#fernweh #wanderlust #explore: Reise- »Erzählungen« auf Instagram

Sandra Kuhlhüser

doi:10.1515/rhet.2017.007

Abstract

Nowadays, we live in mediatized environments, which are more and more shaped by visual means of expression. Visual social media platforms, such as Instagram, Flickr, Tumblr, Pinterest and Snapchat, are now the tools of communication and self-representation - especially for the younger generations. How users of these visual social media use hashtags and pictures in a rhetorical way to realize their personal representation is shown in this article by analyzing ›travel-narrations‹ of public accounts on Instagram. After a short theoretical approach, which includes the application of the strategic rhetorical process on the social practices on Instagram, the hashtag and the picture are characterized as rhetorical instruments. The analysis showed that there are specific practices of idealized self-representation as a certain type of traveler and rhetorical-communicative patterns, concerning the way hashtags are applied and pictures are uploaded by the users. The result is that even on a mainly visual platform, like Instagram, pictures as a form of communication are too undefined without the textual component in form of hashtags, which are essential contextgiving resources. Thus, the successful realization of the self-representation includes both communication forms, which dialectically build meaning together.

#fernweh #wanderlust #explore: Reise- »Erzählungen« auf Instagram

Abstract

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