Assignment 3- Report
Bianca Barichello- s3540013
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
BLOG ENTRIES:
HOW DO THE AFFORDANCES OF INSTAGRAM AFFECT THE WAY PHOTOS AND VIDEOS ARE AUTHORED, PUBLISHED AND DISTRIBUTED IN THE NETWORK?
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND:
Instagram’s evolving interface and expanding affordances enables us as users to engage in a network either casually, professionally or even as a potential business tool for a company. Within the contents of this report, I will share my experience and findings discovered during my interaction with my newly established Instagram account the_door_enthusiast. Furthermore, I will be analysing how the affordances of Instagram have changed and influenced how we author, publish and distribute content in today’s generation. (Manovich, L 2016,)
EVIDENCE/WHAT?
The most effective way to understand the fundamentals of a system and the aspects that have made Instagram the leader in the videography and photography network, is to experience the affordances it provides first hand. This was demonstrated in my experiment conducted, which was to set up an Instagram account publishing content purely based on doors. The rationale behind this was not only on the content being shared, but how the application was able shape and accentuate the quality of the content I produced. A difficult aspect of this investigation was that every photo and video had to be authored and produced with in the Instagram application, including the process of taking the actual photo. I found this a challenge, as my general everyday use of Instagram differed quite significantly. As I always captured the images on my camera roll and edited them prior to importing the image to Instagram.
AUTHORING:
Like anything with affordances there also comes constraints that limit the possibilities for what the user may hope for the application to do. The obvious, main constraint of taking an image directly from the Instagram app is the dimension restriction. My first experience filming this photo on the Instagram app, #Week 9- Instagram Photo proved quite difficult at the beginning, to fit the entire tall door frames in such a small confined square. There was a longer process involved in taking this image ensuring nothing was cropped out. While, it seemed a little constraining at first, I later came to realise that publishing square photos looks a lot better for my profile ‘grid’, as there is no cropping or distortion of the picture, which can frequently occur to differently shaped images. Grid arrangement is a essential aspect of creating that classic Instagram aesthetic, that Manovich discusses in his analysis of “Instagrammism” (2016). Thus, during this process I’ve found that almost always the best Instagram photos and videos are framed well and fit within that perfect little square. In the case of my experiment Instagram account, my best and most “liked” photo content #Week 11- Instagram Photo and #Week 10- Instagram Video framed much neater, even adding a touch of professionalism to the final image due to this format.
Throughout the establishment of my new account and through further research conducted, the other big thing of Instagrammism is the editing affordances of the app. Which provides convenience for users, with the ability for a one step process to finalise and upload their content. Without even having to exit the Instagram app. Despite, there being a lot more professional editing apps readily available,with even more extensive tools for more professional edits, Instagram affords its users with the main necessary tools required to enhance the quality of their image. including adding/reducing filters, modifying the contrast, lighting, brightness, saturation, highlights and more. In terms of my experience editing, the majority of my posts didn’t incorporate a filter, instead I capitalised on the individual editing tools such as adjusting the contrast, brightness and saturation slightly until desired. This was mostly used to bring out the contrast of the colours more, such as highlighting the blue tones as this became a visually appealing theme through my content shared weekly. An example in my #Week 10- Instagram Photo you can see the vibrant colours have been brightened to result in a high quality photo resolution, whilst still remaining natural and authentic as possible. Eelco Roos an Instagram photographer who I studied for my Week 7- Online Photography is a prime example of someone who has generated great success, from his photo content being captured on his Iphone and taking advantage of editing features employed by Instagram’s affordances. Just like my Instagram account he slightly edits his pictures whilst ensuring not to eradicate it’s natural appeal.
PUBLISHING:
Instagram has created users with an experience which is easier for them to navigate the functions afforded to them, making the publishing process more simplistic as well as also influencing the way they share their content. They place emphasis on encouraging users to capitalise on the essential features such as adding a location, caption, hashtags and tags. There almost feels like there is a pressure to use these tools in order for the photo to be successful and worthy of sharing on this interface. In my own ever day casual use, I must admit I don’t often add a location to my post, nor use hashtags and captions as much as I probably should. However, from my experience of running the_door_enthusiast I have come to realise how powerful these tools are essentially to gain exposure, expand reach and lastly to draw in more likes.
I was quite surprised when I came to realise how many views my videos had already generated. After only one hour of uploading #Week 9- Instagram Video and #Week 10- Instagram Video . This reach linked back to my use of popular hashtags I decided to go with as well geographically referencing both these too. The importance of taking advantage of these tools has become more clear to me now, with users wanting to be able to gain some context around the photo. Thus, wanting to be able to click on things like locations, hashtags and tags. Rachel Ryle an Instagram blogger who I researched in my Week 8- Online Videography is a perfect example of someone who has capitalised on Instagram’s affordances to create an online community of users, with the same passions and interests as her hence her 1 million+ following. She uses an extensive amount of hashtags in each of her posts, to generate exposure for her creative content. By doing this, she is also making it easier for users to come across her work, as this is required in a big network like Instagram.
For each of my posts, the captions were quite concise but effective, only including a couple of words in relation to the content and featuring an emoji or two to add a personalised effect to the upload. My personal favourite caption resonates with my #Week 10- Instagram Video as it had a bit of humour to it featuring the little emojis of a person running after the train, which was very relevant to me at the time I filmed this. With this post I decided to incorporate a few extra hashtags as well to see if this would expand the reach achieved. The results definitely did show to have worked, as it happened to be my most viewed content.
DISTRIUTION:
Distribution refers to the way the content that is authored and published is shared across Instagram and various other platforms in the hope to generate interest. Distribution is just as essential as authoring, as efforts to share content wouldn’t be worth it, if wasn’t going to be viewed and acknowledged by others. As analysed here in my #Week 9- Instagram Video I was conveniently able to link my personal Twitter and Tumblr accounts to my Instagram account, allowing me the ability to share my content across three different social platforms. I learnt that this allows for further reach and engagement.
In my personal Instagram use, I had only ever shared photos from Instagram to my Facebook account. In this experiment I was looking forward to venturing out to explore other platforms and see the ability each affords to translate to twitter and Tumblr platforms. This resulted in some interesting findings. Following Instagram, Tumblr was able to visually display the content effectively with same layout featured on Instagram, just like Instagram it is quite a visual medium. However, while the content does still look visually pleasing, it features a totally different aesthetic appeal to Instagram resulting in my content not fitting in as well. This may be because Instagram is more of a modern application and Tumblr being a little more dated and mainly for more GIFS and memes. Twitter, on the other hand only transfers a link of the post along with the caption and hashtags, removing all visual aspects. This spoils the overall content, as from the caption and hashtags it is quite difficult for viewers to gain an insight into what the visual component is.
CONCLUSION:
Throughout the course of this investigation, it has become comprehensible how such an influential social media platform, can employ a set of certain cultural codes or constraints through the affordances provided on their app. Over time ,Instagram has evolved and extrapolated on the initial affordances turning the service in to one of the largest marketing mechanisms used today. The ways in which Instagram associates with other platforms emphasises the fact that it is the by far the leader of photography and the home of images, significantly content of that ‘Instagrammism’ aesthetic.
REFERENCES:
- Norman, D 1998, “The Design of Everyday Things”, Basic Book, New York, US
- Manovich, L 2016, “Instagram and Contemporary Image”, University of San Diego, US
