Forms of communication in Instagram – GRIN

Table of contents or introduction

Social media platforms can now be seen as ubiquitous communication media. Users have the option of producing their own content and accessing content from other users. Since these platforms are now an integral part of many people’s everyday lives, the question arises as to which specific linguistic characteristics are used in online communication and which possibilities and limits online communication offers. This will be the central theme of this work.

First of all, the topic is introduced with a presentation of the social media platform Instagram with a brief explanation of the functionality and possible applications for users. Subsequently, this thesis deals with the communication in Instagram with regard to the use of linguistic characteristics. Then the communication channels defined according to Pürer (2003) are shown, with a comparison of online communication and face-to-face communication. Building on this, the language in online communication in Instagram, which is typical for the social media platform, is examined. The following part is devoted to emojis and their function, as they play a central role in online communication and should therefore not be ignored. The history of the development of emojis is discussed in order to make it clear why they are often used by users in online communication today. As a result, the function types according to Pappert (2017) are presented and analyzed in relation to communication in Instagram in order to illustrate the functionality of emojis in Instagram. Finally, this thesis deals with an analysis of forms of communication, which should show the possibilities and limits of online communication. This work ends with a conclusion and a possible outlook. The aim of this work is to examine linguistic characteristics as well as possibilities and limits of the social media platform. The available interactions are in no way elicited, so that staging or other manipulations can be ruled out.