Instagram-City: New Media, and the Social Perception of Public Spaces

Abstract

How are we to recognize the social dimension of place without limiting ourselves to the physical? What tools can we use? What happens when we deal with new public spaces in a large and complex metropolitan reality? Things become complicated. But some new information technologies offer us the possibility of capturing an enormous quantity of data and images published by users online, using various applications designed for tablets and smartphones. Perhaps the most common one is Instagram: one of the most relevant mass phenomena in the era of social media, for having implemented a process of democratization of artistic photography, and the sharing of moments of everyday life. In the case of Le Centquatre and Place de la République, two very different public spaces in Paris, Instagram was used as a tool for documentation, as an observatory in the search for urban dynamics and the changes that are underway in contemporary society.