Instagram vs reality: Exploring local culture through various lenses

Abstract

Rather than viewing online and face-to-face learning as two dichotomous domains (Kessler, 2018), this study seeks to explore ways that social media can be used to support and facilitate face-to-face exploration and communication in target language environments. It also aims to help English language learners improve their ability to critically evaluate social media by exploring a local community through a critical lens. This study applied the concept of “social media pathways” (authors, 2024) through an experiential learning model to integrate an authentic social networking site, Instagram, into an ESL curriculum for a community engagement project promoting a deeper and multifaceted understanding of the target language community. This study employed qualitative method approach, including seven international students’ reflections, a post-task questionnaire, and focus-group interview data, to investigate how the assumptions made from social media compare with observations made in the field. The findings were then used to establish a “Model for Community Exploration within Virtual and Face-to-face Contexts” that adds to the experiential learning framework the additional stages of experimentation, reflection, and new conceptualization that take place when learners use social media to form assumptions about a community and then use in-person exploration to test those hypotheses.