One wants to get a wow - effect : A focus group study of identity on Instagram

This thesis examines Instagram users and how they create an identity, and their interaction with other users. The aim of this study is to understand what we do with Instagram and what Instagram does with us in our everyday lives, and what the effects of the medium entails. This thesis is based on theories of identity, hyper- reality and effects of the development of social media. The method used in this study is qualitative focus group interviews with five women and five men, where the answers are transcribed and analyzed to gain an understanding of the effects and the impact of Instagram in their lives. We chose to interview both men and women, and therefore we have also had the gender issue in mind, but it has not been the main focus of this study. The results we reached in this study is that Instagram is mainly used to keep updated and that the medium provides both positive and negative effects. We also discovered that individuals are not one hundred percent themselves on Instagram. The conclusion we can draw is that people play different roles on Instagram of different purposes, and that we live in a hyper- reality that brings both good and bad. We can also conclude that even though people today have the power to present themselves in the way they want to, we see tendencies that gender representation is present in a stereotypical way.