Instagram

In recent years, determining the most effective time to post on Instagram for increased engagement has become a central concern for digital marketers. Despite its significance, research on this topic remains limited. This study adopts an exploratory research approach to analyze Instagram posts from selected Western countries (Europe and America) and Iranian businesses. The data were collected during the period from February 21, 2022, to March 21, 2022, employing web scraping tools. Classification algorithms, including XGBoost, K-NN, SVM, and Linear Regression, are employed for modeling, with results favoring the XGBoost method for accuracy. The study reveals optimal posting times between 12 and 3 pm for Western Countries businesses and 9 and 12 am for Iranian businesses. Furthermore, it suggests Sunday as the best day for posting in the West, contrasting with Thursday in Iran. In summary, this research underscores the differing ideal posting times in Iran and the West, emphasizing the challenge of constructing a uniform model for all countries.

Pedagogic discourse is inherently multimodal, and teaching is a multimodal experience that takes place through the integration of (spoken) language and an array of other communicative modes. Similarly, modern multimedia platforms, such as Instagram, also have the potential to be used as multimodal educational tools that make use of different modalities alongside text. As such, the present study aimed to analyze three prominent Instagram pages, including BBC Learning English, Learning English with Oxford, and Learning English with Cambridge, through the multimodal discourse analysis toolkit proposed by Ledin and Machin (2020). Qualitative data analysis was run to analyze the data. The findings of the study indicated that the English Language Teaching (ELT) pages analyzed employed a diverse array of semiotic resources, spanning from the incorporation of various images to the careful selection of different colors and typography to effectively convey their intended meanings. Additionally, the visual representations employed in the posts were largely consistent with, and in some cases, complementary to the overall content of the posts, and the underlying messages they aimed to convey. Specifically, the visual representations in the ELT pages were purposefully designed to reflect the culture of the English-speaking community as a clear means of reinforcement.

Background: The emergence of amateur critics and vernacular reviewers as non-institutional cultural voices is one of the consequences of social media's development and widespread use.Aims: This study aims to better understand reviewers and their types by examining how they establish critical authority in comparison to institutional critics and their potential influence on cultural valuation.Methodology: This subject is explored through the rhetorical analysis of their linguistic strategies. The research draws theoretically on existing literature regarding cultural criticism and review in social media. Methodologically, it combines qualitative content analysis and rhetorical analysis, emphasizing identifying Aristotelian persuasive elements within the data, including ethos, pathos, and logos. The study sample consists of 350 Instagram posts gathered from 30 film review pages.Findings: The findings indicate that most reviewers adopt a consumer-oriented perspective, distancing themselves from institutional critics. They have also emphasized using Instagram's affordances, particularly its interactive and participatory features, to construct their cultural authority. Furthermore, they have employed rational and emotional appeals in alignment with presenting "summaries and supplementary movie information" and expressing "emotional appeal and affective experience of consumption". These strategies, along with the reviewers' focus on "addressing the audience's emotional needs", "personal growth and self-improvement", and "less dependence on institutional critics", reflect their disinterest in delving into deeper levels of critical evaluation and rhetorical directness in constructing their authority. In the final section of the article, the impact of reviewers on cultural valuation is further discussed, distinguishing three types: "film-style bloggers", "cinema influencers", and "critical reviewers".Conclusions: Based on the results, the first two types of reviewers demonstrate how Instagram’s platform-specific features primarily shape critical authority. While diverse reviewers enhance access to information, they often marginalize critical evaluation and cultural value in favor of consumerism and commercial competition. Only "Critical Reviewers" have successfully integrated critical evaluation with Instagram’s affordances through distinct rhetorical strategies, emphasizing the need to increase their numbers in the era of digital media.

Background: In the digital age, the expansion of social media platforms has profoundly impacted various aspects of life, including family relationships.Aim: This article addresses the complex dynamics of family communication, particularly focusing on Iranian families. In this article, we study the perceptions of users and followers of family blogger pages regarding the representations of family life on Instagram.Methodology: Through interviews with users, we seek to understand their understanding of concepts such as love, intimacy, home, and marital relationships. To study how followers perceive and interpret family-oriented pages on Persian Instagram, approximately 29 qualitative interviews were conducted with three groups of respondents. These groups included users, informants, and family psychologists and counselors (couple therapists).Findings: The concept of family display helps us understand what practices are defined as "family practices" from the perspective of users and followers of family pages on Instagram. On the other hand, Hall’s theoretical model helps us understand the category of readings that users’ interpretations and perceptions of the family representation on these pages fall into. The findings reveal the evolving nature of family relationships in the digital age, particularly concerning Iranian families. The findings show that the readings of users following these pages are generally hegemonic and can be divided into three main axes: family rituals, marital relationship, and feminine power, each of which has its own sub-themes. In addition, some interviewees mentioned contrasting and negotiating perceptions.Conclusions: The results indicate that readings are complex processes shaped by the cultural contexts and lived experiences of the readers, leading to a combination of interpretations rather than a wholesale acceptance or rejection of media representations. Additionally, followers with preferred readings expressed dual emotions ranging from idealization and beautiful aspirations to feelings of alienation and dissatisfaction with their relationships.

Human beings employ different forms of linguistic politeness to ease communication and reduce the likelihood of conflict. With the rise of technology and social media platforms such as Email, Telegram, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Instagram, the concept of politeness has faced new challenges. The present study focused on Instagram comments and analyzed politeness strategies based on Leech’s grand strategy of politeness. The study examined a 20043-word corpus developed based on 696 posts across various topics on Instagram. The results revealed that Instagram users predominantly utilized negative politeness strategies (63.3%). Among the positive strategies, agreement constraints were the most frequently employed (32.7%), while tact constraint violations (32.1%) were the most common within negative strategies. The study utilized repeated measures of ANOVA and Tukey post hoc analysis via SPSS to examine differences among various constraints and their violations. Significant differences were found among most constraints, except for tact and modesty, generosity, and feeling reticence. In terms of constraint violations, no significant differences were observed between approbation and obligation of the speaker to others constraint violation, between agreement constraint violation and generosity constraint violation, between agreement and obligation of others to a speaker constraint violation, between agreement constraint violation and opinion reticence constraint violation, between sympathy and modesty constraint violation, between sympathy and feeling reticence constraint violation. The findings underscore the importance of analyzing language in specific media, providing insights into politeness and impoliteness in a specific medium. The results can enhance students' pragmatic skills and improve their online communication, prompting materials developers to consider such pragmatic dimensions.

Instagram, a widely popular platform, has become an influential tool for teaching and learning English by delivering daily updates of new language content on various Instagram pages and accounts. This study examines the effect of Instagram on learners' motivation to learn English and evaluates its advantages and disadvantages for educational purposes. A mixed-methods approach was utilized, incorporating quantitative data collected through a questionnaire distributed among 100 Iranian EFL learners and qualitative data gathered via semi-structured interviews with five teachers who actively employ Instagram in English instruction. Findings revealed that Instagram significantly boosts learners' motivation, with participants expressing positive views about the platform. Key advantages include its engaging and diverse content, as well as its potential to enhance skills and subskills like speaking and vocabulary. In spite of these benefits, certain drawbacks were identified, such as the presence of distracting non-educational content, limited interaction opportunities, and restrictions in fostering deep learning and comprehensive teaching. The study concludes that Instagram offers notable benefits for English education, particularly in motivating learners and providing varied content. However, to fully benefit from its educational potential, it is important to implement strategies that address the challenges identified. Balancing its strengths and limitations is essential to make Instagram more useful in English language education.