From Selfies to Media Events

Abstract

This study examined how Instagram users’ visual posts changed in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo incident, one of the most covered and online-trending news events of 2015. Through a quantitative content analysis of 1000 images posted in the four days following the shootings, the study found that Instagram users interrupted their routines when they began posting images about the incident rather than selfies or personal photos that typically make up Instagram’s fare. The images are studied in the framework of media events theory, a concept explained by Dayan and Katz. The study also found that most posts originated from outside France immediately after the incident, while French users posted more in the later days. Moreover, the visual analysis revealed that Instagram users shifted from a reactionary mode in the first two days to an informative and visual citizen journalist mode in the next two days as they posted newsworthy images of events pertaining to the Charlie Hebdo shootings.