Visual Conversation Styles in Web Communities

Imagery and picture sharing are an important and growing part of online communities. Many prior studies of online interaction and collaboration rely heavily on text. This study takes a different analytic approach by focusing instead on the images that individuals use to present themselves and to interact. Image data collected from several online communities is analyzed to characterize a range of visual conversational styles. Four specific styles of visual conversation are illustrated and explained; positional play, image quote, text-in-picture and animation. These visual conversation styles are contrasted with textual communication techniques that are commonly taken for granted. The discussion identifies several tradeoffs when designing communities to promote visual conversation