Assignment 3- Report
Name: Isabella Susnica

I declare that in submitting all work for this assessment I have read, understood and agree to the content and expectations of the assessment declaration – https://www.rmit.edu.au/students/support-and-facilities/student-support/equitable-learning-services

Making Media Blog Links

Week 9 – Instagram Photo

Week 9 – Instagram Video

Week 10 – Instagram Photo

Week 10 – Instagram Video

Week 11 – Instagram Photo

Week 11 – Instagram Video

This report responds directly to the course prompt:

How do the affordances of Instagram affect the way photos and videos are authored, published and distributed in the network?

Word Count: 1107

Title of report: The Instagram Persona

Introduction

Instagram has become more than a photo and video sharing social media application. It is through its evolution of updates influenced by culture, users and in turn, the culture of the users, that the affordances of Instagram have expanded beyond software. Therefore, I argue that the affordances of Instagram are made up of not only software design but also attitudes that have arisen due to the ‘Instagrammer persona’. In turn, this has influenced how people author, publish and distribute content to Instagram. I will explore these affordances and their subsequent effects through critiquing my own research as well as the research of academics.

 

Background

Firstly, in order to illustrate my argument, we must understand what the affordances of Instagram are. Then, we can begin to unpack how these affordances are affecting the authoring, publishing and distributing of content within the online network. Norman (1998, p. 82) argues that ‘affordances suggest the range of possibilities [of an object, whilst] constraints limit the number of alternatives’. Instagram has some explicit affordances such as publishing photos, adding captions and adding locations. These however, fit under constraints such as not allowing videos to be longer than 60 seconds. What’s important to note in Norman’s argument is the use of the word ‘suggest’ as it infers that Instagram enables users to challenge the set affordances by interpreting the capabilities of the software and in turn, generate new affordances. It is these new affordances created by the user that creates the Instagram persona. Through operating my own Instagram account, I have found these affordances to be most influential when authoring content. Simultaneously, these have flow on effects into publication and distribution due to the interconnectedness of Instagram with the online network. The online network in this case is the space in which ‘netizens’ (online citizens) can exist in one domain.

 

Evidence

In order to investigate the prompt and see just how the affordance of the Instagram persona has come about, I created my own Instagram account. This ethnographic practice enabled me to make personal discoveries in response to the prompt. I focused on discovering how the Instagram persona is affecting the users of Instagram, including myself. Palmer (2014, p. 253) states that images ‘are themselves able to perform actions rather than simply represent the world’. This means that there is a shift in the purpose of images. This statement shaped my research as it made me conscious of the reasons why a photo or video ends up on Instagram. For my own work, I found myself wanting to share serene moments of life with an accompanying caption. But, my authoring process quickly began to diverge. By my third post, I wondered what my overall aesthetic would be and so, found myself following the ‘white bar aesthetic’. Despite Instagram affording for content that isn’t square, I wanted my published content to be cohesive. This is an example of how the desire to fit in with the Instagram aesthetic shaped my goals as a content producer. From the moment I took out my phone to author content, I was already thinking about how the photo/video would appear published on my profile. In turn, my following posts stuck to following an aesthetic. In saying this, I then began to wonder if Instagram is best suited for all photo and video content. As my posts were quite emotion driven, as opposed to being purely visually pleasing, I found myself being more drawn to focusing on my Tumblr account which I was distributing my Instagram posts to. In turn, whilst it was simple to distribute content to Tumblr and Twitter, seeing any real engagement with the posts was sparse as I wasn’t actively engaging with the users of those apps. Therefore, the Instagram persona encompasses utilising the existing affordances such as hash-tagging in order to reach like minded individuals who will engage with the content you publish.

 

Evaluation

Manovich (2016, p. 12) argues that ‘while the majority of users indeed used Instagram in the way intended by its founders, others have worked around its intentional constraints’. These “others” are seemingly the people who fit the Instagram persona as they are innovative in their authorship. The Instagram persona is in turn somebody who is still working within the affordances of Instagram but is adding their own flare. Whilst for a moment the flare may be individualistic, the Instagram network is tightly interconnected and so, trends can populate Instagram, thereby encouraging users to follow a particular style and become the Instagram persona. Instagram must ensure it remains interconnected through means such as hash-tagging, tagging, commenting, adding posts to stories, etc., as these are the ways in which traffic is directed between accounts. Therefore, the more time users spend on Instagram, the more they’ll notice trends in authoring and publishing style. What makes the Instagram persona so influential in shaping the three stages of content production is that Instagram is a commercial space and so, because anyone can publish to Instagram, anyone has the potential to earn money through means such as putting out sponsored content. This content often comes from verified accounts and Instagram (2019) even states that ‘verified badges help people more easily find the public figures, celebrities and brands they want to follow’. If certain people are more easy to find, then the style of posts by these people will set the precedent for how a profile should look if it is to be successful. In turn, people will author posts of a similar style. Take for example the pink wall of Instagram that ‘tops multiple “most Instagrammed walls in LA” lists’ (Mau 2017, para. 2). There are many locations, products, poses and more that are ubiquitous across Instagram. In turn, the Instagram persona has affordances of its own. Take photos in a certain place, post it in a certain way, distribute it to a particular community, all in the hopes of Instagram success.

 

Conclusion

In conclusion, Instagram is more than photos and videos. Instead, it is a network of its own whereby users are actively engaging with one another and so, are influencing the authoring, publishing and distributing of content across the platform. Whilst I focused on how the Instagram persona of challenging the software affordances is prevalent on Instagram, there are other subtypes within Instagram. But, through my research I found this one to be the most influential as it is powered by verified accounts which receive the most spotlight on the app. In saying this, there are many ways to see how people are being affected by the affordances of Instagram but more importantly, it is important to note that people are being affected by these affordances no matter the community.

 

References

Instagram 2019, ‘Verified Badges’, Instagram, viewed 27 May 2019, <https://help.instagram.com/854227311295302>.

Manovich, L 2016, Instagram and Contemporary Image, University of San Diego, USA.

Mau, D 2017, ‘Paul Smith’s Pink Wall is an LA Instagram Success – But is it Paying off for Paul Smith?’, Fashionista, 6 April, viewed 1 June 2019, <https://fashionista.com/2017/04/paul-smith-pink-wall>.

Norman, D 1998, The design of everyday things , Basic Book, New York (pp. vii-186).

Palmer, D 2014 ‘Mobile Media Photography’, in G Goggins & L Hjorth (eds), The Routledge Companion to Mobile Media, Routledge, New York pp. 249-255.