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Digital visual communication is recognised in literature as an effective and accessible form of communication ( Cruz & Lehmuskallio, 2016 Kress, 2003 Sinanan et al., 2018), with an increasing number of studies in the field of digital anthropology, media studies and Internet studies exploring the consequences of digital images on social media (e.g. In fact, it would be challenging to be a contemporary ethnographer without engaging with digital practices ( Pink, 2013) which in Japan and China at least, tend towards being highly visual. Through the smartphone, the production and circulation of digital visual media have become as costless and accessible as audio and text-based communication. In doing so, we show that there is much to be gained from looking at the digital practice of people later in the life course as a way to understand not only experiences of ageing but also more broadly how digital media are now implicated in what it means to care – a topic with relevance to all generations. We present ethnographic accounts of the ways that older people are innovating the performance of care in China and Japan. Through our comparative study, we seek to contribute to the effort of rethinking ‘age through technology while rethinking technology through age’ ( Danely, 2015, p. Our participants, mostly aged between 50 and 75 years, belong to a population who are largely absent from the literature on digital media communications. This article deals particularly with the rise of digital visual communication among older adults in China and Japan. In the last 15 years, social media have had a profound impact upon how we communicate ( Miller et al., 2016) and now, with the proliferation of smartphone use across all age groups worldwide, communication via smartphones has become increasingly integral to how we express care between and within generations, as well as in the maintenance of family relationships. Interpersonal communication has always been a key research area in social anthropology which is more broadly devoted to understanding people’s lives ( Horst & Miller, 2006).
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The ethnographies show that in some cases, the deployment of visual communication via the smartphone is not so much about being able to express ‘authentic’ personal feelings but rather, in being able to effectively establish a digital public façade according to social norms. In addition, the ethnographies point to a question about ‘authenticity’ in interpersonal communication. The ethnographies in both China and Japan find that, first of all, visual communication via digital media enables more effective and efficient phatic communication and emotion work.
WECHAT EMOJI KEYBOARD PROBLEM OFFLINE
Drawing on 16-month ethnographies conducted simultaneously between 20 in China and Japan, this article contributes to the discussion of visual communication in light of this semiotic shift happening online, which is then contextualised within people’s offline lives. This article deals particularly with the rise of visual digital communication among older adults in China and Japan. There is a pressing need to understand local forms of visual communication in the digital age, where the visual has become an essential part of daily communication. Digital visual communication is recognised in literature as an effective and accessible form of communication, with an increasing number of studies in the field of digital anthropology, media studies and Internet studies exploring the consequences of digital images on social media. It would be challenging to be a contemporary ethnographer without engaging with digital practices which in Japan and China at least, tend towards being highly visual. Several Chinese character shortcodes are, however, shared with the microblogging platform Weibo.Through the smartphone, the production and circulation of digital visual media have become as costless and accessible as audio and text-based communication. This is different to tapping the system-wide emoji button on the keyboard.Įnglish language shortcode names used by WeChat are not standardized in any way, and vary from other platforms. Users access WeChat-specific emojis (called Stickers in the WeChat interface) by tapping the smiley button within the WeChat interface. These use an Apple-like style, and in some cases, use the exact same graphics as those created by Apple for use in iOS. WeChat has support for standard emojis, as well as emoji shortcodes which display custom emoji designs inline with text.