(Re-)Appropriating Instagram for Social Research: Three Methods for Studying Obesogenic Environments

Proceedings of SMSociety '16, July 11 - 13, 2016, London, United Kingdom

10 Pages Posted: 17 Nov 2016

See all articles by Anders Munk

Anders Munk

Aalborg University; SciencesPo médialab

Mette Abildgaard

Aalborg University

Andreas Birkbak

Aalborg University Copenhagen

Morten Petersen

Aalborg University

Date Written: July 12, 2016

Abstract

The paper discusses three ways of appropriating Instagram for social research through the case of obesity. We draw on the notion obesogenic environments, in which obesity is understood as related to a wide range of cultural, social and physical factors. Together with a group of obesity researchers and cultural analysts we explored a dataset of 82,449 Instagram posts tagged with location from the five most and the five least overweight local authorities in the UK. The geo-located posts were studied through three distinct approaches to the data; each drawing on their own set of interdependent conceptualizations of what constitutes obesogenic environments, Instagram and cultural analysis respectively. The first approach values Instagram as a repository of images that can be coded and counted; while the second asks about the everyday practices of Instagram users. In a third approach we view Instagram itself as an analytical tool that produces a media-specific version of phenomena such as obesity. Following this third appropriation, we conclude that to unlock Instagram’s potential for social research it must be considered as more than a collection of user-tagged images, but as an analytical context in its own right.

Keywords: Instagram, social media, obesity, obesogenic environment, cultural analysis, data sprint, geolocated social media data

Suggested Citation

Munk, Anders and Munk, Anders and Abildgaard, Mette and Birkbak, Andreas and Petersen, Morten, (Re-)Appropriating Instagram for Social Research: Three Methods for Studying Obesogenic Environments (July 12, 2016). Proceedings of SMSociety '16, July 11 - 13, 2016, London, United Kingdom, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2870477

Anders Munk

SciencesPo médialab ( email )

27 rue Saint-Guillaume
Paris Cedex 07, 75337
France

Aalborg University ( email )

Fredrik Bajers Vej 7E
Aalborg, DK-9220
Denmark

Mette Abildgaard

Aalborg University ( email )

Fredrik Bajers Vej 7E
Aalborg, DK-9220
Denmark

Andreas Birkbak (Contact Author)

Aalborg University Copenhagen ( email )

A C Meyers Vaenge 15
Copenhagen SV, DK-2450
Denmark

HOME PAGE: http://www.aau-cph.dk/

Morten Petersen

Aalborg University ( email )

Fredrik Bajers Vej 7E
Aalborg, DK-9220
Denmark

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