The Iconology of Pinterest

Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2014 in the subject Communications - Public Relations, Advertising, Marketing, Social Media, University of North Texas (College of Information), course: Digital User Behavior, language: English, abstract: More than 70 million people worldwide have ¿pinned¿ personal image collections since Pinterest¿s launch in 2010. This book explores the unique sense-making behaviors of independent user-curators actively contributing to an evolving social digital collection. Image naming practices are examined using a matrix including Panofsky¿s three strata of iconological subject matter and a range of Wittgenstein¿s language game attributes. The exploratory approach taken in this book is especially helpful for information professionals seeking a springboard for further discussions on emerging user needs in digital image curation as well as for researchers interested in user naming behavior in social media collections.