The Image of the City on Social Media: Case of İzmir City Centers

Year 2024, , 363 - 387, 30.10.2024

Mine Acar , Fatma İpek Ek

https://doi.org/10.37246/grid.1282193

Abstract

Social media, which changes the way that we perceive our physical surroundings, currently corresponds to a tool that has the power to reshape the image of the city in the digital environment through a digitally reproduced city. Visual-based social media platforms play a significant role in the process of reshaping and reproduction. The current study aims to research and understand the layers of the digital image of a (digital) city, as reflected and reproduced on social media, firstly through a content analysis on Instagram. For this purpose, we collected samples of the images/videos posted between May and July 2021 in Konak and Bayraklı, the existing and prospective city centers of Izmir. Secondly, we surveyed social media users who previously had physical and/or digital experience of these city centers. With this sample data, we proposed a new categorization to understand the digital image of the (digital) city in a parallel way to the classical Lynchian theory. In the end, it was seen that, in the digital realm, there is a digital city that needs to be defined and categorized according to its peculiar characteristics, and the image of this city is user-generated whose process evolves (inter)subjectively through different categories.

Keywords

city image, social media, reproduction of urban space, digital space, subjectivity

Instagram’da Dijital Olarak Yeniden Üretilen Kentin İmgesi: İzmir Kent Merkezleri Örneği

Abstract

Fiziksel çevremizi algılama biçimimizi değiştiren sosyal medya, günümüzde dijital ortamda yeniden üretilen kentler aracılığıyla, bu kentlerin imgesini yeniden şekillendirme gücüne sahip bir araca karşılık gelmektedir. Görsel tabanlı sosyal medya platformları bu yeniden şekillendirme ve üretim sürecinde önemli rol oynamaktadır. Bu bağlamda mevcut çalışma, öncelikle Instagram temelli içerik analizi yoluyla, sosyal medyada yansıtılan ve yeniden üretilen (dijital) kentin dijital imgesinin katmanlarını araştırmayı ve anlamayı amaçlamaktadır. Bu amaçla öncelikle, İzmir’in mevcut ve gelecekteki kent merkezleri olarak tanımlanan Konak ve Bayraklı için, 2021 Mayıs ve Temmuz ayları arasında Instagram’da paylaşılan görüntü/video örnekleri derlenmiştir. İkinci olarak, daha önce bu kent merkezlerinde fiziksel ve/veya dijital deneyime sahip olan sosyal medya kullanıcılarına bir anket uygulanmıştır. Söz konusu verilerle, klasik Lynch kuramına da koşut olarak, (dijital) kentin dijital imgesini anlamaya yönelik yeni bir kategorizasyon sistemi önerilmiştir. Çalışmanın sonucunda ise, dijital ortamda, kendine özgü özelliklerine göre tanımlanması ve kategorilerine ayrılması gereken bir dijital kentin var olduğu anlaşılmış, bu kentin imgesinin kullanıcılar tarafından oluşturulduğu ve bu sürecin farklı kategoriler aracılığıyla öznesel (ve özneler arası) olarak evrildiği görülmüştür.

Keywords

Kent imgesi, Sosyal medya, Kentsel mekânın yeniden üretimi, Dijital mekân, Öznesellik

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