(1) LINE

9SNSs are now a part of everyday life in Japan; however, not everyone uses all types of SNSs. Japanese people use LINE and Instagram much more than they use blogs, chats, Facebook, and Twitter, to maintain their daily social relationships. WhatsApp, despite its function being similar to that of LINE, is little known among them; WhatsApp, mainly used in America and Europe, is used very little in Asia for a reason I ignore (some indicate that the difference comes from that of pricing systems of SNSs).

10LINE is the most popular application in Japan. It functions mainly on smartphones but can be used on computers also. The creation of LINE is closely related to humanitarian activities. In March 2011, a Korean entrepreneur, shocked by a globally transmitted television scene of the catastrophic earthquake in Japan, learned about the difficulty of communication among victims and their friends and families. Therefore, he created LINE to help them communicate easily.

11Today, most Japanese people use LINE to communicate daily with their families, friends, and colleagues. Through LINE, people can send text messages, photographs, and videos. Both audio and video phones are compatible with LINE. However, the feature that makes LINE unique is that communication is open to only members of a chosen group. Therefore, before initiating communication, one must create a group or be invited to join one. Usually, members of a group are acquainted in real life; when two people meet for the first time, they may invite one another to join a LINE group for future communication. One sends messages on LINE as a formal announcement, a small personal anecdote, an unusual event, or a private message to a particular person (function similar to e-mails).

12LINE users sometimes post their photographs in text messages that contextualize the photo or in an “album” that groups pictures. Pictures grouped in an album and presented in a square format can be scrolled like those on Instagram but without any hashtag or comment. However, the word “Album” that appears in a textual conversation (the user clicks this word to open the album) on the screen indirectly contextualizes the photography.

13Consequently, a person may participate in several groups that vary according to activities, gender, ages, or other criteria, creating a very complicated structure of SNS in Japan. In the present study, the students sent messages on LINE during their humanitarian activities when they had Internet connection.

(2) Humanitarian Activities (Borantia) in Japan

14Generally, for most Japanese people, “humanitarian action” means physical activities rather than intellectual work, despite the reality of humanitarian activity. These activities, often called borantia (from the English word volunteer) have existed for a long time but have been more widespread since the big earthquake of Kobe in January 1995.

15After this disaster, many Japanese people came to Kobe for borantia to support victims in the destroyed city. They picked up debris, brought food to victims, and searched for missing persons or objects. Since this event, the public realized the necessity of humanitarian action, and a law to promote humanitarian non-profit organizations was passed in 1998 [2].

(3) Students Participating in Humanitarian Activity in Cambodia

16In this study, we analyze digital photographs taken by students participating in humanitarian activity in Cambodia in August 2018, supported by a Japanese NGO, People’s Hope Japan (PHJ). This NGO engages in humanitarian activities in the province of Kampong Cham (east of the capital, three hours by car) along the Mekong, in an effort to provide reproductive health services in rural areas. However, the students’ field research involved collecting ethnographic data on basic and general features of peasant life, without focusing on reproductive health.

17Cambodia is known for successive civil wars, launched by the Vietnam War and finally ending in 1993. During this period, the four years of communist regime (1975 through 1979) involved the massacre of over one million people. The end of the civil wars marked the pacification and economic development of the country. Since 2010, spectacular urban development has made the Khmer capital a hyper-modern city, while peasant life has remained poor and precarious; schools and hospitals in rural zones are insufficient and deliver low-quality services. Consequently, NGOs such as PHJ support local services in these regions. However, the local staffs of the NGOs are too busy to address the general problems of inhabitants in their daily work. Therefore, for the past decade Japanese students have been brought to PHJ’s project site to gather such basic information as family history, local resource use, and cultural system. Before and after fieldwork, they visited such tourist sites as the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and Angkor Wat to learn the history of Cambodia.

18From August 25 to September 1, 2018, I visited Cambodia with eight students. For three days, we conducted interviews with peasants on their use of natural resources in three villages of the Kampong Cham province. Students took pictures using their smartphones during and after the fieldwork, and sent them to their friends and families via LINE. They posted 1,334 pictures on LINE. It was the students’ initiative to take pictures and upload them to their accounts. When they returned to Japan, I explained the subject of this study and asked them to explain their reasons for posting the pictures on the SNS.

(1) Picture Taking

19Students spontaneously take pictures using their smartphones as soon as they find interesting scenes or objects. Interviews confirm that students are conscious that their reason for taking pictures is to post them on SNSs, particularly LINE and Instagram. According to them, LINE allows them to hold discussions with acquaintances, while Instagram allows them to get “likes” generally from unknown users. In Instagram, pictures are often shown without any contextualization and can be browsed very quickly with a simple slide of a finger. Therefore, as L. Manovich indicated, Instagram users look for only beautiful pictures and not narrations (Manovich, 2017). Conversely, in LINE, pictures are posted with text messages in the form of conversations, and they generate narration. Narrativity is emphasized when the spectator tries to recognize an event or an experience in the picture.

20Sometimes, students prefer to take “selfies.” In a selfie, the camera is brought near the object, showing faces abnormally close or pictures in depth (in three dimensions). Female students are aware that selfies taken from a high position make them more “kawaii” (cute) with big eyes than those taken from other angles. Being complemented as kawaii is something that female Japanese students appreciate the most [3]. These pictures are often modified (smartphones are equipped with a function for this effect) to appear more kawaii and unusual. The motive for selfies is not only the desire to take a photograph but also the need to reinforce friendships. It is important for friends to move together to take the same picture as well as to be together in it.

21Students often have images of photographic masterpieces in mind, and consciously or unconsciously, try to take similar pictures with their camera.

(2) Publication of Pictures on LINE

22Students typically take many pictures and store them in their smartphones. They post them on LINE immediately after taking pictures or at the end of the day, in a group of their choice, and often regroup them in an album without any selection. All members of the group can download them from their group album. This picture sharing arises from the photographer’s willingness to maintain social ties with members of the group through the exchange of photos.

(3) Nature of Posted Pictures

23The nature of the pictures posted differs from one group to another. We examine the relationship between images and groups appearing in seventeen sample pictures chosen from a collection of 1,334 pictures posted on LINE.

24Student A says that he sends solo pictures to his family to show them that he is fine in Cambodia (picture A: in a park in Phnom Penh), because his parents are anxious about the danger of mines abandoned during the civil wars (luckily, almost all mines have already been taken away). To friends in Japan, he sends pictures of exotic landscapes and unusual scenes to trigger a series of comments from his friends (picture B: alongside a pool, and picture C: at Angkor Wat that traces publicity). He also wanted to take pictures during his fieldwork in the village but could not do so because he was too busy. In the village, he took pictures only of his respondents in front of their houses at the end of interviews (picture D: respondents in front of their house). These pictures show the respondents standing up but with no motion.

A. In a park (Student A)

B. Alongside a pool (Student A)

C. At Angkor Wat (Student A)

D. A respondent’s family (Student A)

25Student B sends collective pictures (picture E: in front of Angkor Wat) or pictures of Cambodian landscapes (picture F: Mekong at Phnom Penh) to his family. To his friends in Japan, he posts his own portrait (taken by a third person) showing him as kakkoii (cool) (picture G: in a bar in Phnom Penh) or pictures of unusual situations (picture H: in a bar in Phnom Penh). He also takes collective pictures of the research team in Cambodia (e.g., picture E) to share with them.

E. At Angkor Wat (Student B)

F. Mekong (Student B)

G. At a bar in Phnom Penh (Student B)

H. At a bar in Phnom Penh (Student B)

26Student C posts pictures of scenes where she and her colleagues are having fun or posing in front of the camera in an unusual way (picture J: in a park near the research site). These pictures are shared with colleagues in Cambodia. Selfies, showing friends directly in front of the camera, are also shared with the team in Cambodia. She sends pictures of exotic scenes or typical Cambodian landscapes (e.g., Ankgor Wat) or the daily life of peasants to her parents via LINE. To her friends in Japan, she sends pictures of unusual scenes: a scene of a truck bed (picture K: Staying in a truck bed during the drive is prohibited in Japan but not in Cambodia) and a picture of a boy eating a fried spider (picture L: Japanese people do not eat spiders, but Cambodians do). To her friends in Japan, she posts pictures of herself enjoying her stay in Cambodia (picture M: a selfie taken by her friend at Angkor Wat). She hopes these images make her friends laugh.

J. In a park (Student C)

K. In a truck bed (Student C)

L. Eating a fried spider (Student C)

M. At Angkor Wat (Student C)

27Student D exhibits a similar attitude. However, she confesses that she does not like being photographed, and takes only candid photos in which people do not look at the camera (picture N: peasants in a vegetable garden). Therefore, she maintains a distance from the people in the pictures. She took only one collective picture with her respondent (picture O: with a girl, at the left, that her group interviewed). As Picture O indicates, even if people are smiling in the picture, their bodies remain motionless, with their arms alongside their body, and without meeting eyes. Therefore, their behavior exhibits the social distance between the Cambodian (left) and the Japanese (right). Thus, this picture illustrates the difference in the sense of proximity between Cambodians and Japanese. According to her, this collective picture was taken only as data for the assigned work.

N. Vegetable gardens (Student D)

O. With a peasant girl (Student D)

P. With a friend (Student E)

Q. Cambodian dish (Student E)

28Student E likes taking selfies with friends, as doing so allows her to stay close to them (picture P: with a friend). She adds that with a selfie, she can get the self-portraits she wants and can modify them easily at will to make herself more kawaii. She sends these selfies to her colleagues in Cambodia. However, she does not send any selfies to her friends in Japan, but posts them on Instagram where people look for pictures they like by swiping their fingers rapidly. She says, “Pictures of landscape, I put on Instagram, not on LINE. Pictures with friends, I put on LINE.” To her family, she sends pictures of Cambodian dishes, because her parents like taking pictures of dishes in restaurants (taking pictures of dishes at lunch or dinner in restaurants is a very popular practice in Japan) (picture Q: Cambodian dish). Pictures where she strikes a special pose (to show herself kawaii) are, according to her, to be shared with only her colleagues in Cambodia; she does not dare to send them to her friends or family in Japan, because she feels somewhat ashamed to show these images to people who are not at the place.

(1) Representation of Body and LINE Groups

29Pictures posted on LINE necessarily generate narration through text exchange. In this context, pictures can be classified according to two criteria: the nature of images and that of the group.

30For the nature of images, pictures can be divided into two categories in accordance with M. Fried’s theory: theatrical pictures (TPs), where people are conscious of the photographer and spectators; and objective pictures (OPs), where people are absorbed in their action or where nobody is in the picture. There are two types of theatrical pictures: inactive theatrical pictures (ITPs), where people are motionless (usually with their arms alongside their body) (pictures A and D), and active theatrical pictures (ATPs), where people are in action toward the photographer (generally with arms raised at the height of the face) (pictures C and J). The ITP gives us an impression of distance and reticence: people in the images exhibit no explicit interaction with the photographer or spectators. Furthermore, the lack of interaction between people in the images and the photographer, expressed by the distance between them, gives the images an objective impression and makes them closer to OP. In contrast, the ATP suggests social interaction in progress between the people in the image and the photographer, and inevitably provides the spectators an emotional experience [4].

31Groups to whom they send pictures can be divided into three categories: colleagues on a mission in Cambodia, friends in Japan, and families. Evidently, colleagues on the mission share activities at the place, whereas members of the other groups and families stay far away in Japan while the students are working. The following table shows correlation between the two criteria of the nature of the images and the nature of the group.

32In this table, four characteristics are noted. First, students exchange TP alone with those in the place, whereas they send more OP than TP to their families. Second, they exchange ITP only as data for their activity reports; however, a friendly relationship is shown by ATP. Third, to friends in Japan, they do not send any ITP (meaning that ITP is used only as data for the academic report), in contrast with ATP and OP. In ATP, people pose in a way that is kawaii (for girls) or kakkoii (for boys), or are engaging in some unusual action in an exotic situation. Furthermore, selfies in ATP format are used to emphasize friendship ties among the people (including the photographer) in the image. Fourth, in all cases, it is important for them, especially for girls, to show themselves as kawaii (for girls) or kakkoii (for boys).

33In summary, OP is used to show “exotic” scenes in Cambodia to the people staying in Japan; ITP serves as data for the academic report; and ATP allows participants to maintain human relationships. Thus, the presentation of the body in action is necessary for preserving friendship ties on LINE.

34Therefore, ATP is directly related to social interaction. Here, body action is qualified in terms of kawaii and kakkoii. The word kawaii, though polysemic and fluid, is used to designate a certain appearance of girls or things that are cute, aesthetic, sophisticated, and especially sympathetic. The word kakkoii, equally polysemic and fluid, is used to designate a certain appearance of both girls and boys who are cool or sophisticated, though girls generally prefer the qualification kawaii rather than kakkoii (Yomota, 2006; Hirano, 2019) [5]. The two perceptions of these words constitute for students a rule for physical action in photography, especially in ATP. While the word kawaii evokes sympathy and triggers conversation, the word kakkoii provokes an exchange of commentaries among friends who compare those in the picture with the idealized image of kakkoii. Consequently, these words develop photographic narrativity and gender identity.

35In certain cases, students try to show themselves as kawaii or kakkoii through exaggerated and ritualized gestures; E. Maître de Pembroke (Maître de Pembroke, 2013) characterized these everyday gestures as cultural rituals. These pictures are shared only with colleagues for fun, and students recognize that it is shameful to show them to the people who do not share the experience. Therefore, ATP with ritualized gestures constitutes a secret shared with colleagues at the place, and strengthens friendship ties with people who are together in a foreign country. The exaggerated self-presentation as kawaii and kakkoii further characterizes selfies; in these pictures where the photographer is in the image, the friendship ties of the people in the image are strengthened even more because their bodies are inevitably close to each other.

36ATPs are thus taken and posted to invite members of the group to interact with one another. In this case, theatricality is the essential nature of ATP.

(2) Body and Public Space

37According to M. Fried, modernist paintings and photography are antitheatrical in that the attention of people in the image is absorbed in the scene in the artwork, and their absorption qualifies the inherent meaningfulness of the artwork independent of the spectators. In contrast, M. Fried criticized theatrical paintings and photography because the people in the image appear to be conscious of spectators. Therefore, the artwork depends on meaning outside of the artwork itself, often coming from preexisting stories or ideas at the expense of the proper meaning that the artwork itself generates. In our study, the students’ TP seems opposed to the modernist view. However, if we take a closer look, things become complicated. In ATP, people in the image try to be kawaii or kakkoii, in accordance with the idea of theatricality; however, this attempt to begin an interaction by generating sympathy invalidates the dichotomy between people in the image and the spectator. This means that the use of smartphones and LINE introduces the burgeoning of modernism other than that of Fried into the social world of students, the Arendtien modernism of space constituted by horizontal exchanges that generate new meanings.

38According to T. Kimura (2012), who explored the nature of sociability of Japanese digital natives, the sociability of youth born after 1991 is characterized by ambivalence: they wish to share an exciting moment with on-line friends but are afraid of rejection. In our case, the image of kawaii or kakkoii represents excitement to share without provoking any signs of refusal, because it generates sympathy among recipients. In this context, if we refer to the terminology of H. Arendt, public space is founded not only by the plurality of perspectives, but also by the exchange of comments and narrative dialogs, induced by the gendered body in action. Here, as T. Kimura (2012) suggested, a postmodern individual, whose identity stays undetermined, needs sympathy to share a moment. The necessity of the body in action, in the desire for kawaii or kakkoii, evidences the indispensability of the physical body to involve people in creating public space through digital photography.

39Thus, students need the physical body to maintain intimate relationships with friends even on-line; SNS revaluates the body. The students’ wish to show themselves as kawaii or kakkoii easily spills over into the camera frame; the practice of taking photographs strengthens the use of these gender qualifiers even in the daily scene and thus constitutes their public space.

40Examination of pictures posted on LINE indicates another aspect of sharing space. The Cambodian peasants on which the students conducted research appear only in ITP and remain motionless. The physical distance between the photographer and the peasants illustrates the social distance between the Japanese students and the Cambodian rural people, although the humanitarian activities in principle seek to bring the two sides closer. This distance observed in ITP corresponds to the formal relationship of V-form in the T/V distinction in language, where any familiar expressions are avoided. However, the distance observed in ATP exemplifies the informal and familiar relationship of T-form (Brown and Levinson, 1987). The distance in ITP is all the more underlined when students’ ritual gestures as well as their efforts to be kawaii or kakkoii strengthen their social ties between those who share cultural codes; therefore, the photography emphasizes the difference between the two sides, and hinders the constitution of a public space common to both Japanese students and Cambodian peasants. This distance is explained not only by the students’ short stay in the rural world (it is difficult to become familiar with peasants in three days) but also by the students’ fear and hesitation toward peasants that keep them from sharing exciting moments because of cultural differences. Accordingly, the students’ habitual mode of communication, observable both on-line and off-line, becomes an obstacle to intercultural exchange; thus, the constitution of an Arendtien public space is evident in this humanitarian activity.