Instagram ETEC 540

Lachelle Farris ETEC540 2024S1-2

Instagram

A Multimodal literacy tool for Participicatory culture and connection

2020

2016

2013

Now

2010

Reels - short story style functionality is addded

Tool used beyond social sharing

Stories (24 hour availability) are added

Video functionality added

Inception as a photo sharing tool

Engagement with multimodal literacies equips many students with new ways to create and share meaning, as written-linguistic modes are often transposed with oral, visual, tactile, gestural and/or audio patterns of meaning. (Kalantzis & Cope, 2009) as cited by Drewry et al. (2019).

Multiliteracies

Visual

Photographs, filters, addition of stickers and GIFs overlaying images and videos, splicing videos together

Audio

Music, remixing pre-existing audio clips, oral storytelling, sound effects, voice-over, automatic transcription of speech in closed captions

Linguistic

Captions, comments, hashtags, automatic transcription of of speech in captions, translation of captions into 90 different languages

Social Interactivity

Location tags, personal tags, following accounts and hashtags, likes and shares, discover pages

Literacy is a social practice; it's something that people do in interaction with social others, expanding literacy's meaning beyond an autonomous skill set of encoding and decoding texts and toward the interaction between people. (Marsh & Hoff, 2019).

Participatory Culture & Literacy

Experimentation & Sharing

Civic Engagement

Global Connections

Promote critical thinking, action-taking, and considering a variety of perspectives

Encourage learners to interact beyond their immediate and usual audience in multi-way communications

Playing with different modes of technology and literacy expands capacity for reflection, storytelling, and discovery

Affordances & Implications for Literacy & Education

Implications

Affordances

• Instagram's multimodality allows learners to express themselves and interact with others in new ways

• Can help language learners expand their knowledge of English (and other languages)

• Access a variety of perspectives beyond what is found in one's regularly traversed communities.

• Empowerment toward experimentation, creativity, and learning through trial and error.

• Education must embrace Transmedia Navigation; the ability to think across media and read and write across all available modes of expression and literacy.

• 21st century literacy should include learning online social skills (netiquette) as ways to communicate and interact with the larger global community.

• Education must include media literacy, and teach students how to identify reliable and unreliable sources, fact check, and protect themselves online.

Challenges

• Spread of incorrect or biased information on social media is rampant

• Educating learners on digital footprints, and protection of their personal information online (digital surveillance)

Watch 13-year-old Yimin's talk about digital literacy among youth

References: Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2009). “Multiliteracies”: New Literacies, New Learning. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 4(3), 164–195. https://doi.org/10.1080/15544800903076044 Drewry, R., Cumming-Potvin, W., & Maor, D. (2019). New Approaches to Literacy Problems: Multiliteracies and Inclusive Pedagogies. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 44(11), 61–78. https://doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2019v44.n11.4 Jenkins, H., Purushotma, R., Weigel, M., Clinton, K., & Robinson, A. J. (2009). Core Media Literacy Skills & What Should We Teach? Rethinking Literacy. In Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/8435.001.0001 Marsh, V. L., & Hoff, M. J. (2019). New literacies in participatory cultures: The assumption of trust. E-Learning and Digital Media, 16(5), 393-412. https://doi.org/10.1177/2042753019863489 Pull: How Technology is Changing the Conversation. (2014, January 20). Henry Jenkins: Spreadable content makes the consumer king [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCKoLB1kUsY Stewart, O. G. (2015). A critical review of the literature of social media’s affordances in the classroom. E-Learning and Digital Media, 12(5-6), 481–501. https://doi.org/10.1177/2042753016672895 TEDx Talks. (2022, September 9). Digital Literacy Skills to succeed in learning and beyond | Yimin Yang | tedxyouth@grandviewheights. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgEGbMPJcAo Wikipedia. (2019, May 16). Timeline of Instagram. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Instagram

The Birth of Instagram

Instagram was launched in 2010 by Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom. The creators were influenced by popular location-based check-in platforms like FourSquare. However, they wanted to include the capacity for users to take photographs on their mobile devices and post them to a public sphere. Interestingly, the app was originally only avaiable for Apple iOS.

Beyond Social Sharing

Influencers, businesses and educators alike use Instagram as a medium to go beyond traditional text and image-based content to reach viewers. Users engage with Instagram for entertainment, expression, learning and connecting with communities worldwide.

Reels

Instagram releases the 'Reels' feature, which allows users to create short story form videos. This function includes more advanced video editing functionality, remix other users audio/video clips, and incorporate text overlay and captions

Video inclusion

Instagram expands beyond still images and includes video sharing in the platform. This transforms the multimodal experience beyond images and text-only captions, and includes auditory elements like personal voice, music, and storytelling.

Stories

Instagram Stories are introduced, which feature images or videos that disappear after 24 hours. This functionality is inspired by SnapChat, which was climbing in usage at the time. Instagram reaches 1 billion users worldwide.