Title:
Photo engagement: how presentation and content of images impact their engagement and diffusion

dc.contributor.advisor Gilbert, Eric
dc.contributor.author Bakhshi, Saeideh
dc.contributor.committeeMember Essa, Irfan
dc.contributor.committeeMember De Choudhury, Munmun
dc.contributor.committeeMember Chau, Duen Horng
dc.contributor.committeeMember Shamma, David A.
dc.contributor.department Computer Science
dc.date.accessioned 2016-01-07T17:20:46Z
dc.date.available 2016-01-07T17:20:46Z
dc.date.created 2014-12
dc.date.issued 2014-08-22
dc.date.submitted December 2014
dc.date.updated 2016-01-07T17:20:46Z
dc.description.abstract The type of media shared through social media channels has shifted from text content to include an increasingly large number of images. Visual traces resulting from people's online social behavior have the potential to reveal insights about our habits, activities and preferences. The role of social network-related factors have been well studied in previous research. Yet, few studies have sought to understand how user behavior in social networks is dependent on the image itself. The goal of my dissertation is to understand how people engage with image content, and I seek to uncover the role of presentation and image content on people's preferences. To achieve this goal, I study the image sharing communities, Flickr, Instagram and Pinterest, using quantitative and qualitative methods. First, I show how colors -- a fundamental property of an image -- could impact the virality of an image on Pinterest. I consider three dimensions of color: hue, saturation and brightness and evaluate their role in the diffusion of the image on Pinterest, while controlling for social network reach and activity. Next, I shift the focus from abstract colors to a higher-level presentation of images. I study the role of filters on the Flickr mobile application as proxies to visual computation. To understand how people use filters, I conduct an interview study with 15 Flickr mobile users about their filter use. I analyze Flickr mobile images to discover the role of filters in engaging users. Presentation is not the only factor that makes an image interesting. To gain deeper insights in what makes an image more engaging in social image sharing sites, I study the images of people on the Instagram network. I compare images of people with those that do not have faces and find that images with human faces are more engaging. I also look at the role of age and gender of people in the image in engaging users. Finally, I examine different content categories, with and without filters, and study the impact of content category on engagement. I use large-scale data from Flickr and interviews with Flickr mobile users to draw insights into filter use and content engagement. This dissertation takes a first step toward understanding content and presentation of images and how they impact one aspect of user behavior online. It provides several theoretical and design implications for effective design, creation and imposition of rules on image sharing communities. This dissertation opens up a new direction for future research in multimedia-mediated communication.
dc.description.degree Ph.D.
dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1853/54254
dc.language.iso en_US
dc.publisher Georgia Institute of Technology
dc.subject Instagram
dc.subject Flickr
dc.subject Pinterest
dc.subject Colors
dc.subject Faces
dc.subject Image content
dc.subject Filters
dc.subject Social computing
dc.subject Multimedia-mediated communication
dc.subject Image sharing communities
dc.subject Visual effects
dc.title Photo engagement: how presentation and content of images impact their engagement and diffusion
dc.type Text
dc.type.genre Dissertation
dspace.entity.type Publication
local.contributor.corporatename College of Computing
local.contributor.corporatename School of Computer Science
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication c8892b3c-8db6-4b7b-a33a-1b67f7db2021
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 6b42174a-e0e1-40e3-a581-47bed0470a1e
thesis.degree.level Doctoral
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