Using Instagram for Visibility: A Digital Ethnographic Study of Algorithmic Mediation on Digital Illustrators

Both the digital artsphere and digital art marketplace are rapidly evolving. It is moving onto different platforms online, and in doing so it reaches a substantial amount of audiences. Described as a phenomena that requires anticipation, the progress of digital art creators on social media is one to further look into. One of the platforms that continues to cater to digital art is Instagram. Being a visually centered social media platform, digital artists such as digital illustrators are using it to be showcasing their creations. This study particularly addresses digital illustrators. With a significant number of digital illustrators already being on Instagram, the research aimed to understand how they are using the platform to gain visibility. Instagram’s algorithms play a substantial role in how users on the platform are behaving. However, with Meta choosing to not disclose much about the platform’s algorithms, users have developed an understanding of how certain algorithms play a role in their lives. A concept Bishop (2019) coined as “algorithmic gossip”. What were some of the algorithmic gossip digital illustrators participated in? And, how is it affecting their practices on the platform? This research was conducted through a mixed method approach. Firstly, by conducting a digital ethnography of ten chosen digital illustrators on Instagram, several emerging themes and insights were identified. The themes were later incorporated into topics and questions for five in-depth interviews with particular digital illustrators on Instagram. For further discussion and comparison, a computational network analysis of one of the digital illustrator’s YouTube channels was carried out. This revealed differences in the strategies used by illustrators on Instagram and YouTube. Results of the study suggests that digital illustrators on Instagram have taken a solopreneurship approach by acting within their own jurisdiction to ensure their profiles are more client-facing rather than personal pages. Moreover, while the digital illustrators perceive Instagram’s algorithms to be arbitrary and problematic, practices such as consistently posting their creations, engaging with their audiences through the platform’s affordances, and identifying or incorporating trends onto their art, are some of the main strategies they use to gain visibility.