Instapower: Instagram and American Virtual Colonization

Employing Ameli’s (2012) virtual colonization conceptual framework, the present paper aims to conduct a qualitative critical investigation upon the functions and impacts ofInstagram. To attain the objective of the study, all the relevant documents such as the Terms of Service of the application were prudently scrutinized using content analysis. Furthermore, a statistical survey was conducted amongst 150 international randomly-selected participants on the extent to which they care about the terms of service in Instagram . The paper attempts to analyze the impacts and features of the application at personal, social, and political level. From the cultural aspect, the application could be considered as a tool for presentation and promotion of the American values amongst individuals. Not unlike many other social networks, Instagram promotes double identities among the users, seeing that shared photos in such social networks as Instagram often display the ideally built and cherry-picked identity of people, rather than their actual identity. Instagram has developed a circumstance which provides room for promotion of egoism and self-absorption as habitualized phenomena. At the political level, the paper propounds the view that insofar as Instagram is an American product following the US legal system, the probability of access to its database for politicalpurposes is both high and justifiable.

Keywords:

Instagram , Virtual Colonization , Double Identity , American Politics , American Culture