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

Yıl 2024, Cilt: 7 Sayı: 2, 363 - 387, 30.10.2024

Mine Acar , Fatma İpek Ek

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

Öz

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.

Anahtar Kelimeler

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

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

Öz

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.

Anahtar Kelimeler

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

Kaynakça

• Abdel-Aziz, A.A., Abdel-Salam, H., & El-Sayad, Z. (2016). The role of ICTs in creating the new social public place of the digital era. Alexandria Engineering Journal, 55(1), 487-493.
• Acar, M. (2022). The Image of the City on Social Media: Izmir Konak and Bayraklı City Centers [Unpublished master's dissertation]. Yaşar University.
• Al-Ghamdi, S.A., & Al-Harigi, F. (2015). Rethinking image of the city in the information age. Procedia Computer Science, 65, 734-743.
• Boy, J.D., & Uitermark, J. (2017). Reassembling the city through Instagram. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 42(4), 612-624.
• Çelebi B. T. (2018). Urban Transformation in İzmir / Bayraklı District. (Master Thesis). https://tez.yok.gov.tr/UlusalTezMerkezi/tezSorguSonucYeni.jsp
• Data Reportal (2022). Digital 2022: Turkey. Retrieved October 20, 2022, from https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2022-turkey?rq=turkey
• De Falco, S. (2019). Digital and urban spaces: Oxymoron or binomial? Urban transformations in the digital era. Geography Compass, 13(10), 1-19.
• Georgakopoulou, A. (2015). Sharing as rescripting: Place manipulations on YouTube between narrative and social media affordances. Discourse, Context & Media, 9, 64-72.
• Huang, J., Obracht-Prondzynska, H., Kamrowska-Zaluska, D., Sun, Y., & Li, L. (2021). The image of the city on social media: A comparative study using “Big Data” and “Small Data” methods in the Tri-City Region in Poland. Landscape and Urban Planning, 206, 103977.
• Leaver, T., Highfield, T., & Abidin, C. (2020). Instagram: Visual social media cultures. John Wiley & Sons. Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. Blackwell: Oxford.
• Liu, L., Zhou, B., Zhao, J., & Ryan, B.D. (2016). C-IMAGE: city cognitive mapping through geo-tagged photos. GeoJournal, 81(6), 817-861.
• Liu, Y., Yuan, Y., & Zhang, F. (2020). Mining urban perceptions from social media data. Journal of Spatial Information Science, 20, 51-55.
• Lynch, K. (1960). The Image of the City. Cambridge, Mass., London: MIT Press.
• Mitchell, William J. (2003). Me++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Motamed, B., & Mahmoudi Farahani, L. (2018). The evaluative image of the city through the lens of social media: Case study of Melbourne CBD. Journal of Architecture and Urbanism, 42(1), 24-33. Nowacki, M., & Niezgoda, A. (2020). Identifying unique features of the image of selected cities based on reviews by TripAdvisor portal users. Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, 20(5), 503-519.
• Peng, X., Bao, Y., & Huang, Z. (2020). Perceiving Beijing’s “city image” across different groups based on geotagged social media data. IEEE Access, 8, 93868-93881.
• Shen, Y., & Karimi, K. (2016). Urban function connectivity: Characterisation of functional urban streets with social media check-in data. Cities, 55, 9-21.
• Stodola, S. (2017). Influence: How Instagram made all places any place. Flung Magazine, 13 June. https://flungmagazine.com/2017/06/13/influence-how-instagram-made-all-places-any-place/
• Wong, C.U.I., & Qi, S. (2017). Tracking the evolution of a destination’s image by text-mining online reviews-the case of Macau. Tourism management perspectives, 23, 19-29.
• Yeni Asır. (2015, January) Gelecekte İzmir'in bir numarası olacağız. https://www.yeniasir.com.tr/izmir/2015/01/03/gelecekte-izmirin-bir-numarasi-olacagiz
• Yılmaz, A., & Kocabalkanlı, E. (2021). The production of space through transmediated identity practices: Spatial self in Instagram at Mavibahçe shopping Centre in Izmir. Convergence, 27(1), 189-211.