Assignment 3 – Report
Name: Ellie Rowe s3829473
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 Posts:
Week 9: Practising Instagram Photo
Week 9: Practising Instagram Video
Week 10: Practising Instagram Photo
Week 10: Practising Instagram Video
Week 11: Practising Instagram Photo
Week 11: Practising Instagram Video
Report in relation to the prompt:
How do the affordances of Instagram affect the way photos and videos are authored, published and distributed in the network?
Title of report:
Has Instagram’s values morphed into fully focusing on capitalising profit over quality content?
Word Count: 1030
Instagram Handle: @lockdownlooks212
Introduction:
The following is a report into Instagram’s algorithms, focusing on how influencer’s, through Instagram’s affordances, allows them through authoring, publishing and distributing their photos and videos, to capitalise off other users. This report highlights the way Instagram, through algorithms, supports the e-commerce industry within its app.
Background:
The network influences the ways that networked photos are authored, published and distributed on the internet. Instagram is a popular photo and video-sharing social networking service, owned and published by Facebook Inc, initially starting as a photo-sharing application, now used by over 1 billion users (Hootsuite, 2020), for many different purposes, which will be explored. Instagram naturalises an understanding of how images are produced and shared in contemporary society. It is an influential medium for users to interact with each other, coming within a certain media ecology. The design of Instagram directs us in a certain direction in terms of user practise and working with that software (Cowie, 2017, p. 5). An affordance is an action, it creates an opportunity for something to occur. With Instagram, the user interacts with a smartphone, they work with their fingers and a small screen to capture photographs and videos, to upload on to the platform. Software, such as the mobile application Instagram, enables specific types of affordances, such as authoring a photograph through clicking icons, navigating the camera, then preparing the image for publication and distribution (McGrenere and Ho, 2000, p. 6). With enough updates and changes in users’ habits, arguably, social media is changing the ways people conceptualise and practice socialising. Leaver et al (2000, p. 2) discuss “The intended use of Instagram did not seem to consider the potential for individual users to reappropriate the platform for commercial intents” from the creator’s perspective.
Evidence/What?:
In order to gain a critical understanding of how Instagram worked regarding affordances, I used the application to author, publish and distributes photographs and videos, through a 3-week process. Initially, my Instagram account was private, however, I learnt, to gain the most engagement with my posts, Instagram algorithms needed hashtags and locations for other users to interact with. As I found with week 10, the more features I included when publishing the post, the more engagement it would receive. Instagram affords users who have a bigger platform reach, the chance to grow their profiles. Through the content driven algorithm, the image recognition software tracks your content and engagements and categorises you into audiences, to then fill your timeline and explore page with content of the similar variety (heyDominik, 2020). This is utilised by influencers and by businesses to promote and advertise their own paid content, targeting niche audiences to gain engagement through product placement and endorsements. Instagram started as a photo sharing platform, but in recent years due to the changes it has made, it has become more of a platform for influencers and businesses to promote and self-product to their consumers. “Influencers are posing, grooming and constructing idealized versions of their ‘best life’ to cultivate a sense of future-orientated aspiration rather than past-orientated nostalgia” (Leaver, 2020, Chapter 4: p. 3). They do this through the adoption of new features, spending lots of time on the app and consistently posting (@thefutur, 2019). They promote the algorithm and essentially, Instagram favours their content more and more, distributing their posts to many users. Therefore, the original uses of Instagram are no longer centred on users marking memories, but on businesses using Instagram for profit, through amplifying their content for maximum visibility and reach. Additionally, there is a growing genre of content around changing photography regarding authoring, publishing and distributing practises so users can maintain consistency with their posts, making them the most aesthetically appealing to their audiences. This highlights the links between the justification behind user practises and the ongoing commercialisation of content on Instagram. It becomes increasingly united with e-commerce platforms and the advertising industry, as users utilise Instagram’s features and algorithms to aspire to create influencer content. Thus, an evident re-branding of sharing photo and video content across the platform, as content now becomes commercial and profitable.
Evaluation:
Leaver et al (2020) discuss how social media influencers commercialised Instagram, “making it into a marketplace for attention and commerce (p. 14). Despite changes made by Ian Spelter, head of design at Instagram, commercial activity was not initiated by the app itself, but instead “orchestrated by the networks of users who saw the potential to monetize their critical mass of followers by personally integrating sponsored messages into their Instagram posts” (p. 80). Ian states, users don’t get the Instagram experience for free, they hand over their data (Ian Spalter: Digital Product Design, 2019). Thus, the opportunity to be advertised/targeted at. This business model allows users to compare their own lives, to the false, constructed lives of influencers, through their authoring, publishing and distributing of their own Instagram posts. Instagram is a way for people to connect with celebrities, engaging with their content across the platform. People use it to connect with friends and family, but also to idolise others lives via photos and videos, that gets presented to them through invisible algorithms. It started off as a content platform but has been driven to selling, with personalising Instagram feeds to cater for e-commerce market. Instagram itself did promote the business model for influencers when they removed the chronological order algorithm on Instagram in 2017 (Patkar, 2019), replacing it with the algorithm that promotes higher engagement content. This highlights that Instagram favours more popular posts, that have a higher engagement factor, making them marketable for other users. Thus, the affordances of Instagram cater for an e-commerce industry through the ways they allow users to author, publish and distribute their photos and videos.
Conclusion:
Overall, Instagram provides a user experience that allows users to author, publish and distribute their photos and videos to other users, as well as catering for influencers through a capitalist agenda. Despite I tested out Instagram features I never have before, demonstrated in my weekly blog posts, I could have been more experimental regarding posting frequently, mirroring what influencers do. This would have given me a greater understanding about how Instagram now affords an e-commerce industry to exist within the constraints of its app.
References
@heyDominik (2020) How the Instagram Algorithm Works in 2020. YouTube [Online], 31 January. Available from: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1209&v=LWfVwVAOIvA&feature=emb_logo> [Accessed 27/05/2020].
@lockdownlooks212 (2020) Lock Down Looks 212. Instagram. [Online] Available from: <https://www.instagram.com/lockdownlooks212/> [Accessed 28/05/2020].
@thefutur (2019) How To Get 10k Followers On Instagram Per Week. YouTube [Online], 6 November. Available from: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1117&v=89bF5Dzh_F4&feature=emb_logo> [Accessed 28/05/2020].
Cowie, B. et al (2017) ‘Introduction: Software and other Literacies’ in Software Literacy: Education and Beyond. Springer: Singapore. pp.1-12
Hootsuite (2020) 37 Instagram Stats That Matter to Marketer’s in 2020 [Online] Available from: <https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-statistics/> [Accessed 27/05/2020].
Ian Spalter: Digital Product Design (2019) Abstract: The Art of Design, Season 2, episode 5. Available from: Netflix. [Accessed 05/05/2020].
Leaver, T. et al (2020) Instagram: Visual Social Media Cultures. United Kingdom: Digital Media and Society. pp. 39-74, Chapter 2 Aesthetics RMIT Library e-book. Available from: <https://primo-direct-apac.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/1d27kpc/RMIT_ALMA51238311040001341> [Accessed 27/05/2020].
McGrenere, J. and Ho, W. (2000) Affordances: Clarifying and Evolving a Concept. Canada: Proceedings of Graphics Interface.
Norman, D. (1999) Affordance, conventions and design (Part 2) Nielsen Norman Group.
Patkar, M. (2019) How (and Why) to Disable Algorithmic Feeds on twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Make Use Of. [Online], 15 December. Available from: <https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-and-why-to-disable-algorithmic-feeds-on-twitter-instagram-and-facebook/> [Accessed 28/05/2020].