Context and Recontextualization on Pinterest

There are many images that can be found repeatedly on the website, posted by different users on different pin boards. This is an excellent example of what Nicholas Thomas (as referenced in Rose) refers to as the recontextualization of objects, which Rose explains by saying that "an object passes though different cultural contexts which may modify or even transform what it means" (286). Each time an image is posted it is exposed to a new set of users in a different way and therefore recontextualized. Pinterest is literally, as Thomas says, "a succession of uses and recontextualization" (286). The same image is used over and over in order to convey different meanings for different users.

If an image posted on Pinterest was first posted on a blog written by someone else, it could be seen in a completely different way once it was removed from its original setting. The environment in which that image is shown and the way it is featured have a significant effect on the way it is seen. According to Zettl, "it is not just content alone or form alone that shapes our media experience, but the synthesis of both" and similarly said by Dake, "The full impact of any group of aesthetic elements can only be understood through contextual and relational thinking" (Both qtd. in Dahman, 9).

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