Mediated memory making: The virtual family photograph album

Abstract

Domestic photography and the family photograph album hold significance as artefacts “communicating an ideal familial image and reifying the familial bonds, and also preserving a memory of a specific time” (Sarvas and Frohlich, 2011, p. 148). However, today’s practice of domestic photography is generally relocated to social media (Sarvas and Frohlich, 2011). Photographs previously found in the family photograph album are now likely to be located on the screens of phones and tablets. Using a Domestication of Technology framework, this article discusses how families are using Facebook to create, curate, share and archive family memories. It shows how families go through the phases of appropriation, incorporation, objectification and conversion when they adopt Facebook as the family photograph album. The authors also explore ways in which virtual family photograph albums can result in parental tension around domestic tasks of sharing and archiving family memories online, along with the possible implications of creating a potentially embarrassing, unauthorized digital footprint for their children.