Culture, New Media and Emojis

According to Mc Luhan, culture is being shaped, according to how the communication has been built and any advancement in communication Technologies leads to shifting in the culture. And the change in the communication model shapes the social formation. Mc Luhan points out that “first we shape our tools then our tools shapes us” (Rige&Batus vd 2005:22). With a techno deterministic point of view, we should accept that it is inevitable for us to change our life style according to the changes in mass media communication.

With a question of “what is the mobile communication Technologies and how we should interprete the effect of emoji’s in our life style” should be bordered within the context of social formation. First we shoul put aside that with the mobilization of the communication Technologies and mass media, the coverage of communication Technologies have been widened and we became target audience in every minute of our Daily life. But he most important part of the mobile communication Technologies is “providing the chance of reaching anyone who is between the limits of coverage any time”. With the Technologies that we have achieved, we are able to send instant messages with social media and texting applications, if the people we are trying to reach is unavailable to answer, we are able to send text messages in order to reach. So this is an era of communication with the least borders throughout time. But if we try to understand the importance

131 Emoji’s as a Product of Visual Culture and a Discoursive Analysis Over the Meanings of Emojis of communication and its relation with the ideology we should build a sociological and historical perspective to understand the sontemporary situation.

As we have mentione before modernization has nearly ended the interpersonal communication and built it with the manners of meidated ways. But in the beginning people were trying to communicate with the voices and sounds which are formatting the basic language for the oral communication. According to Ong, while communicating; people uses gestures and mimics with hand and arm actions by dedicating all their senses into the process (Ong, 2002:5). But as Postman indicated language is also the most powerful tool of ideology itself; language determines the World as subjects and objects, what are the processes, what are events and what are the phenomenons (Postman, 2016:119). So the oral communication determines how we understand the World, how we divide it into parts and how we name the things and create an order to use it. By creating an order to communicate it is unevitable to create the discourse and ideology. Because after the creation of language rules, the determination of the systematic use of the language will trigger the construction of meaning.

Although, all the power and deterministic abilities of language, oral communication is still dependent to human memory, its traditional and without the ability of persistence (Ong, 2002:17,56). in order to subsidise the deficiencies of oral communication and oral culture, people needed to create a way of communication without speaking and uncommitted to the existence of human itself. This purpose leads us to written culture, which is much more complicated and dependent to the rules of language. in oral communication people may use exaggerated expressions, mimetic sounds or gestures to give the exact meaning of what do they want to tell. But with the rise of the written culture; rules become more important, the creativity of the narrator decreases and the discourse of the context gets syndetic (Ong, 2002:77). By the extending importance of the written culture formal and informal communication has become more dinstict to each other and personal experiences decrease dramatically in the communication process.

As we have mentioned above while the modernity breaking the relation between tradition and contemporary, it used all the benefits of the written culture. While we were mentioning that Hegel was calling reading newspapers as a Daily worship, the language of this worship becomes the written culture with its all rules and discoursive abilities.

With all the power of the written culture, by the invention Tv in communication Technologies, the importance of visual culture becomes imminent. With the rise of the visual culture; the dominance of vision, metaphors in visual design, terms of looking and seeing becomes important part of the communication and cultural studies (Hall & Evans, 1999:1). It is believed that what we name visual culture is “all the things that have been created by the human beings”. For example, forests are not a part of visual culture but afforesting a place is a part of visual culture itself or rainy weather can not be called as visual culture but shooting with a camera or drawing a Picture of it is exactly points out to visual culture. So what we have to understand from visual culture is, it is constructed and also shaped by the means of the ideology.

As we have mentioned above mobile communication Technologies, merges all these three types of cultural formation together and puts a mixture of it aside. With the rise of the mobile communication Technologies ability to communicate, oral, written and visual seems to have generalized across masses. But the most important thing about mobile communication Technologies is allowing the usage of written communication immediately by instant messaging applications and social media. With this ability it is clear that most of the people use the instant messaging services in order to inform each other. But as we have mentioned before the written language shows the lack of gestures and mimics which strengthens the oral communication. Also we have known that written culture mainly based on formal communication and also as we have mentioned it is under the discourse of the grammatical rules of usage. But as a Daily messaging or informing techniques, people uses the instant messaging services without formal reasons. Mostly they try to give a knowledge about their Daily life or their plans or actions. So the lack of missing mimics and gestures becomes more important. People require to give mimics or gestures and they

Emel Karagoz, Aysel Tapan

do not care about grammatical rules in Daily use. Mostly they do not obey the rules of written culture in order to explain their feelings or senses.

in this context we can see the emergence of the emoticons, emoticons are punctuations which tries to give the meanings of expressions. Basic punctuations such as; full stop, comma or parenthesis are used for shaping a visual version of mimics or gestures, like smiling, being angry or etc. After the usage of emoticons become common in written culture and the merge of the visual and written culture finalized, “emojis” the picturized versions of the emoticons are started to be used. While the emoticons become pictured and represented a meaning undoubtfully they’ve become constructed and ideological production visual culture. in order to understand the constructed notion of the emojis a survey of reception analyze has been conducted in this study.

2. Method

in our study, subjects have been chosen between 18-25 aged university students. As nearly all the studies over emojis have been indicated, the usage of emojis are more common between the ages of 15-28. So our subjects have been chosen from the age group which are using emojis the most. Before the reception analysis a detailed interview has been conducted over the subjects.

3.Findings

in our study all of the subjects declared that they are using emojis in order to tell their feelings and expressions in instant messaging. They point out that nearly in every text message they are using at least one emojis. Also sometimes the whole text message may completely sonsisted of emojis, such as just a smiley or an angry face.

When they’ve been asked why do they use the emojis instead of telling their feelings to their respondent? They all give an explanation about the easy use of the emojis and their lack of ability in order to tell their exact feelings or experiences. Their belief of that they are incapable of telling their feelings or expressions written is independent from their habits of reading or writing. It is understood that the choice of the subjects in written language differs according to the media itself.

Most of them answers that they are able to write scripts or scenarios but at the same time they insist that they are incapable of telling their feelings or expressions in instant messaging services. This is quite an interesting answer about the subjects. Because of the need in writing senses and expressions in written language, they all tell that they can not explain it in instant messaging services.

All the subjects declared that they are using instant messaging services instead of making a call or see the respondent personally. They indicate that it seems much easier to talk or contact in person. They informed that although they are messaging with other people individually, they also use messaging groups for work, study but mostly Daily chat. All of the subjects declared that they are at least a member of group and the most common issue in the messaging groups are gossipping.

Except one individual in 15 subjects declared that they’ve started a boy/girlfriend relation via messaging services and unexceptionally they all declared that they’ve flirted with the opposite sex more than once in instant messaging services.

All of the subjects think that not using emojis in texting seems insincere within the context of messaging. They believe that usage of emojis provide sympathety to the conversation and a sincere attitude to their reflections. Although they indicate that usage of emojis makes the conversation sincere, all of the subjects admitted that they are using fake emojis in messaging. What do we try to tell by saying fake emojis is; texting a smiley although it isn’t funny or they didn’t smile or laugh to the text. Also they admit that they flirt more easily comparing to personal contact, and they explain that emojis are very useful when flirting, because their attitude can not be seen or analyzed by respondent and they can give every reaction they want. The reason for us asking the flirting is, for the age group in our study it is one of the most important issues, and also it is one of the most intimate type of relation in Daily life.

133 Emoji’s as a Product of Visual Culture and a Discoursive Analysis Over the Meanings of Emojis The subjects that have involved in our study have been questioned if they do know the meanings of the emojis or not. All of them claimed that they knew the meanings of the emojis but 15 emojis that are shown by us could not be named by the subjects although those were selected by the most used emojis.

in the second part of the analysis, a text has given to the subjects, containing feelings, senses and expressions usually and it is wanted from them to write it down again by using emojis. in the end of the survey it has seen that none of the participants gave the same exact answers to the examination. By the way the usage of the emojis has been nearly same between the subjects. in the study it is seen that the subjects are more capable of telling issues about Daily life via emojis comparing to the sentimental situations. By the visual obsevation conducted by us we have found that although they do not give facial expressions to the text, they were using facial emojis in order to tell themselves.

in the 3rd part of the analysis, it is wanted from the subjects to write down a text again which is emoji used frequently in written form. All of the subjects were incapable of telling the facial expressions in the written form or they inadequate to portrait a sentimental situation. Again the Daily usage of emojis were described more easily comparing to the sentimental ones. in our study all the participants have completed the text in written form but none of the texts were the same to other.

in the survey we’ve found out that positive feelings such as: smile laugh and happiness are being told by more exaggerated smileys for example en emoji which is crying because of laughing.

But it is also seen that they rarely use the exaggerated forms of anger, fury or nerves. Such a result is showing us that although it is a written text and it is clear that is an academic survey, people were preferring to act within in the manners of ideology.

It is wanted from the participants to draw a pictogram or an emoji of themselves at that moment, independent from their skills in drawing they all refused to draw their situation or they told that it is impossible to create an emoji for their situation at that moment. When it is asked if it is the first time they’ve participated in an academic survey or not, it was the very first time of them all. Except two participants all the subjects asserted that if they join one or more academic survey again they would be able to tell it with emojis.

It is asked to participants, if the collection of the emojis is important or not while deciding which mobile device they are going to buy. 12 participants aswered that it is important for them.

They declared that it is very important fort he mobile device to get all the updates in applications and operating system. They belive that if the new emojis which are created by the application or operating system is not allowed by their devices to update, it is time to change it. Although not using more than %73 percent of all emojis participants insists that it is needed to reach the updates whether they use it or not. Only 3 participants indicated that it is not that important for them if their mobile device support the emoji updates or not. They declared that they only use some of the emojis and not even looking the new ones properly if they are going to use it or not. But they also referred that if their economical situation would be better, they would of course prefer the devices which would support all the updates for a long time.

Participants have been questioned aboutif they hare or send media such as photographs or videos via instant messaging services. All the participants told that they share or send files via message. It has been asked to participants as if they are still using emojis while sharing media, they all answered that they are using emojis to express their feelings or emotions towards the media that they’ve shared.

About the usage of emojis participants added that not having any emotions from the person that they’ve texted, makes them dispirited and if its the opposite sex or their boy/girlfriend they indicated that they hit the rock bottom.

The participants have been questioned that how often the check their instant messaging service sor social media messaging, half of the participants answered that they check it once in 15 minutes, 5 of them answered that they check it once in an hour and 3 participants indicated that they check it always and nearly always connected via computer or mobile phone.

Emel Karagoz, Aysel Tapan

They also points out that the number of the emojis they’ve been used is deeply attached to their sincerety with the person they’ve texted. They told that if they are sincere to the person that they’ve texted, the use much more emojis in a single text and sometimes many emojis only without a text.

But if they are not that sincere to the person they’ve texted they only use a single emoji with a smiley face or something like that. They expressed that it may be seen as a sign of sincerety to use that much emojis. Especially the woman participants expressed that if they use many emojis in their text it might be understood as a sign of “like” by the male participants so they pointed out that they are acting cautious while texting.

All of the participants in the study expressed that they do not like the new emojis which are animated. They all think that it spoils the nature of emoji, looks like a “gif” or a video and it is not that cool to use those. They told that the animated gifts are only being used if they are so sincere to the other side or a very unexpected situation (such as great happiness or sadness).

It is asked to participants that how many emojis do they have in their recently used tab under the instant messaging services. 5 participants had more than 30 emojis in the tab, 3 of them had more than 20, 4 of them have between 10-20 and 3 of the participants had less than 10 emojis in their recentky used tab under instant messaging service. Half of the emojis (12) were commonly used by all the participants. The different emojis participants were recently used was about sports, make up and family.

It is wanted from the participants to imitate the faces in the emojis but none of the participants accepted this idea and expressed that they found it too funny to try. They told that it would be seen very lame from the others if they try it and all of them expressed that it is phsically impossible to imitate most of them.

4. Conclusion

With the current developments in communication technologies within the modern era, contemporary society became much more mediated and distant in its communication. From the beginning of the time communication as one of the most important specialities of the human beings, evolved in order to make it more clear and comprehensible. Within this process beginning with the voice, human beings used every option to make themselves more communicatable. Voice has been symbolyzed with the alphabet by creating the written culture and societies preferred to draw paintings of the events which are important for them and created a visual culture.

in these days with the effectiveness of the media itself, medium became much more important than the message. With the change of the importance in subject, being reachable became much more important than the other aspects of communication. Mobile devices, Web 2.0 and user based created contents made communication devices muh more reachable and personal. With these developments and by the strength of the social media, socializing over media and being social on the media became

in these days with the effectiveness of the media itself, medium became much more important than the message. With the change of the importance in subject, being reachable became much more important than the other aspects of communication. Mobile devices, Web 2.0 and user based created contents made communication devices muh more reachable and personal. With these developments and by the strength of the social media, socializing over media and being social on the media became