Becoming a semiotic technology – a historical study of Instagram's tools for making and sharing photos and videos
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13119121 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Søren Vigild Poulsen (0000-0003-0304-8109, University of Southern Denmark, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 2 |
| Issue | 1-2 |
| Pages | 121-139 |
| Publication date | 2018-04-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Internet Histories (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2470-1475 • E-ISSN: 2470-1483 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/24701475.2018.1459350 |
| OpenAlex | W2801879084 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 12 |
| References cited | 29 |
Since October 2010, Instagram has provided its users with photo filters and other visual communication features with which they are changing the semiotic landscape of mobile photography. These tools, used to make and share images, are continuously updated. While these functionalities have been studied from a synchronic perspective, a diachronic study of their semiotic and interactive features has been overlooked. The purpose of this article is to investigate the design history of the tools in Instagram's mobile user interface.Drawing on a social semiotic multimodal framework, this article presents an analysis of selected tools in the Instagram mobile user interface from 2010 until 2017. It reports on the findings of how tools changed quantitatively and qualitatively. Three interrelated developments are tracked: the number of tools, their semiotic representation and the potential meaning of these. Subsequently, the study shows that the Instagram application makes knowledge and skills available to a community of amateurs that used to be reserved for professional photographers. Thus, the study characterises the ways Instagram as a semiotic technology over time has facilitated and structured visual meaning-making
Advertising · Art · Business · Linguistics · Multimedia · Semiotics · Sociology · Visual arts · World Wide Web · Computer Science · Digital Communication and Language · Digital Games and Media · Media Studies and Communication
VPNs as boundary objects of the internet
Dissolving the Dichotomies Between Online and Campus-Based Teaching
From image to identity icon
Designing stories on social media
A Classification of Features for Interpersonal Disconnectivity in Digital Media
The Instagrammable outdoors – Investigating the sharing of nature experiences through visual social media
A history of features for online tie breaking, 1997-2021
Reel cooking
Face off – a semiotic technology study of software for making deepfakes
Two Decades of Fashion Blogging and Influencing
Studying social media as semiotic technology
Small stories as curated formats on social media
Discourse of Twitter and Social Media
Introducing Social Semiotics
Multimodality
Reading Images
Researching Language and Social Media
The Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies
An Introduction to Functional Grammar
‘Let’s Get Them Involved’ . . . to Some Extent
Seeing Ourselves Through Technology
Software Takes Command
A brief history of Facebook as a media text
Selfies in ‘mommyblogging’
Social media photography
Colour as a semiotic mode
The walkthrough method
Iphoneography as an emergent art world
Interface design
The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis
Thinking of You
The Platformization of the Web
| Unique citing works | 12 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1.5 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2025 (8) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 12 |