Contemporary ways of seeing: exploring how smartphone cameras shape visual culture and literacy

Abstract Visual language and culture are co-constitutive and constantly evolving. This transformation is more pronounced in the contemporary visual literacy landscape especially with widely used social media and more democratic technologies, such as smartphone cameras, which are used for myriad purposes and in diverse ways. These uses and purposes vary by culture and demographics but little is understood about how smartphone cameras shape contemporary Western ways of seeing: visual culture and literacy. Specifically, this study seeks to explore and identify how people living in Australia use their smartphone cameras to document their everyday lives. It also explores how these devices influence the participants’ visual languages and literacies. To analyse these changes, this study adopts a two-method approach. First, 30 participants were recruited from three different age groups. These participants donated a consistent two weeks of the images on their camera rolls for analysis. These images were then subjected to an 11-variable analysis. Second, 23 participants followed through with an interview to contextualise their photographic behaviour and identify the aspects they perceive shape their ways of seeing. These two methods allow an understanding of who or what is photographed as well as how and why these participants made images in certain ways.