I declare that in submitting all work for this assessment I have read, understood and agree to the content and expectations of the assessment declaration – https://www.rmit.edu.au/students/support-and-facilities/student-support/equitable-learning-services
Alexandra Russell s3662093
Words 1060
How do the affordances of instagram affect the way photos and videos are authored, published and distributed in the network?
In the final project of the semester I was working with the social media of instagram and Instagram’s popularity as I discovered reflects its consideration of the modern day user and their desires but also their want for creative control, connection and convenience in the network.
An aspect of uploading the photos and video’s to instagram was the curating and editing process or authoring. Throughout the week 9 works the main priorities were what looked pretty and also what was easy to capture. There were two or three photos taken and one video so that there was some variety in option however I chose to author those quite efficiently and quickly as I might for my own instagram account. However as the weeks went on, I began to look at what I was doing much more differently. The editing of the photos was done with more consideration for the previous image or video. Would it work against the last post? Should the filter used make the next video relate to its partnering photo? How would everything look on the instagram grid compared to in a feed?
A defining characteristic of instagram is that it creates the affordance of allowing you to create a photo or video both as an individual thing (seeing it on one’s instagram feed) or as apart and related to a group of images (one your account). Its the idea of relating photography as a“flow” of “data” (Kuc, Kamila & Zylinska, 2016, p.g 8) and from this the author holds a lot of freedom in how they wish to curate their instagram account. That being said, relating back to the assignment, something that I learned was that although having one amazing photograph is fantastic, there is strength in numbers. By strength, I mean to say popularity and sustained interest for instagram followers, as in order to achieve this, often treating your instagram feed as though it is a brand is paramount to guaranteeing that it will gain more traction. In terms of Instagram this means using its affordances to your advantage but doing it in a creative, well thought out and consistent way.
By the week ten posts I knew that I was going for a colourful theme, I knew that I would use a door pun for each caption followed by emojis that were the themed colour and hashtags; one for the blue, one to relate to the push or pull example from the affordances reading and one random one. The physical process of taking the images and photos also changed as I was looking more at framing and changing the angle of the shot so that the images were connected but still diverse.
In the week 10 blog post on mobile photography I mentioned how the iphone has really revolutionised mobile photography in how much easier it is, but also how the casualness of taking a photo or video on your phone can be a strong affordance. I found this particularly when taking the last video of all the posts where the two guys were walking behind the colourful window. If I had been carrying a large camera with a flash then they most likely would have noticed me and either moved out of the way or not wanted to be apart of the video. Although it can be noted that they are very far away and cannot be identified, having the iphone as my video taking source was an advantage here as I could capture something I might not have been able to. When looking at Henri Cartier-Bresson in the Week 5 blog post he commented that when taking photographs of people with the cameras of his day often there were constraints such as the change in how his subjects acted when being in front of the camera. Actually going through the process of using the instagram app through my phone and making mobile photography and video I learned how there is so much more you can capture in a much easier way and it can be distributed in a much quicker way.
The distributing of the photos and videos of the account was also something that evolved. I became more conscious that in order to build up the other social media platforms that I was using for the door project, it was important to connect them through linking the other accounts. I did this through using common strategies such as suggesting the viewer check out the twitter page or tumblr page. Due to the constraints of Twitter not being the best platform to post videos, I ended up using the caption then linking the actual video back to instagram. This was something that reminded me of how easy it was to do things like embed a video or photo onto a seperate platform outside of instagram if I wanted to. Instagram is really in part so successful because it can adapt and connect to the network and other social media’s.
Instagram is easily accessible through the internet and requires a basic “network literacy”(Miles, 2012, p.g 1) enabling users to want to use it and build the amount of users it already has. Its affordances of creative tools such as photo editing and hashtags and being able to make a caption, enables a sense of power and voice to the user as well as control in what they wish to capture and how they wish it to be received. The initial constraint of a square camera limits itself when taking photographs as they can only be framed in certain dimensions, however this also is beneficial in how the content is viewed on a mobile device. When in a square frame, the user is able to scroll freely and doesn’t face any issues re uploading the image from another account onto there instagram account. Other elements are how connectable instagram photo/video sharing enables users to be. With the introduction of tagging and being able to follow other users and like/comment, the platform holds a strong social use, further creating an engagement and sense of connection to the user and they don’t feel trapped or stuck in simply a photo sharing app. Due to the affordances of instagram within the network, content is delivered faster, more artistically and for a more diverse group of reasons by a larger amount of creators.
Miles, Adrian. RMIT University, 2012. (Network Literacy: The New Path to Knowledge 201-208)Kuc,
Kamila, and Joanna Zylinska, editors. Photomediations: A Reader. Open Humanities Press, 2016, (pp.7-16 Photomediations: An Introduction by Joanna Zylinkska – download direct from the website)