Communication and Rhetoric Science within Instagram
Michelle Sikes
Instagram in its previous years has surpassed Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr as the leading social media app right alongside of Snapchat. The average Instagram consumer craves to visually share their experiences and stories on its picture oriented platform. In the early stages of Instagram, the app was developed to cater to consumer’s want for the iPhone, which was directly linked to Instagram’s initial success. This was because the incorporation of a camera integrated into all iPhones made every owner of the phone a “photographer”. Later on, the Android and other phone companies caught onto the initial trend and Instagram adapted their apps to other operating systems in order to reach the broader audience of ALL phone users. Initially Instagram’s platform allowed users to post one photo with the ability to apply filters, a caption, location, and a tag of other users. With the development of the app, it now allows you to post more than one picture viewable by a swipe right on the initial cover photo. Instagram has maximized on Facebook’s initial photo sharing algorithm and made a whole new content sharing app.
“Instagram has become the home for visual storytelling for everyone from celebrities, newsrooms and brands, to teens, musicians and anyone with a creative passion.” -Kevin Systrom (CEO and co-founder of Instagram)
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⎰Impression Formation: Snap Judgement⎱
Instagram can be further analyzed by looking into the impression formation of a personality, specifically a snap judgement. Impression formation is a process by which individual pieces of information about another person are integrated to form a global impression of the individual (Srull, 1988). In simpler terms, it is how one person perceives another person. A snap judgement impression formation is what immediately comes to mind when you get a first impression of someone. Instagram preempts this formation with the idea that one photo creates this supposed impression. By only allowing one picture as a cover photo, Instagram forces its users to analyze their options and chose one that they believe will tell a story. Likes 👍🏻 are so important to Instagram users because not amounting to a reasonable amount of likes on a photo can infer perceptions of one’s personality. Impressions on photos with more likes infer that the user is popular and well liked while impressions on photos with minimal likes infer that the user is quite the opposite. Instagram is such a popular mode of social media that it’s almost unheard of or uncanny to not have an account and people rely on it to provide them with an overview of the user’s personality. Even job applications sometimes require you to provide a URL of your Instagram and social media sites so that they can better know you before an interview. <234> *******************************************************************
⎰Non-verbal communication⎱
Even though Instagram allows captions to be written at the bottom of photos, the most liked 👍🏻 and popular photos featured on the explore page are the ones that use minimal words or no captions at all.
Non-verbal communication is messages that are mostly sent without words (Ruesch, 1972). The language-idiom, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” is meaningful in the manner of Instagram. One of the functions of non-verbal communication is that it supplements verbal communication. Instagram’s core purpose is to create a platform for visual storytelling that is accessible to everyone. These visual stories are portrayed through the pictures that every day users post with the intention of replacing verbal communication. A user can easily show all of their followers where they were that day, what activities they were performing, and their emotions about that activity with just one post. These singular photos provide a narrative to the rest of the world and allows users to communicate with more people than they would in a face-to-face interaction. Another function of non-verbal communication is that it conveys relational-level messages. Messages that are portrayed through Instagram photos are usually meant to evoke an emotion such as love, envy, and want. Photos are posted on this forum with the intent to create a para-social friendship with other users. This relationship is conformed through the use of interactive communicative features such as the like button and the ability to comment on any post. These freedom of expressions and interactive features allow other users to feel connected to celebrities they normally would never get the chance to see and users they wouldn’t see on a day-to-day basis. <275>
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⎰Media Effects⎱
Media effects are the many ways that individuals are influenced by the news, entertainment, and the mass media. The theory of technological determinism can explain how Instagram is ultimately influencing a change in our culture. Technological determinism is the idea that media is the critical force that determines how people think, feel, act and how societies organize themselves (Marx, 2011). Instagram, like Vine and YouTube, is another social media platform that has allowed fame to emerge from popularity and global usage of the app. It has created a new society of social-media celebrities that reinforce their social identity by travel. Instagram-famous celebrities are paid to travel the world, photograph their adventures in a specific way, and irregularly post with sponsored captions. These celebrities are called influencers and they do exactly what their name entails. They influence their followers and other users of Instagram to recreate photos like theirs in order to obtain more likes and overall popularity. This effect ultimately works because their pictures evoke an emotion of happiness and desire from other users. Therefore, people have become more conscientious of their surroundings, outfits, and angle when photo taking. In some instances, people will even take multiple bursts of the same photo in order to create a range of choices so that the decision of one photo is simpler. <219>
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⎰Participatory Media⎱
Instagram is a popular known form of participatory media. Participatory media is any type of community media that allows members of the public to play an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, and analyzing content (Howard, 2008). Intentions of this media are to blur boundaries of what is acceptable and allow for public discourse or controversy to change control. Instagram creates a forum for participatory media with its global outreach and option for download without purchase. The app encourages interaction with one another by working off on an algorithm that frequently shows posts on your newsfeed from users you have previously interacted with. Besides Instagram’s algorithm there is also underlying reciprocity and social influence to interact with users who have previously interacted with one of your posts.
One of the functions of participatory media is to blur boundaries between audiences. Instagram reduces social boundaries by allowing celebrity profiles and their story access to be public. Ultimately it is the celebrity’s decision whether to activate the public or private feature provided to all users, but most celebrities allow their profile to be public so they can increase popularity and directly interact with fans. Another function of participatory media is to disrupt control of government and authority figures. Instagram is a free social posting network where the only regulated mode is nudity. People have the ability to freely express their opinions on controversial topics such as Trump or social movements like Black Lives Matter on Instagram. Because Instagram allows the freedom of speech and expression on their platform, it disrupts the norm of government regulation on formal news outlets. The app creates a forum for discussion of these controversial topics with the ability to comment on a picture that one posts and build off of each comment. Instagram makes expression of individualization simpler and more effective.
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⎰Visual Rhetoric⎱
Along with participatory media, Instagram also uses visual rhetoric in order to allow businesses to effectively use their platform. Visual rhetoric is the way rhetors use symbolic images to communicate, create meaning, make arguments and persuade (Handa, 2004). An image as a rhetoric becomes a reality itself by suppressing its own construction. Businesses use this visual rhetoric and the ability to caption to persuade Instagram users to buy their product. Because Instagram is a creative platform, companies will more often than none hire a graphic designer or photographer specifically for their social media posts. These professionals will research and better understand how to cater to their Instagram target audience. Pictures taken by these professionals and chosen by companies commonly post with the sponsor feature on Instagram. This trademark allows companies to purchase a spot on every Instagram user’s newsfeed for an allotted amount of time. It gives companies the ability to reach all users of Instagram and market globally. It is even more vital for businesses than it is for everyday users to portray a persuasive narrative in the sponsored picture because they are intending to sell a product. <189>
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⎰Rhetorical audience⎱
A rhetorical audience is the idea that a rhetoric is created for many people, either in a group or class. These people can be particular to a specific group or they can be universal by representing most of the population (Kjeldsen, 2017). Instagram produces a universal rhetorical audience as well as a particular rhetorical audience with their personalized newsfeed and widespread explore page. The particular rhetoric audience of Instagram is represented by their privacy settings and their personal newsfeed. Instagram allows users to choose whether they would like their profile to be accessible to the public, or only seen by approved followers. This gives the user the ability to cater their Instagram to a specific audience of their choosing. A user can also choose who they want to follow in order to dictate what type of newsfeed they want to see every day. Whether it’s a fashion, tech, or a friend oriented newsfeed, it is catered to your specific desires.
The universal rhetorical audience is represented by the explore feature/button on Instagram. By choosing to make an Instagram account public, you are giving all other users of the app access to your photos. This allows Instagram the ability to feature your profile on the explore page. There are tradeoffs to this feature as you may obtain more likes when it is open to the public, but anyone around the world who has an account can see your pictures. This page is also based on an algorithm that shows you photos of accounts that you’re currently NOT following, but these pictures have been liked or interacted with by people you ARE following. The explore page was ultimately made to cater to everyone and allow users to interact not just with friends, but also with all users around the world. <298>
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⎰All-in-all⎱
Although Instagram is easy to use, the app has been strategically made to create a new form of communication — visual storytelling. It allows users to actively participate with others regardless of location or age. By creating a sense of virtual reality, everyday people have the chance to non-verbally communicate with celebrities they normally wouldn’t have the ability to. So, if you don’t already have an account, go make one and enjoy the Instagram culture of photo sharing with the world.
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⎰Worked Cited⎱
Srull, Thomas K., and Robert Selden Wyer. A Dual Process Model of Impression Formation. L. Erlbaum, 1988.
Ruesch, Jurgen, and Weldon Kees. Non-Verbal Communcation: Notes on the Visual Perception of Human Relations. University of California Press, 1972.
Marx, Leo, and Merritt Roe Smith. Does Technology Drive History?: the Dilemma of Technological Determinism. MIT Press, 2011.
Howard, Robert Glenn. “The Vernacular Web of Participatory Media.” Taylor & Francis, 27 Oct. 2008, www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15295030802468065.
Handa, Carolyn. Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World: a Critical Sourcebook. Bedford/St. Martins, 2004.
Kjeldsen, Jens E. “Audience Analysis and Reception Studies of Rhetoric.” Rhetorical Audience Studies and Reception of Rhetoric, Nov. 2017.