Online Photosharing As a Communication Paradigm: A Discourse Approach To Instagram

Abstract

It is evident that the popularity among social media sites, with regard to posting pictures, especially Instagram, has grown rapidly as a novel form of mediated communication. Through the years, communication has evolved from the traditional forms to the more effective mediated form of communication including online photosharing. Several websites have emerged to aid people to send and receive messages while they are in the diaspora. It has been indicated that the diasporic populace uses social media, especially Instagram to communicate with people anywhere. They shared varied important messages including photos through this platform; messaging is bolstered by liking, sharing, tagging, and commenting. This study, therefore, dwelt into assessing the aspect of communication among the diasporic groups, especially the Filipino Expatriates based in Abu Dhabi to determine to realize the motivations and behavior behind such communication as well as the gratifications attained.

The study used an ethnographic design to generate data from 185 respondents who were based in Abu Dhabi. Research questionnaires were fielded through an online survey using Survey Monkey; additionally, key informant interviews were conducted to further enhance the vast data collected for qualitative analysis. Besides, content analysis was employed to give additional insights and holistic support to the study. After adequate data collection, the information was analyzed using qualitative and quantitative strands to ascertain why the respondents used Instagram as a social media technique to communicate. The results confirmed that the user motivations and behaviors were significantly associated with user gratifications, the overall reason for using online photosharing as a medium of communication ultimately resulting in a version of the Uses and Gratifications Framework.