On Reading and Creating Digital/Social Media

 READING AN INSTAGRAM POST

A combination between text and photographs, an Instagram post is a contemporary style of expression that deserves more literary attention than it typically receives. After its release in 2010, Instagram has been a means for all individuals to express themselves and their ideas more publicly and creatively. Instagram posts consist of an image, a caption, sometimes a location, and often “tagged” accounts. The following questions will help you gain more from your Instagram post interactions. 


What is the image of the post?

Taking up the most space on the screen, our eyes are first drawn to the image associated with the post before we are to a post’s caption. That being said, understanding the choice for an image is essential to understanding the creator of the image itself. Sometimes the images are photographs, paintings, digital artwork, or quotes. Also sometimes the creator includes multiple images or just one single image. When analyzing the image it is important to apply the principles used for photography and painting mentioned earlier. A unique feature to Instagram, however, is to also consider the connection between the multiple images, if multiple images are included. How these images interact is important for understanding the experience as a whole. For Selena Gomez, many of her posts feature a glamor shot of herself followed by a second photo of the beauty product she used. This allows her post to be both aesthetically appealing and an advertisement for her new beauty line. 

It is also important to consider the “filters,” or lack their of, when it comes to photographs. Identifying new trends in which no filters are used reveals a generation valuing vulnerability and authenticity. Collectively exploring common effects among Instagram posts is an appropriate tool to understand the social relationships our current world is experiencing and valuing. 


What is the caption?

Instagram captions vary from short and witty to long and insightful. Take for instance the posts by the account @comefollowmedaily. Their captions are extremely long and value spiritual insight and experience. However, the long text is also broken up into individual thoughts, rather than expanding as one lengthy paragraph. There is a use of white space even among the text itself. The opposite of this type of captioning can be seen on the account of Kylie Jenner, who recently posted a maternity picture of herself and captioned it “i am woman”. She used the least amount of words she could to express meaning from the photo. It is important to read the captions with the same literary wonder as you would other forms of texts. Often captions are an artistic expression of one’s life. 

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