Cover not available

Article published In: 10th Anniversary Issue: Engaging with LL futures
Edited by Robert Blackwood and Elana Shohamy
[Linguistic Landscape 10:4] 2024
► pp. 425–452

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Authorship, ownership, and ethics in datafied discourse on Instagram

New perspectives for online linguistic landscapes

ORCiD logo with link | University of Strasbourg
Published online: 3 December 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.24078.mci
Abstract
Datafication, or the translation of our everyday actions into quantifiable metrics, underwrites a wide set of contemporary discursive practices. With a specific focus on the social media platform Instagram, this paper analyzes mediatized landscape signs as ‘datafied discourse’ enmeshed in an entangled apparatus of platforms, algorithms, and online networks. Using a corpus of 404 public Instagram posts gathered from the Café de Flore geotag, I examine how the vernacular practices of geotagging, mediatization, and remediatization reflexively construct this ostensibly ‘user-generated’ landscape. I then consider the implications of these and other discursive practices occurring at the ‘online-offline nexus’ through the dimensions of authorship and ownership. Finally, amid a confluence of new LL work, I propose to orient scholarship toward an ‘infrastructural’ perspective, in which datafication, online platforms, and algorithms are understood to exert considerable influence over our landscapes, thus emerging as relevant to scholars engaged in any genre of LL analysis.
Résumé
La datafication, ou la traduction de nos habitudes et de nous en tant qu’individus en mesures quantifiables, sous-tend un large éventail de pratiques discursives contemporaines, en particulier celles qui sont liées aux médias sociaux et aux plateformes numériques. À partir d’un corpus de 404 posts recueillis sur la plateforme en ligne Instagram, j’analyse les rôles de ces « discours datafiés » dans la construction du paysage linguistique du géotag « Café de Flore ». Plus spécifiquement, j’examine la mise en œuvre de la médiatisation, de la remédiatisation et du « geotagging », ou géolocalisation et comment ces processus construisent de manière réflexive ce paysage ostensiblement « généré par l’utilisateur ». Dans un deuxième temps, je considère les implications éthiques de ces pratiques discursives ainsi que d’autres se produisant à la frontière « en ligne — hors ligne ». Enfin, constatant une confluence de travaux portant sur les médias digitaux, le présent article propose d’orienter les recherches futures vers une perspective infrastructurelle, dans laquelle la datafication, les plateformes en ligne et les algorithmes exercent un pouvoir d’organisation considérable sur nos paysages. Ces processus s’avèrent donc pertinents pour les chercheurs engagés dans tout type d’analyse du paysage linguistique.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Online Linguistic Landscape: Retrospective
    • 2.1Exploratory: Landscapes in virtual space
    • 2.2Expansionary: Fluidity and recontextualization in the OLL
    • 2.3Infrastructural: Platformization, datafication and mediatization at the online-offline nexus
  • 3.Ethics-as-methods for LL research on Instagram
  • 4.(Re)Making place: Tagging practices and permission structures
    • 4.1Entering the frame: Geotagging as stancetaking
    • 4.2Permission structures and remediatized uptake
  • 5.Aftermath: Implications for authorship, ownership, ethics in the LL
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
References (71)
References
Agha, Agha (2007). Recombinant selves in mass mediated spacetime. Language & Communication, 27(3), 320–335. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2011). Meet mediatization. Language & Communication, 31(3), 163–170. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Androutsopoulos, Jannis (2014). Computer-Mediated Communication and Linguistic Landscapes. In Janet Holmes & Kirk Hazen (Eds.), Research methods in sociolinguistics: A practical guide (pp. 74–90). Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2015). Networked multilingualism: Some language practices on Facebook and their implications. International Journal of Bilingualism, 19(2), 185–205. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2016). Theorizing media, mediation and mediatization. In Nicolas Coupland (Ed.), Sociolinguistics: Theoretical Debates (pp. 282–302). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2024). Linguistic landscape in the offline-online nexus. In Robert Blackwood, Stefania Tufi & Will Amos (Eds.), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Linguistic Landscapes (pp. 441–455). London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blackwood, Robert (2019). Language, images, and Paris Orly airport on Instagram: Multilingual approaches to identity and self-representation on social media. International Journal of Multilingualism, 16(1), 7–24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan (2010). The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2019). Sociolinguistic Restratification in the Online-Offline Nexus: Trump’s Viral Errors. In Massimiliano Spotti, Jos Swanenberg, & Jan Blommaert (Eds.), Language Policies and the Politics of Language Practices (Vol. 281, pp. 7–24). Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan & Maly, Ico (2019). Invisible Lines in the Online-Offline Linguistic Landscape. Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies, 2331.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
boyd, danah (2010). Social Network Sites as Networked Publics: Affordances, Dynamics, and Implications. In Zizi Papacharissi (Ed.), A Networked Self (pp. 47–66). London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary & Hall, Kira (2005). Identity and interaction: A sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies, 7(4–5), 585–614. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Calvet, Louis-Jean (1994). Les voix de la ville: Introduction à la sociolinguistique urbaine. Paris: Payot & Rivages.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duffy, Brooke E. (2017). (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W. (2007). The stance triangle. In R. Englebretson (Ed.), Pragmatics & Beyond New Series (pp. 139–182). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Franzke, Aline Shakti, Bechmann, Anja, Zimmer, Michael, Ess, Charles & the Association of Internet Researchers (2020). Internet Research: Ethical Guidelines 3.0. [URL]
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), (EU) 2016/679, European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, OJL 119 (2016).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, Martin, Meese, James, Arnold, Michael, Nansen, Bjorn & Carter, Marcus (2015). # Funeral and Instagram: Death, social media, and platform vernacular. Information, Communication & Society, 18(3), 255–268. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gorter, Durk (Ed.). (2006). Introduction: The Study of the Linguistic Landscape as a New Approach to Multilingualism. In Linguistic Landscape: A new approach to multilingualism (pp. 1–6). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gorter, Durk & Cenoz, Jasone (2023). A Panorama of Linguistic Landscape Studies. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heller, Monica (2010). The Commodification of Language. Annual Review of Anthropology, 39(1), 101–114. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heller, Monica, Jaworski, Adam & Thurlow, Crispin (2014). Introduction: Sociolinguistics and tourism — mobilities, markets, multilingualism. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 18(4), 425–458. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Helmond, Anne (2015). The Platformization of the Web: Making Web Data Platform Ready. Social Media + Society, 1(2). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hiippala, Tuomo, Hausmann, Anna, Tenkanen, Henrikki & Toivonen, Tuuli (2019). Exploring the Linguistic Landscape of geotagged social media content in urban environments. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 34(2), 290–309. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Iedema, Rick (2003). Multimodality, resemiotization: Extending the analysis of discourse as multi-semiotic practice. Visual Communication, 2(1), 29–57. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Irvine, Judith T. & Gal, Susan (2000). Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities, 811, 35–84.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Irvine, Judith T. (1989). When talk isn’t cheap: Language and political economy. American Ethnologist, 16(2), 248–267. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ivkovic, Dejan & Lotherington, Heather (2009). Multilingualism in cyberspace: Conceptualising the virtual Linguistic Landscape. International Journal of Multilingualism, 6(1), 17–36. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jaffe, Alexandra M. (2009). Introduction. In Alexandra M. Jaffe (Ed.), Stance: Sociolinguistic perspectives (pp. 3–28). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jaworski, Adam & Thurlow, Crispin (2010). Introducing Semiotic Landscapes. In Adam Jaworski & Crispin Thurlow (Eds.), Semiotic Landscapes: Language, Image, Space (pp. 1–40). London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kallen, Jeffrey L. (2008). Tourism and Representation in the Irish Linguistic Landscape. In E. G. Shohamy & D. Gorter (Eds.), Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery (1st ed, pp. 270–283). London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2023). Linguistic Landscapes: A Sociolinguistic Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kallen, Jeffrey L., Ni Dhonnacha, Esther & Wade, Karen (2020). Online Linguistic Landscapes: Discourse, Globalization, and Engregisterment. In D. Malinowski & S. Tufi (Eds.), Reterritorializing Linguistic Landscapes: Questioning Boundaries and Opening Spaces (pp. 1–21). London: Bloomsbury. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kasstan, Jonathan, Pearson, Geoff & Brooks, Victoria (2023). Rethinking Research Ethics in the Humanities: Principles and Recommendations. London: University of Westminster. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Landry, Rodrigue & Bourhis, Richard Y. (1997). Linguistic Landscape and Ethnolinguistic Vitality: An Empirical Study. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 16(1), 23–49. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leaver, Tama, Highfield, Tim & Abidin, Crystal (2020). Instagram: Visual social media cultures. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lefebvre, Henri (1974). La production de l’espace. L Homme et la société, 31(1), 15–32. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leppänen, Sirpa, Peuronen, Saija & Westinen, Elina (2018). Superdiversity perspective and the sociolinguistics of social media. In Angela Creese & Adrian Blackledge (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of language and superdiversity: An interdisciplinary perspective (pp. 30–42). London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maly, Ico & Blommaert, Jan (2019). Digital Ethnographic Linguistic Landscape Analysis (ELLA 2.0). Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies, 2331.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mapes, Gwynne (2021). Elite authenticity: Remaking distinction in food discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marwick, Alice E. & boyd, danah (2011). I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media & Society, 13(1), 114–133. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McInerney, Erin (2023). Performing Parisian. Gender Performances, Elite Discourse and Multimodality on Instagram. ILCEA, 511, 100–118. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2024). Performing multilingualism at Instagram’s Café de Flore. In Sabrina Fusari & Guillem Colom-Montero (Eds.), Linguacultural Spaces. Inclusion, Extension and Identification in Language and Society (pp. 76–93). Centro di Studi Linguistico-Culturali (CeSLiC), Universita Di Bologna.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nieborg, David B. & Poell, Thomas (2018). The platformization of cultural production: Theorizing the contingent cultural commodity. New Media & Society, 20(11), 4275–4292. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Poell, Thomas, Nieborg, David B. & Duffy, Brooke E. (2021). Platforms and cultural production. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rosendal, Tove, Nielsen, H. Lykke, Järlehed, Johan, Milani, Tomasso M. & Löfdahl, Maria (2023). Language, translocality and urban change: Online and offline signage in four Gothenburg neighbourhoods. Linguistic Landscape, 9(2), 181–210. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scollon, Ron (2001). Mediated discourse: The nexus of practice. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scollon, Ron, & Scollon, Suzie W. (2003). Discourses in Place. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shohamy, Elana (2015). LL research as expanding language and language policy. Linguistic Landscape, 1(1–2), 152–171. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shohamy, Elana & Waksman, Shoshi (2010). Building the nation, writing the past: History and textuality at the Ha’apala memorial in Tel Aviv-Jaffa. In Adam Jaworski & Crispin Thurlow (Eds.) Semiotic Landscapes: Language, Image, Space, (pp. 241–255). London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silva, Daniel N. & Lopes, Adriana C. (2023). The seeds of Marielle Franco: Afrodiasporic agency at the online-offline nexus. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 1–14. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smith, Sean P. (2018). Instagram abroad: Performance, consumption and colonial narrative in tourism. Postcolonial Studies, 21(2), 172–191. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2021a). Landscapes for “likes”: Capitalizing on travel with Instagram. Social Semiotics, 31(4), 604–624. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2021b). Tourism and symbolic power: Leveraging social media with the stance of disavowal. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 25(4), 578–595. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Soukup, Barbara & Lyons, Kate (2024). Quantitative and Computational Approaches. In Robert Blackwood, Stefania Tufi & Will Amos (Eds.), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Linguistic Landscapes (pp. 34–49). London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spolsky, Bernard & Cooper, Robert L. (1991). The Languages of Jerusalem. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spotti, Massimiliano & Blommaert, Jan (2023). Sociolinguistics and Superdiversity: Innovations and Challenges at the Online-Offline Nexus. In Fran Meissner, Nando Sigona & Steven Vertovec (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Superdiversity (pp. 107–120). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tagg, Caroline & Seargeant, Philip (2014). Audience design and language choice in the construction and maintenance of translocal communitites on social network sites. In Philip Seargeant & Caroline Tagg (Eds.), The language of social media: Identity and community on the internet. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Tagg, Caroline & Spilioti, Tereza (2022). Research Ethics. In Camilla Vásquez (Ed.), Research methods for digital discourse analysis (pp. 91–114). London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thurlow, Crispin & Jaworski, Adam (2011). Banal globalization? Embodied actions and mediated practices in tourists’ online photo-sharing. In Crispin Thurlow & Kristine Mroczek (Eds.), Digital Discourse: Language in the new media (pp. 220–240). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2012). Elite mobilities: The semiotic landscapes of luxury and privilege. Social Semiotics, 22(4), 487–516. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2014). ‘Two hundred ninety-four’: Remediation and multimodal performance in tourist placemaking. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 18(4), 459–494. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2017). Introducing elite discourse: The rhetorics of status, privilege, and power. Social Semiotics, 27(3), 243–254. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Troyer, Robert A. (2012). English in the Thai linguistic netscape. World Englishes, 31(1), 93–112. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vuorsola, Lasse (2020). Minority positioning in physical and online spaces. Linguistic Landscape, 6(3), 297–325. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Cao, Fan
2025. ‘Yo! Yo! Welcome to 茂名特产秀’: identity construction of a new farmer on the online linguistic landscape of Douyin in China. International Journal of Multilingualism ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 20 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue