Asian American Influencer Cultural Identity Portrayal on Instagram

Abstract

Social media provides minority groups with more control over their portrayals than stereotypical misrepresentations of Hollywood. To understand how Asian Americans are negotiating their own ethnic, racial, and national identities on social media, constant comparative analysis was employed to examine patterns in visual and textual communication of Asian American influencers’ Instagram posts. Their cultural identities were communicated as a cultural hybridity, which included the use of Asian, American/Western, and Asian American cultural values, products, and behaviors. This study indicates that multicultural identity analysis can be applied to visual texts, and Instagram can provide fluid, authentic representations of identity.