Publikation Buchkapitel 2024
Media as cookie cutters
Exploring the digital mediality of news on Instagram
Pfurtscheller, Daniel
In: Luginbühl, Martin; Schneider, Jan Georg: Media as Procedures of Communication. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company (= Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 348), S. 124–155.
Abstract
Digital platforms are increasingly defining the way media content looks and is experienced. In this paper, I use Schneider and Luginbühl’s (2020) notion of medial shaping to analyze the presentation of news on Instagram. My aim is to show how the mediality of digital platforms leads to a convergence of digital news in terms of its linguistic structure and multimodal design. To further the specific factors within digital mediality that make such shaping processes possible, I will also examine the metaphorical concept of platforms. Using three German-language news sites as examples, my qualitative analysis explores how the characteristics of the platform lead to a homogeneity of media communication. I approach Instagram as a designed space that I examine in terms of spatiality, temporality, and intertextuality. My analysis of digital medialty shows how the technological capabilities and design features of Instagram shapes the presentation of news on a linguistic and visual level but also how media practitioners strive to creatively utilize the given platform templates for their own communicative purposes.