct-touch interactive large horizontal display has provided the hardware that has the potential to improve our collocated activities such as digital photograph sharing. However, while some software to communicate with various tabletop hardware technologies exists, software aspects of tabletop user interfaces are still at an early stage and require careful consideration in order to provide an effective, multi-user immersive interface that arbitrates the social interaction between users, without the necessary computer-human interaction interfering with the social dialogue. This thesis presents PhoTable, a social interface allowing people to effectively share, and tell stories about, recently taken, unsorted digital photographs around an interactive tabletop. In addition, the computer-arbitrated digital interaction allows PhoTable to capture the stories told, and associate them as audio metadata to the appropriate photographs. By leveraging the tabletop interface and providing a highly usable and natural interaction we can enable users to become immersed in their social interaction, telling stories about their photographs, and allow the computer interaction to occur as a side-effect of the social interaction. Correlating the computer interaction with the corresponding audio allows PhoTable to annotate an automatically created digital photo album with audible stories, which may then be archived. These stories remain useful for future sharing -- both collocated sharing and remote (e.g. via the Internet) -- and also provide a personal memento both of the event depicted in the photograph (e.g. as a reminder) and of the enjoyable photo sharing experience at the tabletop. To provide the necessary software to realise an interface such as PhoTable, this thesis explored the development of Cruiser: an efficient, extensible and reusable software framework for developing tabletop applications. Cruiser contributes a set of programming libraries and the necessary application framework to facilitate the rapid and highly flexible development of new tabletop applications. It uses a plugin architecture that encourages code reuse, stability and easy experimentation, and leverages the dedicated computer graphics hardware and multi-core processors of modern consumer-level systems to provide a responsive and immersive interactive tabletop user interface that is agnostic to the tabletop hardware and operating platform, using efficient, native cross-platform code. Cruiser's flexibility has allowed a variety of novel interactive tabletop applications to be explored by other researchers using the framework, in addition to PhoTable. To evaluate Cruiser and PhoTable, this thesis follows recommended practices for systems evaluation. The design rationale is framed within the above scenario and vision which we explore further, and the resulting design is critically analysed based on user studies, heuristic evaluation and a reflection on how it evolved over time. The effectiveness of Cruiser was evaluated in terms of its ability to realise PhoTable, use of it by others to explore many new tabletop applications, and an analysis of performance and resource usage. Usability, learnability and effectiveness of PhoTable was assessed on three levels: careful usability evaluations of elements of the interface; informal observations of usability when Cruiser was available to the public in several exhibitions and demonstrations; and a final evaluation of PhoTable in use for storytelling, where this had the side effect of creating a digital photo album, consisting of the photographs users interacted with on the table and associated audio annotations which PhoTable automatically extracted from the interaction. We conclude that our approach to design has resulted in an effective framework for creating new tabletop interfaces. The parallel goal of exploring the potential for tabletop interaction as a new way to share digital photographs was realised in PhoTable. It is able to support the envisaged goal of an effective interface for telling stories about one's photos. As a serendipitous side-effect, PhoTable was effective in the automatic capture of the stories about individual photographs for future reminiscence and sharing. This work provides foundations for future work in creating new ways to interact at a tabletop and to the ways to capture personal stories around digital photographs for sharing and long-term preservation.

Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) / Digital photography has not only changed the nature of photography and the photographic process, but also the manner in which we share photographs and tell stories about them. Some traditional methods, such as the family photo album or passing around piles of recently developed snapshots, are lost to us without requiring the digital photos to be printed. The current, purely digital, methods of sharing do not provide the same experience as printed photographs, and they do not provide effective face-to-face social interaction around photographs, as experienced during storytelling. Research has found that people are often dissatisfied with sharing photographs in digital form. The recent emergence of the tabletop interface as a viable multi-user direct-touch interactive large horizontal display has provided the hardware that has the potential to improve our collocated activities such as digital photograph sharing. However, while some software to communicate with various tabletop hardware technologies exists, software aspects of tabletop user interfaces are still at an early stage and require careful consideration in order to provide an effective, multi-user immersive interface that arbitrates the social interaction between users, without the necessary computer-human interaction interfering with the social dialogue. This thesis presents PhoTable, a social interface allowing people to effectively share, and tell stories about, recently taken, unsorted digital photographs around an interactive tabletop. In addition, the computer-arbitrated digital interaction allows PhoTable to capture the stories told, and associate them as audio metadata to the appropriate photographs. By leveraging the tabletop interface and providing a highly usable and natural interaction we can enable users to become immersed in their social interaction, telling stories about their photographs, and allow the computer interaction to occur as a side-effect of the social interaction. Correlating the computer interaction with the corresponding audio allows PhoTable to annotate an automatically created digital photo album with audible stories, which may then be archived. These stories remain useful for future sharing -- both collocated sharing and remote (e.g. via the Internet) -- and also provide a personal memento both of the event depicted in the photograph (e.g. as a reminder) and of the enjoyable photo sharing experience at the tabletop. To provide the necessary software to realise an interface such as PhoTable, this thesis explored the development of Cruiser: an efficient, extensible and reusable software framework for developing tabletop applications. Cruiser contributes a set of programming libraries and the necessary application framework to facilitate the rapid and highly flexible development of new tabletop applications. It uses a plugin architecture that encourages code reuse, stability and easy experimentation, and leverages the dedicated computer graphics hardware and multi-core processors of modern consumer-level systems to provide a responsive and immersive interactive tabletop user interface that is agnostic to the tabletop hardware and operating platform, using efficient, native cross-platform code. Cruiser's flexibility has allowed a variety of novel interactive tabletop applications to be explored by other researchers using the framework, in addition to PhoTable. To evaluate Cruiser and PhoTable, this thesis follows recommended practices for systems evaluation. The design rationale is framed within the above scenario and vision which we explore further, and the resulting design is critically analysed based on user studies, heuristic evaluation and a reflection on how it evolved over time. The effectiveness of Cruiser was evaluated in terms of its ability to realise PhoTable, use of it by others to explore many new tabletop applications, and an analysis of performance and resource usage. Usability, learnability and effectiveness of PhoTable was assessed on three levels: careful usability evaluations of elements of the interface; informal observations of usability when Cruiser was available to the public in several exhibitions and demonstrations; and a final evaluation of PhoTable in use for storytelling, where this had the side effect of creating a digital photo album, consisting of the photographs users interacted with on the table and associated audio annotations which PhoTable automatically extracted from the interaction. We conclude that our approach to design has resulted in an effective framework for creating new tabletop interfaces. The parallel goal of exploring the potential for tabletop interaction as a new way to share digital photographs was realised in PhoTable. It is able to support the envisaged goal of an effective interface for telling stories about one's photos. As a serendipitous side-effect, PhoTable was effective in the automatic capture of the stories about individual photographs for future reminiscence and sharing. This work provides foundations for future work in creating new ways to interact at a tabletop and to the ways to capture personal stories around digital photographs for sharing and long-term preservation.

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Ubiquitous computing describes the aspirations of including information systems into the fabric of our daily lives. The emphasis of the user should be on what task needs to be achieved rather than how the system will do it. The interface of applications that are integrated into the home fabric needs to be delicate in the sense that it should give the feeling of being a part of the home rather than a piece of technology. The human computer interaction/interface needs to be cohesive with the environment people live in so as to maximise the interaction possibilities. Photographs are a very affective and efficient way of connecting people to each other. We should not forget the social role photographs have to play. The most important aspect of the picture is the story that it is trying to convey, the people in it, or the place it was taken. Emotions are a very private part of our personal life and how one displays it reflects one’s lifestyle. In recent years increasing efforts have been put into preserving emotions in photos particularly with the advent of digital cameras. Now photographs have become an important part of our lives and have significant social role as they provide an affective communication link between friends and families. This research will be looking at how people relate themselves to pictures and if we could capture their emotions and expressions to store them in a way that is representative of their feelings towards the picture. As emotions can be associated with pictures of family, friends, places, holidays, social gatherings or travel to mention some of the aspects, we will also be analysing as to how emotions change over a period of time and if it could be represented accordingly in association with digital photos. This will allow us to look into the factors, which can make digital photo sharing a more fun and enjoyable experience. This research will involve user based evaluations and a scenario based approach for modelling the photo sharing interface. The creation of photo sharing system, based on this approach, is then investigated using the method of prototyping. The research shows methods, architectures, and tools used to make the development process more efficient and help assess the viability of the system under conditions that simulate to everyday use of the photo sharing software. To generalise and communicate results, the project will seek to simulate the home environment in a laboratory setting, using prototypes based on current high-end computing devices. The .Net technologies used for rapid prototyping is introduced. The aim of this research is to provide a demonstration environment of a photo sharing software for the smart home, which will allow for Reception/Viewing/distribution of photos within the home environment. The data could incorporate Audio/Video/Text/Photos, and user input etc. The research will also help us understand various aspects of how people interact with Digital Photos, what they would like to do, how can storing photos be made simpler, annotation of pictures, how can sharing photo’s made simpler, and how we can design an application which would allow users to attach emotions to pictures. The photo sharing system will provide an effective means to receive and distribute emotional information based on personal and temporal relationships associated with photos. The research also analyses the role of human computer interaction when developing ubiquitous technologies for the smart homes where information is embedded in the environment people live in. The research will present an overview of how photo sharing systems can be developed and evaluated using prototypes and user evaluations.

År 1826, tog Joseph Nicéphore Niépce det äldst bevarade fotografiet. För att ta detta fotografi krävdes en exponeringstid på åtta timmar. En av Niépces största utmaningar var då att finna en teknik för att bevara fotografierna. Det blir väldigt tydligt att det förr var mycket komplicerat att ta ett fotografi, vilket kontrasterar till 2010-talet - där vi på ett ögonblick kan ta fram mobiltelefonen och fotografera en händelse. I denna studie har vi undersökt det sociala mediet och bilddelningstjänsten Instagram. Vi valde att studera eleverna i tre gymnasieklasser i åldersgruppen 18-19 år, på de kommunala gymnasieskolorna i Gävle - Borgarskolan, Polhemsskolan och Vasaskolan - vilka utgjorde urvalet i undersökningen. Vi besökte de tre skolorna och delade ut en enkät som eleverna fick besvara. Denna enkät innehöll frågor om bland annat självkänsla, hur de betraktar sig själva och hur de använder Instagram. Syftet med undersökningen var att se om nivå av självkänsla påverkade hur man använde Instagram. Vi ville också se hur användarna väljer att gestalta sig själva med Instagram som verktyg. Av resultaten fann vi bland annat att merparten av eleverna på alla tre skolor hade en bra självkänsla enligt dem själva. Majoriteten på samtliga skolor menar också att de själva inte använder Instagram som ett verktyg för att styra över hur andra ska se på dem - men de tror att andra människor gör det. / In 1826, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce captured the oldest preserved photography. In order to capture this photography, an exposure time of eight hours was required. One of Niépce’s largest challenges back then was to find a method which preserved the photographies. From this it gets apparent/obvious that it used to be very complex to take a picture, which contrasts to the present time where we in an instant can pick up our mobile phone to shoot an event. In this study we have examined the social media and photo-sharing service Instagram. We chose to research students within three classes at the municipal upper secondary schools in Gävle - Borgarskolan, Polhemsskolan and Vasaskolan, which consequently also composed our selection in the study. The topical age-group was 18-19. Further we visited the three schools and distributed the questionaire. This questionaire contained questions about self-esteem, how the students consider themselves and general Instagram usage. The purpose of the study was to see if the students level of self-esteem affected their Instagram usage in any way. We also wanted to distinguish how the Instagram users chose to frame themselves using Instagram as a tool. From the results we found that the main body of the students at all three schools had a good self-esteem according to themselves. The majority at all schools also argue that they do not use Instagram as a tool in order to control other peoples impression of them, but, they believe that other people do.

Before signing a contract, it is important to read and understand the terms in order to know what is being agreed to. However, it has been shown that this is not done to the same extent online. Even though users accept the terms of use for online services, the terms are rarely read, meaning that the user has no idea of what is agreed to. When it comes to social media sites, these have some sort of service for distribution of content, such as photographs. As these are considered creative works, they are most certainly protected by copyright. This means that copyright protection comes in question. As services are accessible from different nations, these need to comply with different kinds of legislation regulating the protection of copyright. The purpose of this study is to investigate the terms of use for specific online services available on the Internet for distribution of digital content and analyse the legal conditions in order to establish congruence with European and US copyright law. The sites legally gain rights to the content that is uploaded by the users. However, there seems to be some unclarity regarding the terms that potentially results in use of the sites that is not accepted. Further, there seem to be possible problems in protecting the moral rights of the authors due to the extent of the licences that is granted to some of the sites.

This general purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate how businesses and consumers are co-creating brand value on social media by sharing photos on Instagram. The main focus is two-fold, one is to look at how corporations like Nike and Starbucks are utilizing Instagram to engage customers; another is to look at how customers presenting brand images and identify with brand personalities. This research analyzed 238 customer-created images and 62 corporate-created Instagram images using a hybrid method of qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis as an empirical way to explore the big picture of this new and understudied topic. The data was collected through Keyhole and Statigram, two online social media analytical tools. The analysis of the data shows overall positive brand image sharing among customers, implicit, indirect tactics in companies' official image sharing, and customers' use of brand as a way to promote and express themselves. Overall, customers' brand value co-creation practice on Instagram focus heavily on the individuals' self expression rather than brand community building. The study also discovered valuable themes of the use of selfies and the self-directed sarcasm among Instagramers who share brand images. The findings showed an overall decentralizing brand value co-creation process and that marketers today will face more and more challenges in controlling and managing a consistent brand image. The study contributes to the understanding of visual communication and the new marketing paradigm in a visual centric digital culture.

In recent years, the internet has exploded of images. Not at least in the popular photo-sharing network Instagram as one of the fastest growing social network for the moment. Millions of people around the world share pictures and expose themself for friends and family. We were therefore interested in which experiences and attitudes users have towards their identities in relation to their self-image and self-presentation on Instagram. Furthermore, whether they in general have a primary interest in using Instagram as a tool to experiment with images to present their identity on Instagram, in which way they approach their Instagram follower’s expectations on how they present themselves on Instagram and if they are aware of any strategies in their self-presentation on Instagram. The result of this study is the fact that our respondents thinks that they do not intend to have a primary interest in experimenting with images on Instagram to present their identitiy, it is rather something that comes naturally in how they present themselves on Instagram. The primarily purpose of using Instagram do not appear to be for satisfying an experimental need in self-presentation on Instagram. It is rather to satisfy a social need. Following, it has emerged that they seems to have a varied self-awareness in terms of strategies and reasons for self-presentation and that they are significantly influenced by their followers expectations on their identity presentation.

Syftet med denna undersökningen är att genom det sociologiska perspektivet symbolisk interaktionism, undersöka hur användare av det sociala nätverket Instagram upplever aktiviteten som ett meningsfullt inslag i sin vardag. För att uppnå syftet utformades följande frågeställningar: På vilket sätt upplevs aktiviteten på Instagram som meningsfull? Vilka normer och förväntningar uppstår i aktiviteten? Hur anpassas aktiviteten efter dessa normer och förväntningar? Metod: Kvalitativ metod där användare av Instagram har intervjuats angående sina subjektiva uppfattningar om aktivitetens meningsfullhet. Intervjusvaren analyserades därefter genom det sociologiska perspektivet symbolisk interaktionism, med betoning på Erving Goffmans bidrag till detta. Resultat: Intervjupersonerna upplever aktiviteten på Instagram som meningsfull då det ger dem bekräftelse och skapar en känsla av gemenskap. I aktiviteten på Instagram skapas vidare en förväntan om att uttrycken ska vara roliga, kreativa och inspirerande, vilket innebär att uttryck som inte uppfyller detta sållas bort. Intervjupersonerna anpassar således ständigt sin aktivitet i strävan efter bekräftelse. Slutsats: Instagram är ett meningsfullt inslag i vardagen då aktiviteten uppfyller flera, grundläggande mänskliga behov. Detta sker dock inte villkorslöst, då man som användare behöver leva upp till de normer och förväntningar som skapas i aktiviteten för att uppleva denna som meningsfull. / The aim of this study is that by the sociological perspective of symbolic interactionism, investigate how users of the social network Instagram is experiencing activity therein as a meaningful element in their everyday lives. The questions asked were: In what way is activity on Instagram perceived as meaningful ? Which standards and expectations develop through the activity? How does the activity adapt to these standards and expectations ? Methods: Qualitative methods in which users of Instagram has been interviewed about their subjective perceptions of the meaning of the activity. Interview responses were then analyzed through the symbolic interactionism perspective, with emphasis on Erving Goffman's contribution to this. Results: The interviewees perceive the activity on Instagram as meaningful as it gives them confirmation and creates a sense of community. Activity on Instagram is expected to be fun, creative and inspiring, which means that expressions that do not meet these requirements are screened out. The interviewees are constantly adapting their activity to that expectation in their quest for confirmation. Conclusion: Instagram is a meaningful part of daily life as the activity meets several basic human needs. However, this is not unconditional, as the users need to live up to the standards and expectations that are created in the activity in order to experience this as meaningful.

A relação das pessoas com a fotografia vem sendo alterada pela conjunção de dois fatores: a evolução das câmeras digitais e o compartilhamento de fotografias na Internet. A popularização tanto das câmeras como da Internet criou condições para que as pessoas pudessem massivamente publicar imagens na rede mundial de computadores, tornando-se componente de uma modificação na cultura, definida por Henry Jenkins como cultura da convergência, em que as pessoas assumem um papel mais participativo na produção e consumo de bens simbólicos. O consumo e fruição da fotografia passam por transformações que envolvem o novo suporte: a tela digital regida por uma interface, e este suporte reduz a relação de tempo que as pessoas gastam observando a fotografia. O acesso rápido e fácil promovido pela rede também confere à fotografia a possibilidade de ter maior alcance, maior tráfego, o que pode conferir-lhe maior valor de exposição, no sentido atribuído a este termo por Walter Benjamin. Surgem comunidades de grande porte, como o Flickr, com bilhões de imagens publicadas. Na rede, elas também passam a estar indexadas por sistemas buscadores que permitem às pessoas encontrar fotografias com os temas que têm interesse e permitindo o contato direto com o autor das mesmas, o que possibilita o surgimento de um comércio direto de imagens. Todos esses fatores acabam por influenciar a forma que a fotografia é produzida e o espaço no mercado para a atuação dos fotógrafos profissionais. Para descrever esses fatores, foram realizadas uma pesquisa bibliográfica, uma entrevista aberta e algumas entrevistas semiabertas como abordagem metodológica. / The relation of people with photography has been changed by the conjunction of two factors: the evolution of digital cameras and the sharing of photography via the Internet. The popularization of both digital cameras and the Internet has created conditions so that people can prolifically publish images on the Word Wide Web. It has become a component of a cultural shift, defined by Henry Jerkins as a convergence culture, in which people take a more participative role in the production and consumption of symbolic goods. Consumption and enjoyment of photography has been transformed by a new medium: the digital screen controlled by an interface, and this medium changes the relationship with time that people have while observing photography. The quick and easy access promoted by the net also gives photography the possibility of greater reach and greater traffic, which can give them greater exhibition value, in the sense attributed to this term by Walter Benjamin. Large communities have flourished, such as Flickr, with billions of images published. On the net, they also become indexed by search engines which allow people to find photographs with the the themes that they are interested in and permitting for direct contact with the photographer, allowing for a direct market of images. All of these factors influence the form by which photography is produced and the marketplace for professional photographers. To describe these factors bibliographic research as well as both open and semi-open interviews using a methodological approach were conducted.