From #selfie to #edgy. Hashtag networks and images associated with the hashtag #jews on Instagram

Abstract

This paper reports on an analysis of networked representations of Jews and Jewishness on social media. It builds on prior research on the usage of Twitter hashtags for issue framing (Meraz, 2017; Meraz and Papacharissi, 2013), and extends it to the leading photo-sharing platform Instagram. We collected a dataset of 1500 Instagram posts marked with the hashtags #jew, #jewish, and #jews, and combine qualitative content analysis and co-occurrence network analysis to explore themes and representational practices in Instagram content about Jews and Jewishness. Besides a range of representations of private lives, Jewish culture, and history, that are shaped by Instagram’s platform affordances, it identifies alternative practices, including meme annotation and sharing political content, notably about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This work contributes to the understanding of how hashtags and visuals are used in the construction of collective representations on social media.