A Dummy's Guide to using Instagram like a REAL Journalist

Abstract

Journalism is an ever-growing industry. In the digital age of the 21st century, social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram (Meta) have become a place for engaging with audiences in an attempt to humanize news publications. Until the summer of 2023, social media platforms were open spaces for the accessible sharing of news. The reliance of journal publications on social media to interact with the audience not only built a boundary between personal and professional image for journalists but also made journalists’ interactions with their audiences very passive. With the changes implemented by Meta in response to Bill C-18, which took away news organizations’ accounts from their social media platforms in Canada, the process of engaging with audiences and presenting news changed to become more journalist-oriented. Furthermore, journalists participated more actively as they had to present themselves by using their personal accounts. Now that the line between professional and personal identity on social media is blurred, it provides space for discourse on how a journalist brands themselves on a platform that is silencing their work. My study investigates a local independent student news publication’s editorial board practices to observe how student journalists are resisting the news-sharing ban Meta has introduced. I found that the platform’s policy changes were mostly superficial, and loopholes were easy to find and exploit. The findings were used to make an Instagram account in the form of a guide for student journalists, documenting the process of bypassing the content-sharing ban.