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Instagram more than an app and evolution
Introduction
Social media can be seen as having a relationship between technology and society. Tools and software for users to interact with the web increase and less technical skills are required to engage.
Instagram is a social media platform allowing users to author, publish and distribute their own content while connecting with other users on the network. To understand this process, we have to concentrate on the affordances of this app, Norman describes ‘affordances as the interaction that provide strong clues to the operation of things… When affordances are taken advantage of, the user knows what to do just by looking’ (1999). The success of Instagram is built on this concept, being user friendly and simplifying the process of photo and video sharing.
In order to understand the affordances of Instagram, and the effects on authoring, publishing and distributing photos and videos, I posted a variety of Instagram content on my profile. My strategy was to post different types of content using a variety of methods, which also helped me to identify the constraints of the platform and analyse its evolution.
Evidence
My weekly posts explored the following:
The default 1:1 square for posting photos and displaying in the grid references Polaroid photos Instagram’s original format (Manovich, 2016 p. 16). This format was relevant to the style of my photo, intentionally referencing the geometric grid of the building window.
For my next post, I uploaded a video of 15 seconds to my feed following one of the original constraints for video length content introduced in 2013 (Laver et al, 2020 p. 45). This video was a single shot with no adjustments.
I continued with the theme of urban environments in my next post of a new skyscraper in the city. As I was more concerned with the subject matter and creating a theme for my profile, this can be classed as a casual photo (Manovich, 2016 p. 16).
My following post was a video longer than a minute, therefore I had to post using IGTV due to the longer duration (Leaver et al, 2020 p. 70). This video had to be uploaded from a computer and is published in a vertical format, although it was authored in 16:9 format.
By now I was considering the aesthetics of my posts and profile. For my next image I posted in a 16:9 format reflecting the subject matter and adjusted the parameters using Lightroom software which provided more realistic editing than filters within Instagram.
The last post is a video published via IGTV, recorded and edited using an external software, but keeping with the vertical affordance and aesthetic of Instagram (Leaver et al., 2020 p. 53).
Evaluation:
Authoring:
From its beginnings Instagram has tapped into a photo culture, becoming a revolutionary tool for creativity and communication. Similar to the polaroid photos of the 1970s, Instagram created a trend with its grid format and allow users to edit their photos within the platform (Manovich, 2016, p. 6). My initial posts explored the original affordances of the app to create content with my mobile phone. As I developed a theme, I explored newer and more complex features on Instagram. Palmer concludes that apps such as Instagram and the use of mobile media has changed the way photographs are produced (Palmer 2014, p.245). To allow for greater creativity and flexibility, Instagram has evolved to include fewer constraints and more authoring options such as filters. I utilised some of these in my secondary posts and they were adequate for casual photography. For the more advanced methods of authoring, such as IGTV, I found Instagram limited and needed to edit in external software for a more professional result, losing some of the immediacy inherent to the platform. Bramante comments on this element of planning in his work, ‘Instinct and emotion is fifty percent. The other fifty percent is planning’ (Drescher, 2017, para. 1). Therefore, the more advanced media creator needs to have an understanding of the affordances of the app and is likely to use professional cameras and editing tools, rather than the default options within the app.
Publishing:
A key attribute of publishing with Instagram is the ability to interact and communicate with others through the use of captions, geolocation tags, hashtags, comments, shares and likes (Halpern, 2014, p.8). Many of these are part of the publishing process on Instagram, interestingly geolocation tags are a feature of camera phones, (Palmer, 2014, p.250). I could have kept my posts as simple images, however the more I posted the more I considered the options of publishing, adding further detail to my captions and hashtags. We can see this serious consideration for publishing by professional content creators, who are using popular hashtags, timing their posts and requesting feedback and communication with their followers. Jon Youshaei, Instagram’s marketing manager suggests that content creators use publishing tools such as polling and questions to test content with their users to improve their profiles and build followers (Loren, 2020). I explored IGTV in my posts but needed to publish these from a computer rather than my phone. I believe Instagram is purposely encouraging professional edited video content for IGTV to compete with streaming service platforms and even championing the vertical mobile phone format to attract new users. (Leaver et al., 2020,p. 163).
Distributing:
Distribution within Instagram takes on many forms, such as the ability to share your post to other social media platforms automatically when you upload as well as re-distribution within Instagram by sharing on your stories or through messages. For all of my posts, I selected to share with Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter, each with different results and displays depending on the type of content and platform. Facebook appears to be more socially orientated and integrated due to being part of the same parent company. Tumblr displays the image, with minimal focus on other data. Twitter was the most compromised, only posting the caption and a link back to the original post on Instagram, which is noted as being an intentional constraint by Twitter to avoid promoting Instagram and keeping users on their own platform (D’Orazio, 2012). Along with sharing to other platforms, in-built algorithms in Instagram assist in distributing content and to develop a niche profile that builds followers. Without knowing all the data involved in algorithms and with only a few posts, this was not something I was able to take advantage of to build my profile, regardless of this the data was always being collected and could have affected the distribution without my knowledge. (Leaver et al, 2020 p.21).
Conclusion:
Through my evaluation, the affordances of Instagram allow the user to creatively generate their own content and interact with other uses via their content, changing the way photos and videos are authored, published and distributed. For Instagram to remain current and keep its users engaged with the app and its content, its features have changed over time. This means it has become more professional, even for casual users, but also more commercial losing some of its authenticity. This data-driven content based on followers or likes has changed the original artistic and photo-centric approach of Instagram to grow its popularity.
REFERENCES:
Chun, W.H.K 2016, Updating to Remain the Same: Habitual New Media, MIT Press, Massachusetts, United States.
Drescher, C 2017, ‘Through The Lens @brahmino’, Adorama, 6 September, viewed 22 April 2020, < <https://www.adorama.com/alc/through-the-lens-s04e06-simone-bramante>
Halpern, M & Humpreys, L 2014, ‘iPhoneography as an emergent art world’, New Media Society, vol. 18, no. 1. NYC, USA.
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Palmer, D 2014, ‘Mobile Photography’, in G Goggin and L Hjorth (eds), The Routledge Companion to Mobile Media, 1st edition, Routledge, Abingdon, UK.
