Images, algorithms and social media. notes for an interdisciplinary study perspective

Abstract

Instagram is one of the most interesting phenomenon both of contemporary visual culture and of the so-called algorithmic turn. In fact, in this platform the relationship between devices and apparatuses, images (fixed and moving), social practices and algorithms is ontogenetic as these components are indispensable for the production, circulation and use of images. This essay wants to show how this complexity is better understood with an interdisciplinary approach that involves sociology of media, aesthetics, and semiotics. After outlining Instagram’s most interesting features under this perspective, the essay will focus on the theoretical elements in which sociology, aesthetics, and semiotics can dialogue. In the last part, this approach will be applied to the solicitations that come from the representation of the maternal body on Instagram, an emblematic case study for the social, cultural and aesthetic meanings that it contains.