Screenshots have generated new forms of storytelling, from Twitter fan fiction to desktop film
Screenshots are as banal as they are ubiquitous. Nowadays, virtually all computer and digital mobile devices can generate a screenshot with a quick pair of key presses.
Maybe that's why they have remained largely underappreciated as a creative practice.
Yet, a closer look at the screenshot tells us interesting stories about not only how media transforms over time, but also how even the humblest technical operation may give rise to sophisticated cultural forms.
What began as a simple way to document electronic images has evolved into a form of expression of its own.
Portable form of annotation
Because screenshots are so simple to make, they're a convenient form of annotation. Over the years, computer media have become increasingly dynamic and abundant to the point of being overwhelming.
Screenshots provide a way for users to deal with this issue by isolating certain elements from the huge volume of data they encounter every day and preserving these elements as self-contained pictures.
Screenshots facilitate recollecting content in visual format. Part of their appeal is to sidestep the exclusivity and ephemerality of social media: for example, when people want to share a social media post with someone who isn't a user on that platform.
The power of the screenshot comes from this capacity to displace captured information. The screenshot makes things portable.
The possibilities it creates for moving images across distinct channels increase users' control over this process. More flexibility in how media objects are constituted and circulate leads to a wider variety of ways to archive them and articulate their meanings.
‘Print screen'
In older, text-based operating systems, the command print screen literally sent the screen contents to a
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