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.