Deconstructing embedded meaning within cyclists’ Instagram discourse: #fromwhereiride

ABSTRACT

Social media is now a central communication centre within social worlds bound by particular leisure interests. In the digital age, leisure participants are able to generate and share bespoke, archival content and thus project nuanced messages regarding leisure experiences to their social networks. Adopting an interpretive approach to analyzing multimodal components of cyclists’ Instagram posts tagged with the popular hashtag #fromwhereiride, this study sought to explore meaning embedded within cyclists’ social media discourse. Five overarching themes emerged which suggested through social media, cyclists seek to project nuanced constructions of the self through a range of cultural, embodied, and mobility-related practices. Our analysis shows that social media is a platform through which leisure serves as a late-modern backdrop for social class and gender power struggles. This research contributes original insights regarding the role of social media discourse in leisure whilst providing a foundation for future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Social media
• social worlds
• sub-worlds
• social identity
• cycling

Acknowledgements

We thank the Instagrammers whose posts were reproduced in this paper for their explicit permission to do so.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Matthew Lamont is a Senior Lecturer at Southern Cross University, Australia. He has research interests in social aspects of sport-based leisure.

Dr Andrew S. Ross is a Lecturer at the University of Sydney, Australia. His research interests revolve around critical discourse analysis, particularly in the new media context.