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Sarah Brittain

 

In his book Genre Analysis, English in academic and research setting, John Swales discuses many topics in literature and communication. One aspect he touches on is the discourse community. This is a kind of group that can be many things, but one thing it is not is simple. There is a vast array of aspects that qualify a certain group as a discourse community; swales descirbes his personal definition of a discourse community which is a group which shares similar values, but also that share means of communication and its own terminology.

In the community of Instagram, which is an app based around socializing through images, communication is centralized around images and symbols. An image posted from every person will appear on a central feed, the user can also have their own profile where they display pictures they have taken. These pictures range from friends, to family, dogs, to nature. Instagram is a worldwide community with numbers reaching the millions and yet every member can be in touch with the press of a few buttons. In the sub community, Royal Snapping artists a group of photographers gather to not only better themselves but to spread the love of nature and photography far and wide. The Royal Snapping Artists is a sub community of this large photography community Instagram, is has thousands of members from around the world. According to Richter, the RSA “is a community which supports and promotes its members”.

In this essay I will be analyzing a “sub community”, which is a community within the larger community of Instagram. I will be showing it as a complex discourse community with its own goals and ways of communicating, giving feedback as well as its own set of terminology. To conduct research, apart from being a member of the group (and therefore being privy to knowledge someone outside the group may not have) I interviewed another member of the group Mr. Daniel Richter.

My Own personal goals when joining RSA was to promote my own photos, but I also enjoy seeing the beauty of other places that I might not get to visit myself. We have a variety of members from around the world to represent their own area, I along with a couple other people represent New Jersey. When Dan originally joined this community he says it was to become a better photographer, then once he had accomplished an experienced level of picture taking he now promotes himself more. The group itself has thousands of members and every week they feature a new member, someone who takes great pictures of rural landscapes. We also have contests and challenges where everyone takes pictures of similar things like the “windmill challenge” and then the best picture is featured

As defined by swales lexis is terminology which is unique to the group. Its important to first discuss the terminology because without knowing what the terminology of the community there’s no way to understand how we communicate. In the group of Instagram there are many different terms, but the most important one is hashtag, a hashtag is a very complicated term which can be symbolized with a pound sign (#). It is a way of categorizing, as described by Richter, “I like to use the hastah railfan so I can find other people who enjoy rail lines and they can also find me” using this hashtag symbol before a phrase or word creates a hashtag and puts the picture into that group. Its also, as shown by Richter, a way for people to stay connected. All through instagram these different hashtags are used from #cute, #nature or #fun to more complex hastags like #whatiateforbreakfast.

In the RSA we have many unique tags that all begin with #RSA_ . For instance just recently we had a challenge which was called #RSA_livestock everyone posted different pictures of livestock and the best pictures were able to be featured on the site.

Another important term is followers, these are people who “follow” you which means your pictures show up in their feed. For instance I follow “taureen_chris” a friend from Easton who is a member of the RSA

There are many ways to communicate within the app instagram and we use all of these mechanisms in the royal snapping family. One way and popular way of communicating is in the caption that you post with your picture. This is a way to communicate something to the people who follow you or to whatever hashtag you decide to put on the picture.
commenting is also a form of communication. this is when people can leave a comment under someones picture or caption, very often they are positive and commending the photographer on their photo or the beauty in it.
liking is a way of liking a photo you literally click the like button and your name is added to a list of people who liked the picture. this list is viewable by anyone.
following is also a form of communication. if you follow someone you automatically let them know you like the pictures they take. usually the person returns the follow or a few "likes"
there are many ways to give and recieve feedback on instagram these are commenting, liking,  and following. commenting as explained above, can be done by anyone on instagram not just followers.

The community of Royal Snapping artists have a wide range of communicating mechanisms as well as terminoglogy unique to the group, these as well as many others deem it a discourse community. You can communicate a lot through a picture, but the age old saying of “a picture is worth a thousand words” remains a motto with a thousand meanings. Pictures can communicate in many different ways, and in the 21^st century where people want instant gratification and everyone is a visual learner it’s important to be able to express and communicate through images.