Redefining screenshots: Toward critical literacy of screen capture practices

Abstract

With the help of screenshots, human and nonhuman actors alike document their professional and leisure encounters with screen-based technologies. In this article, I investigate how and why screenshots have come to be understood as faithful visual records of digital culture. By tracing screenshot’s origins to photographic techniques used for capturing medical imaging, oscillograms, and first applications of computer-aided design, I show a lineage of a straightforward mode of representation built on the assumptions of indexicality and iconic resemblance. However, this initially mechanical act of image reproduction has given rise to transformative practices of promotional and artistic screenshots (represented in this article by in-game photography), which subvert the conventions of accurate representation. By contrasting these visual phenomena, I argue for the redefinition of screenshot and show the need for critical literacy of screenshot-based images.