“O Instagram como espaço de construção de cidades imaginadas: uma ponte Rio de Janeiro – Lisboa (2019)” [Instagram as a space for building imagined cities: a Rio de Janeiro – Lisbon bridge] by Bruna Riboldi | PhD Thesis

Abstract: “With the protagonism of social networks in our lives (and, consequently, our lives representation on social networks), the expression of the identity and the sharing of everyday activities of users are increasingly consolidated and therefore influential, transcending public and private spheres, narrating the everyday and shaping the collective imaginary through the production and sharing of online images. The main objective of this study is to understand how the imaginary of a city crystallizes on Instagram, by analysing more than 150 thousand images of the cities of Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro. We applied automated collection tools via programming interface (API), machine learning systems and specific applications to work with the massive sample that resulted from the one-year collection process. We believe that together, the methodological approaches chosen can provide a more comprehensive and complementary panorama of the imaginary of Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro on Instagram. In addition to revealing which places, colors and framings are most used to depict photographically the cities’ imaginary, the analysis reveal particularities related to the local culture of using the Instagram application. The results present relevant aspects of the urban imaginary representation in Instagram, which include: 1) thematic clusters related to the hashtags used to classify the photographs; 2) photographic categories most used according to the themes; 3) chromatic patterns of cities, which reveal visual and light aspects as represented on the platform, and 4) temporal flows and cultural traits of the use of Instagram. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study in large proportion of urban imaginary from using Instagram representation as source.”

 

This PhD thesis, written by Bruna Riboldi and supervised by Albertino Gonçalves & Erick Felinto, was defended in 2019 within the scope of the Doctoral Program in Communication Studies: Technology, Culture and Society, in association with the following universities: University of Minho, ISCTE- University Institute of Lisbon, University of Beira Interior and Lusófona University of Humanities and Technologies. It is available, in Portuguese and in open access, at RepositóriUM.

ANO

2019

AUTORES

Bruna Riboldi

EDITORES

Albertino Gonçalves & Erick Felinto