Personal Reflection.

Through my research into the social media app Instagram, I have found out that it is so much more than a social media app, Gaining insight into Participatory Culture, and applying it to my media text has enabled me to see how active we as users are in the sharing and creation of content. As an active user of the app Instagram, I simply saw it as a way of uploading photos and editing them for my friends to see, through research I have discovered without even realising it even I am subject to Goffmans theories of self presentation, even I find myself guilty of uploading photo's and spending time editing and perfecting them in order for some form of self acceptance, whether we like to admit it or not we are all guilty of using hashtags in order to gain more followers or likes, even the use of the app "Tagstagram" is used by myself and many of my followers to find the most popular hashtags in order to gain popularity, and even in my conversations with my peers I often hear phrases such as "how many likes did you get." As superficial as this sounds this kind of culture in my generation does exist.

Finding out about historical archives on Instagram was a new revolution for me, I now am aware that this app has the potential for so much more than just social media. The case studies I researched when looking at marketing on Instagram have taught me as a future media producer that using social media is definitely the way forward in gaining ultimate success, however it shouldn't be used lightly and time must be taken in making sure the account is actively popular and trending before launching such campaigns. Using my own Instagram account as a research method has enabled me to compare myself to the users these journals talk about as examples, In some cases I would say however I don't tend to use Instagram to join in on hashtag campaigns so this is a useful example of how i would use my own use of the text to argue some points that these journals have to offer.  I have learnt that social media is not one dimensional which is what I saw it as before conducting this textual analysis, from doing this research it has definitely broadened my knowledge on how powerful the user is in today's technological age, the technology that we now have access to is constantly changing minute by minute. My own engagement of the text will now be somewhat extended now that I know the endless possibilities this app has to offer.

 Here I show an example of myself engaging with "Tagstagram"
      (left)

This photo is an example of me

optimizing Instagram as my most

used app by putting it in my home 

bar.                                                 

These two photo's are clear examples of me participating in actively sharing and marketing companies products, and using hashtags, a clear example of how Instagram is a powerful platform for users passively advertising products.