Exposition to consuming messages on instagram as a social medium – Düzce case

The proliferation of Internet technologies has led to an expansion of new digital communication styles and platforms. Social media tools are among the interactive communication platforms that Web 2.0 offers. The number of these platforms is rising day by day, and some of them have been used by billions of people world-wide. Instagram is one of the most popular social networking and content sharing platform which is used by about 1 billion people. It allows the users to share images and videos in addition to common features of social networking sites. In a world where corporations, brands and advertisements are at the center of daily life, consumption has become the core activity of the people. Any means of mass communication has become a target for disseminating consuming messages and advertisements. The messages have generally been from the corporations, yet with the emergence of different social media tools, they have become autonomous, in other words, consumers now advertise the brands, products, or lifestyles themselves, intentionally or not. In this study, the aim is to investigate the emphasis of consuming on Instagram through the perception of its users within the sample of Düzce. To reach this main aim, a 30-item 5-point-Likert type questionnaire was developed. The content validity was ensured with expert opinions and validity was ensured with a pilot study with 50 participants. The questionnaire aims to find out the Instagram usage habits, Instagram sharing experiences, and the level of exposition of the users into consuming messages. Also, a subdimension of the questionnaire aims to explore the tendency to/perception of popularity on Instagram as celebrities and influencers are the main disseminators of consuming messages. The results show that Instagram is a platform where consuming is encouraged, and it does this through making the users create and/or exposed to consuming messages from either companies/brands or the other users.