Cyber-physical traveler performances and Instagram travel photography as ideal impression management

Abstract

While there is significant existing research linking travel photography to self-presentation, it is the effects of ‘Instagrammability’ that mobilize significant shifts in the motivations and behaviours of tourists. This paper applies Goffman’s (1956) notion of impression management unfolding as a performance, with both front- and backstage characteristics. This research finds that the frontstage in this context is identified as the cyber behaviour, while the backstage encapsulates the physical manifestations that occur ‘behind the scenes’ to ‘get the shot’. By employing both content analysis and ethnography, new social norms of using travel images for impression management were identified in which there is a clear motive to match the ‘Instagram aesthetic’. A refreshed code of choreographed movements as photographic practices has emerged that did not exist before the popularization of Instagram. Less than 2% of photos analyzed solely feature the landscape, reinforcing the shift to self-presentation strategies as the foremost importance.