PhD Research:
@fellsfarmers
@FellsFarmers is a collective of Herdwick sheep farmers living and working on the fells of the Lake District National Park. Their families have farmed here for many generations, even hundreds of years! The pictures you see on @FellsFarmers are taken by these farmers to show their perspective of everyday life in the fells. This account aims to make a positive contribution to #LakeDistrict, and to enhance how the public see and understand the nature and culture of this unique landscape.
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The images were taken by farmers on everyday devices such as iPads or mobile phones, and the only changes to the images are made within the Instagram app. During my PhD, farmers took images for a year and these were added to the @fellsfarmers Instagram page.
Social Media has become an intrinsic part of everyday life for a huge part of the population. The internet has become a great source of information from which people can learn, as well as actively contribute to. Interactive online platforms such as social media have contributed to huge changes in the ways in which we share and know our lives and identities, and images are a key element of this communication. Visual Social Media is also personal, high quality, editable, and instantaneous in its delivery across the world.
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The main focus of my research is on the Instagram platform. Instagram is an image-based sharing platform, where users can easily upload, edit and share their own images. Unlike many other popular social media platforms (such as Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest), Instagram is predominantly based on users' original images. It doesn't offer a simple native means of sharing secondary sources (such as 'retweeting'), so Instagram's design encourages its users to upload original content.
The nature and culture of the Lake District is often the subject of social media content. There are many dedicated and extremely popular groups, accounts and hashtags of the Lake District across a variety of social media platforms, and there are now over 2 million public #LakeDistrict images on Instagram. These are not only for local businesses and organisations, but also for enthusiasts, visitors and photographers, to share their stories and images of the area.
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During the Lake District's World Heritage Bid, a wide variety of users, from organisations directly involved in the bid to local individuals and businesses, made use of images of the Lake District on Social Media. Social media has been utilised as an effective means to disseminate evocative and impressive images of the Lake District, both to develop a specific narrative and imagination of the Lake District as an awe-inspiring yet accessible place, and to distribute important announcements throughout the campaign.
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Image credit: Instagram.com
Visual Social Media & World Heritage Status
The success of the Lake District National Park was inscribed as an UNESCO World Heritage 'cultural landscape' in July 2017.
As has become popular in recent years in politics and current affairs, many high-profile individuals and organisations utilise Twitter as a means to communicate important announcements.
The Lake District's World Heritage Status was no exception UNESCO made this announcement to the public on social media platform Twitter. Many local organisations also made the announcement on Twitter.
Considering the significance of this news, we can reasonably assume that the images used to accompany such an important post were aiming to show the qualities for which the Lake District had been awarded the inscription. These images therefore show us an important insight into the key elements which these organisations might consider to encapsulate the outstanding universal values of The Lake District.
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The images here are those first used by prominent organisations to announce the World Heritage inscription to their followers. To what extent do these images consistently and effectively show the farming heritage of the Lake District?
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Image credit: Twitter.com
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