Sandy, a coup for Instagram
Hurricane Sandy does mark a turning point in the evolution of Instagram as the Iranian revolution and the Arab Spring did for Twitter? The question arises as to the height of the storm Monday night, the users of the photo sharing network exchanged 10 photos per second, according to its president, Kevin Systrom, who estimates that more than 230,000 the number of shots accompanied by Keyword sandy.
Instagram is a mobile application for smartphones that allows you to share and distribute our photos on Twitter, Facebook and tumblr. Acquired by Facebook last April for the tidy sum of $ 750 million, Instagram has over 80 million users worldwide who share more than 5 million prints per day. This is the equivalent of Twitter, but with images rather than words.
Kevin Systrom did not hide, he wants to be more than qu'Instagram platform to display photos of gourmet meals and kittens. With Hurricane Sandy, Instagram is therefore closer to its goal of becoming a social network of information to which people turn when something happens spectacular.
The trap of faked photos
This type of citizen photojournalism, however, has pitfalls, as we have seen Monday. Several photographs have been circulating fake (there are on the site instacane.com, reader photos of the hurricane). How to check their authenticity, like that video? "The first step is to check the image in contacting the person who took it to tell us more about the context, notes Craig Silverman, journalist, founder of Regret the Error and member of the Poynter Institute. To Instagram, you can ask the person to send us the original, unfiltered. "
Indeed, Instagram offers the possibility of using 15 filters to add special effects. But in the context of information, is it ethical to alter reality to make the scene more aesthetically pleasing?
"This can cause problems during a storm, while the sharpest images are those that are as realistic as possible, observes Craig Silverman. To avoid confusion, the media should stress that comes from Instagram photos and tell people that they may have been modified using a filter. "
For Richard Bégin, Assistant Professor, Department of Film Studies at the University of Montreal, the filter is also a way for the witness of an event to express an emotion.
"By using a filter, the witness takes the stage as the journalist who uses an exclamation point to emphasize emotion. These are questions that bring us back to the notion of objectivity. "
Hurricane Sandy does mark a turning point in the evolution of Instagram as the Iranian revolution and the Arab Spring did for Twitter? The question arises as to the height of the storm Monday night, the users of the photo sharing network exchanged 10 photos per second, according to its president, Kevin Systrom, who estimates that more than 230,000 the number of shots accompanied by Keyword sandy.
Instagram is a mobile application for smartphones that allows you to share and distribute our photos on Twitter, Facebook and tumblr. Acquired by Facebook last April for the tidy sum of $ 750 million, Instagram has over 80 million users worldwide who share more than 5 million prints per day. This is the equivalent of Twitter, but with images rather than words.
Kevin Systrom did not hide, he wants to be more than qu'Instagram platform to display photos of gourmet meals and kittens. With Hurricane Sandy, Instagram is therefore closer to its goal of becoming a social network of information to which people turn when something happens spectacular.
The trap of faked photos
This type of citizen photojournalism, however, has pitfalls, as we have seen Monday. Several photographs have been circulating fake (there are on the site instacane.com, reader photos of the hurricane). How to check their authenticity, like that video? "The first step is to check the image in contacting the person who took it to tell us more about the context, notes Craig Silverman, journalist, founder of Regret the Error and member of the Poynter Institute. To Instagram, you can ask the person to send us the original, unfiltered. "
"This can cause problems during a storm, while the sharpest images are those that are as realistic as possible, observes Craig Silverman. To avoid confusion, the media should stress that comes from Instagram photos and tell people that they may have been modified using a filter. "
For Richard Bégin, Assistant Professor, Department of Film Studies at the University of Montreal, the filter is also a way for the witness of an event to express an emotion.
"By using a filter, the witness takes the stage as the journalist who uses an exclamation point to emphasize emotion. These are questions that bring us back to the notion of objectivity. "