Digital Life on Instagram

Elisa Serafinelli works as Research Associate in the School of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield. She specialises in Media, Communication and Society with six years of experience in research and teaching. She has co-edited the book The Digital Transformation of the Public Sphere and published a recent study related to visual communication in the journal article Mobile Mediated Visualities: An Empirical Study of Visual Practices on Instagram. Her current research explores mobile media practices and the social behaviours that arise from it with particular focus on privacy and surveillance issues related to the growing use of drone technologies.

• Chapter 1. New Approaches to Digital Photography and Online Photosharing Chapter 2. The Practice of Online PhotosharingChapter 3. Visual Social Relationships Chapter 4. Visual Media Marketing Chapter 5. Privacy and SurveillanceChapter 6. Identity: The Visual Self

In this online ethnographic study and critical interpretation of Instagram, author Elisa Serafinelli (sociology, University of Sheffield, UK) studies 44 Instagram users for three years to explore how Instagram users make use of photographs to create an online persona and what this means for identity formation, social relationships, privacy, and marketing. Drawing on the ideas of thinkers including Marshall McLuhan, Roland Barthes, Henry Jenkins, Anthony Giddens, Michel Foucault, and Jos’e van Dijck, the author explores how the ability to create and post images produces new forms of experiencing everyday life. In addition, she presents an original concept of mobile visualities to examine photography and social communication. B&w photos are included.