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01Consuming Media 10/4/07 11:17 am Page 94

94 Consuming Media

always has a recent photograph of her son by the phone when she is waiting for him
to call her from Sweden. In this simple and moving example of intermedial use, she
can look at his picture as she hears his voice.
The social functions of greetings cards have many similarities to personal photo-
graphs. One of the more surprising findings of our study of vernacular images was
the time and care people devoted to selecting these seemingly simple mass-produced
images. And, similar to the use of photographs, it was not unusual for people, partic-
ularly women, to purchase duplicates of cards they especially liked so that they could
keep one and send one to a friend. Sometimes these cards followed particular themes
that they both collected. One woman reported that she was looking for a card with
a picture of a pig on it to send to a friend. She laughed and explained that they often
exchange pig cards ‘when we’re feeling fat’. This is a form of exchange where the only
reason is contact between friends, a form of female bonding. Men may also spend a
great deal of time finding just the right card to send, but always on an occasion when
congratulations or holiday greetings are in order.
Many people in our study reported that they never throw away the cards they
receive. One woman told us she had saved every card she had received since she was
five or six years old. Her collection of greetings, congratulations and postcards, care-
fully mounted into albums, was clearly a way for her to create and maintain a life
history. The greetings card’s materiality further adds to its value. The fact that it is
initially a mass-produced product does not prevent it from carrying meaning as a
metonym of personal history. Postcards on the contrary are an example of how
public images can move into the private sphere as gifts, when the card is received
from a significant other. 13 Even people who reported using electronic mail for most
of their correspondence said that e-mail messages could not replace the significance
of personal greetings cards. When gathered into an album or series of albums,
pictures and cards become a compendium of personal history, similar to a book in
form, but with the critical distinction it cannot be mass-produced. Each album is
unique.
This multifaceted pattern of personal image consumption suggests that the flow
comes to a near standstill as pictures increasingly pile up in albums, boxes,
cupboards, and now in computers. How do people deal with this ever-expanding
collection of personal pictures? Whereas few people maintain a personal attachment
to a particular television set or video player, and have no problem disposing of an
older model when they have the means to purchase a newer media machine, their
relationship to their pictures is different. A girl may replace the posters on her
bedroom wall, but usually keeps the old ones, and how does she then as an adult
throw away the pictures that meant so much to her when she was a teenager? The
box of family photographs that is accidentally thrown away during a move continues
to be mourned by the child who feels she has lost a record of her childhood.
Strong emotional ties are not exclusive to picture collections. There are other
media goods that many people regard as valuable and important to the construction
and maintenance of personal history and identity. Books, records and films are also