TAMI SUTCLIFFE
APRIL XX, 2014
Unexpected ways people use language in large personal digital image collections
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THE ICONOLOGY OF PINTEREST

THE ICONOLOGY OF PINTEREST
TAMI SUTCLIFFE 2
COST OF LARGE INSTITUTIONAL IMAGE COLLECTIONS
Expensive to maintain
[Examples: Public art museums, metropolitan mug shot binders, corporate graphics archives]
CONTROL OF LARGE INSTITUTIONAL IMAGE COLLECTIONS
Institutional funding = institutional controls
[Examples: Official curators, institutionally-approved indices w/controlled vocabulary, limited access]

THE ICONOLOGY OF PINTEREST
TAMI SUTCLIFFE 3
WHAT IS PINTEREST? http://www.pinterest.com
• Free web site
• Open invitations began in 2012
• Millions of people actively “pin”
• Sessions average 40 minutes
• “Social collecting” site (Zarro & Hall)
SOCIAL COLLECTING = USER/CURATORS
•Create and manage personal image collections
•User-centered perspective
•Cataloger role = patron role

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STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
• Institutional gatekeepers of large image collections are
trained in official naming conventions.
• Large public digital image collections outside of
institutional control are now a reality.
• Behaviors of individual social image collectors have
yet to be studied in the online environment.
This project will examine the behavior of individual
image user-curators as they construct pin and board
names within their personal digital image collections.

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NAME GAMES IN PINTEREST
Each user-curator in Pinterest is given the
technical capability to name and re-name
images (pins), as well as categorize and re-
categorize collections (boards).
NAMING ACTIVITY
IS NOT EXCLUSIVELY FOCUSED
ON EFFICIENT IMAGE RETRIEVAL
• Embed additional layers of expression in the
presentation of individual images and
collections
• Increase the strata of possible meaning
available to all viewers
• Provide a sophisticated level of interpretive
expression and cognitive association
• Display a personally expressive form of
communication
OBSERVABLE NAMING BEHAVIORS
IN PINTEREST
Names become part of the meaning behind the
concepts being staged:
• Puns
• Word art
• Alliteration
• Malapropisms
• Spoonerisms
• Obscure words
• Rhetorical excursions
• Oddly formed sentences
• ASCII art
• Emoticons
• Double entendres
• Unique uses of upper/lower case fonts
• Coded abbreviations
• Creatively malformed sentence/word phrases

THE ICONOLOGY OF PINTEREST
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PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
• How do people use language
when naming their personal
digital image collections?
• Focus is NOT on image retrieval.
• Analyze how often the image
names selected by Pinterest user-
curators correspond to the
Panofsky, Rosch and Shatford
Layne matrix of subject matter
categories, levels of
categorization and image
attributes.

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PRIMARY RESEARCH QUESTIONS
•How frequently do the pin and board names
created by user-curators in Pinterest
correspond to the Panofsky/Rosch/Stratford Layne matrix?
•Will information which is factual, recognizable and not
specialized occur most often in board names?
•Will information which relies on specialized knowledge
beyond the immediately factual occur most often in pin
names?

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LITERATURE REVIEW:
VISUAL CATEGORIZATION IN IMAGE COLLECTION INDEXING
•Interindexer consistency
•Automated annotated image data
•Cognitive economy and perceived world structure
•Literal-ness in images
•Triads of visual categories: Rosch’s basic, subordinate and superordinate
•Two Stage (primary versus secondary) subject matter categories
•Defining image attributes: Shatford Layne
•User behavior in image file naming
•Image Name Iconology: Tools for assigning meaning (Iconclass)
•Iconology: Panofsky and Van Straten
EXISTING PINTEREST“RESEARCH”
•Gender, Misogyny, Commercial Use and “Social Networking”
•Bias in Pinterest “Research”
PANOFSKY,ROSCH AND SHATFORD LAYNE MATRIX:
•Panofsky’s three strata of subject matter
•Rosch’s three levels of categorical abstraction
•Shatford Layne’s four divisions of image attributes

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ALPHA DATA COLLECTION: JAN-MARCH 2014
120 unique Pinterest images captured: three search terms with 40 images per term
• All captured images exported to Word “maps” with names and originator data intact
• Visual image, board name, pin name and originator data stored
• Language stripped from image names and sorted alphabetically
• Word frequency in image names calculated
• Text clouds generated for both pin names and board names

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ALPHADATACOLLECTION:JAN-MARCH2014
WORDS OCCURING IN BOARD NAMES
FOR PRIMARY SEARCH TERM [tree] :
DATA ANALYSIS METHOD
Methodological issues:
Previously observed limitations of Pinterest data collection
Gilbert noted that obtaining a truly random Pinterest sample
is not possible without an API from Pinterest, allowing
researchers to capture live site data samples.
A Pinterest API remains unavailable as of April 2014.
Scope and limitations
Pinterest users can chose to remain anonymous in terms of
reported demographic data so limited information related to
users (age, gender, education ) can be deduced from
categorization activity.

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BETA DATA COLLECTION:APRIL – JULY 2014
• Create 4 – 6 new sets of three search terms (primary/secondary/intrinsic)
• Use search term sets to collect corresponding images with board and pin names
• Capture data (images, names, originators) and compile
• Analyze words in names
• Attempt to assign names to the Panofsky/Rosch/Stratford Layne matrix.
EXPECTED RESULTS
User-curator language used in both pin names and board names will correspond to diverse levels
of the Panofsky/Rosch/Stratford Layne matrix, indicating that the level of creativity involved in
generating new image names is greater than previously expected– and expanding.
Names which are factual, recognizable and do not indicate specialized knowledge (the strongest
positive correlation to Panofsky’s category of “Primary”) would occur most often
in board names.
Names which rely on specialized knowledge beyond the immediately factual (the strongest
positive correlation to Panofsky’s category of “Secondary”) would occur most often
in pin names.

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POTENTIAL SECONDARY RESEARCH QUESTIONS
•How could an understanding of the language used in personalized naming
by user-curators affect the development of other large digital image
collections?
•Would large digital image collections become more relevant or less
relevant as image collections when individual images can literally be re-
ordered and re-named by every unique user?
•How can navigation/retrieval/meaning be assigned within a large
uncontrolled digital image collection when no outside authority
predetermines the indexing parameters? Is such assignment necessary?
•What is a “collection”? Should images selected and named by a user-
curator be redefined as something other than a “collection” when no
controlling authority is responsible for assigning text to image?

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SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
SELF-CURATED IMAGE COLLECTIONS LIKE
PINTEREST :
Allow user-curators to break free from vocabularies/
gatekeepers
PINTEREST USER-CURATORS:
Develop particular sense-making behaviors while
naming large, unstructured collections
BEHAVIORS WHILE NAMING COLLECTIONS:
Reveal previously invisible underlying user needs
UNDERSTANDING SUCH NEEDS:
• Improvements in user naming tools within other
large social collection systems
• Better methods for users in other collections to
contribute meaningful image names
• Reduced factors which appear to discourage
users from contributing to the naming process

TAMI SUTCLIFFE
APRIL XX, 2014
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THE ICONOLOGY OF PINTEREST