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dc.contributor.authorLeaver, Tama
dc.contributor.authorHighfield, Tim
dc.date.accessioned2018-02-06T06:15:11Z
dc.date.available2018-02-06T06:15:11Z
dc.date.created2018-02-06T05:49:49Z
dc.date.issued2018
dc.identifier.citationLeaver, T. and Highfield, T. 2018. Visualising the ends of identity: pre-birth and post-death on Instagram. Information, Communication & Society. 21 (1): pp. 30-45.
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/63060
dc.identifier.doi10.1080/1369118X.2016.1259343
dc.description.abstract

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This paper examines two ‘ends’ of identity online–birth and death–through the analytical lens of specific hashtags on the Instagram platform. These ends are examined in tandem in an attempt to surface commonalities in the way that individuals use visual social media when sharing information about other people. A range of emerging norms in digital discourses about birth and death are uncovered, and it is significant that in both cases the individuals being talked about cannot reply for themselves. Issues of agency in representation therefore frame the analysis. After sorting through a number of entry points, images and videos with the #ultrasound and #funeral hashtags were tracked for three months in 2014. Ultrasound images and videos on Instagram revealed a range of communication and representation strategies, most highlighting social experiences and emotional peaks. There are, however, also significant privacy issues as a significant proportion of public accounts share personally identifiable metadata about the mother and unborn child, although these issue are not apparent in relation to funeral images. Unlike other social media platforms, grief on Instagram is found to be more about personal expressions of loss rather than affording spaces of collective commemoration. A range of related practices and themes, such as commerce and humour, were also documented as a part of the spectrum of activity on the Instagram platform. Norms specific to each collection emerged from this analysis, which are then compared to document research about other social media platforms, especially Facebook.

dc.publisherRoutledge
dc.titleVisualising the ends of identity: pre-birth and post-death on Instagram
dc.typeJournal Article
dcterms.source.volume21
dcterms.source.number1
dcterms.source.startPage30
dcterms.source.endPage45
dcterms.source.issn1369-118X
dcterms.source.titleInformation, Communication & Society
curtin.departmentSchool of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry (MCASI)
curtin.accessStatusFulltext not available
curtin.contributor.orcidLeaver, Tama [0000-0002-4065-4725]


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