Art on Instagram

: the impact of art-related content on followers’ and artists´self-perception of creativity

Abstract

Because Instagram is such a visually oriented social media platform, it is vital tounderstand the influence that it may have on its users' perceptions of their own creativeabilities and potential. In part because of its scale, many artists now consider that theirpresence on the platform is mandatory; yet, the network has also offered art enthusiasts anunparalleled opportunity to get closer to these artists and their work. The purpose of thisdissertation is to investigate the impact of art-related accounts on Instagram on artists andother followers who are not professional artists, especially in terms of their creativity. Duringthe research, semi-structured interviews with artists who use Instagram were conducted, aswell as focus groups with individuals who follow art-related accounts on the social mediaplatform. The findings revealed that both artists and the followers agree that consuming artrelatedcontent on Instagram has significant potential to aid in the creative and inspirationalprocess. While the artists and non-artist followers’ motivations differ in a few ways, whichare primarily related to artists' views of the platform as a tool for promoting and improvingtheir work, and followers' views of the platform as a source of entertainment or distraction,they also share some motivations for following art-related content. The results alsoconcluded that there were possible negative consequences on creativity, such as comparisonand anxiety, that eventually discouraged artists, even while many were able to get creativeinspiration on Instagram.

Date of Award	21 Feb 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Jessica Roberts (Supervisor)