What did your last Instagram post look like? Was it in a public setting? With other people? Did it highlight your personal relationships or interests?
Using Erving Goffman’s theory of impression management—which likens the presentation of oneself to the role an actor plays in a performance—I gained insight into what we tend to post on Instagram. Like theater, Goffman theorized that impression management had a frontstage and backstage. The former describes an individual’s behavior and actions in front of others, and this is what I explored in my study of Instagram. Setting, appearance, and manner are three components of the front stage. Setting is the individual’s location and any objects, appearance is the situation they find themselves in (such as work or a social activity), and manner is the role they play in the situation.
So, what did I find?
I observed that setting was an important elements of Instagram posts. Eleven, or over half, of the twenty posts I analyzed were in a public setting, which included at concerts, gyms, restaurants, and on the street. Seven of these users tagged their location. Only three posts featured private settings like homes or dorm rooms. In the remaining six posts, the setting was intentionally nondescript, varied across different photos in the post, or was in a car (which could be either public or private).
Why were public spaces so popular? I’m guessing this is because it is easier for users to control the impressions formed about them in spaces that are not highly personal. This isn’t necessarily intentional; public settings might simply make for more interesting posts, or the experiences themselves might’ve been more memorable, like going to a concert as opposed to spending a night in.
As for appearance, most posts had a social aspect, depicting situations that included people in addition to the user. Thirteen of the twenty posts clearly featured other people. In eleven of these, the user tagged one or more Instagram users. When users tagged others in their posts, it put them together in a shared “online” social setting, perhaps an extension of the social setting they might have first experienced in “real life.”
Why did so many posts feature other people? I’m theorizing that doing so could convey an impression to others that the poster is sociable and well liked by others, or to celebrate a relationship or shared experience between users. There can also be practical benefits of tagging others and being tagged in posts, as it gives both users a larger audience and thus additional likes and follows.
Manner was more subjective than setting and appearance, and therefore more difficult to quantify in the posts I analyzed. However, I noticed that generally users’ posts highlighted their relationship with family members, friends, or their significant other; or demonstrated their interests or favorite pastimes. I also noticed that captions on Instagram posts provided context, such as what the user was doing, how they felt about it, and their relationships with the other people featured in their posts.
How did I get my findings?
I collected data at four different intervals over a period of nineteen hours. Each time, I looked at the first five posts that appeared on my Instagram feed, so my data and observations come from these twenty posts. As previously mentioned, I considered setting, appearance, manner of each post. I analyzed personal Instagram accounts because I wanted to examine impression management in users who are individual people but who don’t have the resources or audience of celebrities. Thus, this investigation excludes posts from celebrities and influencers, as well as business, organization, and entertainment accounts. Out of respect for the privacy of the users whose posts I analyzed, I excluded usernames and any other identifying information, opting to examine larger trends.
Scrolling forward
Throughout my research, it felt strange to critically analyze posts on Instagram, even though it is a social media platform that I use almost everyday. At times, I felt like I was prying into someone else’s personal life, even though these users’ posts had been shared with a large audience. One of my greatest takeaways from my study is that we can be more critical of how we use Instagram: What are other users posting, and why? What impressions do we form of them because of it? Are they positive, negative, or neutral? Why do we post, like, or comment on the content that we do? What kinds of impressions of ourselves are we consciously or unconsciously trying to create through our use of Instagram? Technology and social media play an important role in our society—as we have demonstrated many times in this course—but it is equally crucial that we study and think critically about them.
