A Collective Sense of Place and the Image of the City @ Urban Public Spaces: Analysis on People's Perception of User-Generated Image Content and Hashtags on Instagram

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dc.contributor.authorLee, Hanaen
dc.contributor.committeechairKim, Mintaien
dc.contributor.committeememberClements, Terry L.en
dc.contributor.committeememberBohannon, C. L.en
dc.contributor.committeememberXiang, Zhengen
dc.contributor.departmentArchitectureen
dc.date.accessioned2022-01-04T09:00:07Zen
dc.date.available2022-01-04T09:00:07Zen
dc.date.issued2022-01-03en
dc.description.abstractUrban public spaces are constantly restructured with new meaning, reflecting their socio-cultural, political, historical, and technological influences. Over the last two decades, the rapid technological advancements and increasingly widespread use of mobile devices give people a chance to share their experiences of their immediate surroundings through various applications. As these platforms enable people to create and exchange various forms of User-Generated Content (UGC) has gained wide attention as an invaluable source of information on human-environment relationships including people's timely perception, emotion, preference, and sense of place in public space. This study employs quantitative content analysis to identify collective perceptions of urban public spaces and their characteristics as projected through a photo-sharing social media application, Instagram. A total of 1,200 users' photos and associated hashtags geo-referenced to three New York City urban public spaces, Bryant Park, Madison Square Park, and Union Square. This study begins with a qualitative phase, employing manual categorization techniques to identify the concepts in visual and textual data. The second phase applied a statistical analysis method, a set of descriptive analytics, and chi-square tests to answer the research questions for this study. Findings indicate physical attributes of urban squares are the most dominant type of geo-referenced users' photographs through the visual social media platform. People's immediate perceptions vary with time and place, while the patterns of hashtag usage found in this study show no difference across the three urban squares. people's perception of urban squares goes beyond the boundaries of the square itself, encompassing the streetscape, buildings, and local businesses adjacent to the square. While people rarely utilize hashtags as a method of emotional expression, findings show a clear connection between hashtags associated with users' photo content and the image of the city.en
dc.description.abstractgeneralThe proliferation of mobile devices and social media platforms has given people new opportunities to document and exchange their experiences in urban public spaces. Publicly available content, which communicates timely opinions, perceptions, emotions, and preferences has a strong influence on the formation of the overall perception of urban public spaces in the digital environment. This study aims to explore how a sense of place—including emotional value, urban identity, distinctiveness, and seasonality—is built-in urban public spaces through one image-sharing application, Instagram. In addition, hashtags attached to the photographs are collected to help understand people's motivations for posting content in urban public places. The study compiles 1,200 photographs on Instagram taken at three New York City public spaces, Bryant Park, Madison Square Park, and Union Square. The study finds that people tend to post content that focuses on the physical appearance of the squares. However, people's perception of urban squares goes beyond the boundaries of the squares themselves, encompassing the streetscape, buildings, and local businesses around each square. One important function of Instagram in these spaces is for people to write information to document their experiences in the urban squares. There are also strong connections between the visitors' perceptions of urban public space as seen through their photographs and the image of the city.en
dc.description.degreeDoctor of Philosophyen
dc.format.mediumETDen
dc.identifier.othervt_gsexam:33345en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/107334en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherVirginia Techen
dc.rightsIn Copyrighten
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/en
dc.subjectsense of placeen
dc.subjecturban public spaceen
dc.subjectsocial mediaen
dc.subjectInstagramen
dc.subjecthashtagsen
dc.titleA Collective Sense of Place and the Image of the City @ Urban Public Spaces: Analysis on People's Perception of User-Generated Image Content and Hashtags on Instagramen
dc.typeDissertationen
thesis.degree.disciplineArchitecture and Design Researchen
thesis.degree.grantorVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State Universityen
thesis.degree.leveldoctoralen
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen

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