Are you being programmed? Instagram, Identity, and Social Scripts

 

 Example Blog by Example Past Student on Week 4 Key Concept: Self and Community Identity

by Jess Rainer

Figure 1. Instagram (Buryan, 2018)

Instagram, like many other social media platforms, impacts the way people act online. It plays a large part in the type of identity people construct. People may feel free to use or not use social media. But are they really as free as they think, online or off?

One theory that may be useful for analysing the pre-programmed behaviour of people online is that of ‘performativity’. The term was first coined by Judith Butler, who theorised that that performativity is “the repeated assumption of identities in the course of daily life” (Wheedon, 2004, p. 6). Butler suggests that people follow social scripts, for example, assuming certain kinds of clothes to signify their gender or social status. This is intensified online, where people may feel they are free, but are conditioned to follow particular kinds of scripts. On social media, these scripts might be called "personal brands."

Additionally, Instagram can also be a trap for changing the way people act. As Peggy Orenstein discovered when she joined Twitter, she was constantly altering the things she was saying and the way she was acting to conform to what her audience wanted. She stresses how this can then translate to how a person goes about conducting their daily activities (Rayner, 2012). Applying these statements to Instagram, people can get so caught up in performing for their followers that they may actually start to act this way in real life. They may think that in order for people to like them, they have to perform and act in a certain way. Therefore, one of the dangers of performativity is how it can impact a person’s feelings of self-worth. As is further noted by Buryan (2018) on her social media marketing blog, people are shown to be using Instagram more because visual posts (such as photos) are easier to interact with than written posts. Increasingly, people seem to be more and more image conscious, partly because of these forms of visually oriented media.

Furthermore, some of Louis Althusser’s ideas regarding the construction of one’s identity closing align with Butler’s ideas. Althusser introduced the term "interpellation" to describe how the pre-existing discourse or design of a system "hails" people within it, (Henry, 2020). Like a free citizen being hailed by the law, who can only be "innocent" or "guilty," social media gives people the illusion of freedom but limited design options.

They may think they are performing their identity freely, but as with Butler and Althusser's theories, there are limited options and social scripts. 

References

Buryan, M. (2018). Instagram engagement: Everything you need to know (exclusive stats). Retrieved from https://www.socialbakers.com/blog/instagram-engagement

Henry, R. (2020). BA1002: Our space: Networks, narratives, and the making of place; week 4 lecture notes [PowerPoint file]. Retrieved from https://learnjcu.edu.au

Rayner, T. (2012). Foucault and social media: I tweet, therefore I become. Retrieved from https://philosophyforchange.wordpress.com/2012/07/04/foucault-and-social-media-i-tweet-therefore-i-become/

Wheedon, C. (2004). Subjectivity and identity. In C. Wheedon (Ed.), Identity and culture: Narratives of difference and belonging (pp. 5-21). England, Open University Press.