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46 | Digital Media and Storytelling in Higher Education Visual representations on social media present a compressed moment in the form of a story. The content of the photos is usually stereotypical: an index image of a specific narrative structure. Based on a fragment of reality, the recipients complete the narrative and reconstruct the story. Private photos on social media referencing episodes of individual life stories have idealized content, sometimes manipulated by filters, but always symmetrically composed. The story behind a beach sunset evokes the narrative of an ideal and exciting holiday; the adolescent girl washing her hair in the mirror evokes a story of a first date; the photo taken at the gym hides the heroic struggle of the user to stay fit, and the picture of the Christmas tree and a child’s first day at school evoke the intimate family and social rituals of the user. The other characteristic visual narratives of social media are memes referring to collective experiences. These memes are usually first shared in thematic social media groups and then spread through individual re-sharing. The visual information is linked to a narrative that is meaningful to a given community, being linked to a cultural product (typically iconic scenes from famous films), cultural stereotypes of a community, or visual content linked to a current news story. DISTANCE LEARNING IS LIKE A SEANCE Figure 1. Distance education as experienced by teachers (Facebook)
