With so many ways to communicate with one another, our world has become more interconnected than ever. In this contextual analysis of the social media platform Instagram we will take a look at the features in which it uses to shape that communication, who it includes and excludes in that communication, and the overall value it has to society. Since 2010, Instagram has shaped the way that we use social media to communicate and interact with one another.
One of the key features of Instagram is that every post made to the news feed must include at least one picture or video. This shapes Instagram in a huge way because every post on your feed will first visually tell a story. When you choose to add a caption or location you are automatically making your prost multimodal. Previously to the Instagram TV feature, videos could only be up to one minute long. Photos or videos can be posted singular or in a group of up to nine other photos or videos, making the post up to ten total. This is different compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook because on those you can choose to post text only. Sharing your post with the main element being visual can make your posts catch your followers attention much easier than seeing black and white text on a page. Pictures are worth much more in context than simple words on a page.
Instagram also gives you a story feature that stays up for only twenty four hours. This allows you to easily share what you are thinking or doing in the given moment without the commitment of posting to your page for an infinite time. Don't fret if you want your story visible past twenty four hours. You can choose to make personalized highlights that can be found directly on your profile page. You can use the story for countless different forms of communication and it is one of the only creation features that allows you to post text only. Your followers have the option to interact with your story through reactions, privately responding as a comment, or even taking polls and answering question boxes. The only way for your story to be shared is by a user that you have specifically tagged, only if your profile is public. Your stories that you choose not to highlight on your page can always be found in your archive and can be reposted as you desire, sometimes they even pop up as a memory for you to view.
You have the option to start a live video feed right to your account so your followers can tune in. If you have a public account even people who do not follow you can tune in and see your live video. You can also choose to save your live video and post it to your Instagram TV for playback options. The live video feature allows you to add or request other accounts join your live video and stream with you. Typically, your followers are notified when you start a live video so they have the chance to tune in. It is a way of being able to communicate and interact with one another in the moment. Accounts tuning in to your live can interact by reacting and commenting on your feed which all appear in live time for you and other watchers to be able to see and respond to.
Your personal or professional profile gives you customizable options with how you choose to interact with and on the platform. Firstly, you choose a unique username, sometimes called an @, that can only be claimed by one user at a time. The username has only two restrictions, a thirty character limit and the fact that the same name can not be used twice. This is a great way to distinguish yourself even if there are hundreds of people who use the same name as you on the app. You get to create a biography for yourself that has a maximum of one hundred fifty characters. The character limit makes sure that what you write in your bio is to the point and gives a little insight into who you are behind the screen. A newer feature is that you can now display your preferred pronouns on the top of your page. This is a huge step for LGBTQ and CIS users alike because it allows for inclusion. You can also add one link to the top of your page that is not a part of your bio that can be used from everything from articles to your personal website or work. Lastly, you can choose whether you want your profile to be public or private. When you choose a private profile, your information shared in your bio can be seen by anyone but only your followers can see and interact with your posts. This is great for people who post for select audiences or just prefer not to have just anyone be able to see their posts. With a public profile you get an option unavailable to those with a private profile, the option to link other social media accounts and cross share across other platforms.
Unlike Facebook but similar to Twitter, Instagram has followers as opposed to friends. This means that you do not need to mutually add each other in order to see and interact with each others posts. I personally love this feature because you can easily follow different celebrities and influencers. You also can choose not to follow someone back who you do not know or do not necessarily want to see their posts. You can choose to block or restrict specific followers as well as manually unfollow yourself from someone else's profile. I prefer this over having to friend a profile because I like to keep the amount of people I follow low that way I actually see the content that I want to see and can cut the content I am not interested in.
The newsfeed itself is a combination of posts from your followers and advertisements of things you may be interested in. It does not show up in chronological order but instead uses special algorithms to decide where to place a particular post on your feed. You can interact with your newsfeed by liking posts although there is no other reactions for the post itself such as disliking. You can also comment to the poster right below the post. Instagram does offer options for the creator to choose to filter out key words that could be inappropriate or spam so that the comment does not appear at all under the post but the person making the comment will not be aware of this. This feature is key especially when using hashtags on your post as often times accounts will try to make unsolicited offers to you for promotions. These can be abundant and annoying. Hashtags on a post can make it easily discoverable for people specifically interested in it and hashtags can even be followed by a user so that they can see posts who use to choose that hashtag even if they are not following them. Users can tag locations and other accounts to make it easier for their followers to see exactly who or what they are posting about. These are features generally used by influencers.
Influencers and business accounts have options to easily brand themselves and their posts through paid partnerships and advertising as well as selling their products right from Instagram through quick shopping links and the ability to tag products on their posts. This allows followers to see who they are working with and what they are selling. It also gives users the option to purchase goods right from the post itself instead of having to take an extra step and go to the seller's website. This makes for more seamless transactions between the user and seller as well as informing the user of whether what an influencer is posting is their own testimonial or if they are partnered with a company and being compensated for what they are saying.
Lastly, a feature offered on almost all social media platforms including Instagram is direct messaging. Direct messaging is a tool that allows you to privately communicate with another account or group of accounts. It can be done in various ways through text, media, or sending a post. You now also have the option to be able to voice call or video call a user. You can see the message status as well, when a message is delivered and when it is seen. Accounts who mutually follow each other or have previously accepted communication with one another can instantly contact each other through direct messaging. Accounts that do not mutually follow each other will be filtered to a request folder where you can choose if you want to interact privately with that person or not. The only way the sender knows that you have seen their message is once you accept the communication.
Instagram does its best to be inclusive for all users. I find it especially useful for bloggers and influencers because of the naturally multimodal elements that it offers. For professionals or businesses it offers many different ways to be able to sell and interact with potential clientele. It also particularly caters to ages thirteen to mid forties. Hashtags allow for easily forming community with other users who are interested or partake in activities and things similar to one another. The new pronoun feature also makes it inclusive for any way that you identify without having to fear being mislabeled as that can be especially detrimental to members of LGBTQ.
Unfortunately, Instagram still falls short of being all inclusive. For starters, the age restriction of being the minimum age of thirteen make it not accessible to children twelve and under. There is also so much going on with the many features that Instagram offers it makes users not generally familiar with social media unable to use it. Instagram is an app based platform and although you can access it off of a computer or laptop, most of the features can not be used such as creating posts. This makes a cell phone or other smart device a necessity when using it. Another issue with Instagram's user accessibility is the fact that it censors and shadow bans users based on key words, hashtags, or elements of imagery used in posts. Many creators, especially adult creators, get restricted or blocked for saying or doing something that Instagram does not agree with even if it does not violate the community terms of use. A great example of this is the degree of content that can be posted by celebrities or other verified accounts versus an average user account. Lastly, and most likely obvious is the fact that Instagram is a mostly visual platform so those with a visual impairment can lack appeal to something that does not cater to them. Luckily, more and more accounts have begun to write detailed photo or video descriptions in their caption so those with an impairment like this can still use text to speech software and be able to enjoy the post as much as someone who does not have that impairment.
Deciding whether you like Instagram as a social media platform comes down to personal preference. Just like anything else, there are of course up sides and down sides to Instagram. Some up sides are the many different ways you can make your posts interactive and multimodal from hashtags and sharing location, to commenting and sharing other creator's posts. You also have the option to be able to reach more than just your following through these elements and it makes networking in that sense so much easier. Although this is not the case for everyone, as I said, Instagram has only gotten harsher and harsher with it's censorship and it is very easy to end up shadow banned or hidden from other users. It is also not very efficient with getting rid of fake accounts who take your photos or pretend to be you. For business and influencers this can be especially frustrating as it can skew your credibility when scammers try to reach out to your followers and clientele trying to poach personal information from them. This is extremely common when you decide to host a giveaway.
As you can see, whether Instagram is a useful tool for you specifically comes down to age, accessibility, and the type of content you are using it to create. What is most important is that as a tool for communication, Instagram offers so many possibilities for the ways in which you choose to communicate on it. From public to private, you have many choices for what and how you choose to share and communicate with one another. Want to try Instagram yourself? Download the app now on Apple Instagram on the App Store (apple.com) or Google Play Instagram - Apps on Google Play
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