Inscribing place in Singapore: Instagram depictions of hauntedness. Issue 3 (27th May 2022)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Inscribing place in Singapore: Instagram depictions of hauntedness. Issue 3 (27th May 2022)
- Main Title:
- Inscribing place in Singapore: Instagram depictions of hauntedness
- Authors:
- Kaur, Ershen
Graham, Connor
Kai, Koh Hong - Abstract:
- Abstract: In this article we examine the construction and circulation of images of a purportedly haunted house in Singapore's folklore, Istana Woodneuk, through Instagram. Analyzing a corpus of 960 Instagram images, we first identify 14 tropes and then two overarching themes – haunted-place making and subversive imaging. We make three main points in this article. Firstly, we argue that the creation of Istana Woodneuk Instagram posts can be understood only against the backdrop of national anxieties about the constraint and control of land and history. Secondly, and relatedly, we posit that the bottom-up creation and collective sharing of these posts is an assertion of young Singaporean identity against a larger state narrative. Istana Woodneuk, in its ambiguity and hauntedness, along with Instagram's affordances, gives young Singaporeans a unique unregulated space for escape from "reality" and control. Thirdly, we argue that these Instagram posts blend frivolity and thoughtlessness with resistance and self-expression, where personal stories weave into a larger communal narrative that offers bottom-up alternatives to the state sponsored "Singapore Story." This intersection between Istana Woodneuk as a space, in contrast to other state-defined delineated places of death, and the infrastructural properties of Instagram are crucial to the construction of this larger narrative.
- Is Part Of:
- Information society. Volume 38:Issue 3(2022)
- Journal:
- Information society
- Issue:
- Volume 38:Issue 3(2022)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 38, Issue 3 (2022)
- Year:
- 2022
- Volume:
- 38
- Issue:
- 3
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2022-0038-0003-0000
- Page Start:
- 200
- Page End:
- 217
- Publication Date:
- 2022-05-27
- Subjects:
- Digital mortality -- haunted place -- Instagram -- Internet ambivalence -- remediation -- Singapore -- social media platforms
Technology -- Social aspects
Information storage and retrieval systems -- Social aspects
Information science -- Periodicals
Sciences de l'information -- Périodiques
303.483 - Journal URLs:
- http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/utis20/current ↗
http://www.tandfonline.com/ ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1080/01972243.2022.2071216 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0197-2243
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 4496.310000
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 22386.xml