Visuality as an Affordance on Instagram News Production

Abstract

News media organisations have turned to social media platforms to engage with younger audiences who mainly consume news through these channels. This article focuses on news production on Instagram and explores visuality as a necessity and an affordance in producing journalistic content to the platform. Our data comprises of thematic interviews with social media professionals as well as Instagram Posts and video Reels from news media accounts from Finland. Through qualitative content analysis we have recognised three thematic categories that are connected to visuality guiding the professional decision making: 1) adaptation (strategic adaptation to the platform), 2) condensing (simplifying and shortening the news content) and 3) attention gaining (a strong selectivity targeting specific audiences). Finally, the identification of image-dominated news suggests that visual social media news stories possess characteristics of a new journalistic genre.