The Social Space, Language, and Art of Inferences on Instagram : A Netnographic Study

Abstract

In this thesis, we explore the ways individuals interact with one another on Instagram through a netnographic study. In observing the profiles and content of 15 participants from around the world, we were able to observe how the participants and the audience members used captions, emojis, and hashtags to interact with one another on Instagram. Utilizing the works of Erving Goffman's Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959) and Pierre Bourdieu's Forms of Capital (1986), we were able to observe Instagram through Goffman's perspective about the performance and how the interactions are forms of capital. From these observations, we were able to form four (4) concluding hypotheses: 1) Individuals conduct performances on Instagram and aim to give a good presentation of self to an audience; 2) Instagram has a very distinct language whereby individuals communicate meaning through emojis and hashtags; 3) Any observer on the Instagram platform is constantly making inferences about others; lastly, 4) Instagram is its own distinct social space with its own characteristics and subcultures.