Signs of #self: a Peircean semiotic framework for theorizing self-(re)presentations on Instagram

Performances of self on social media are mediated via platform interfaces and social rituals while dramaturgical or theatrical perspectives of frontstage/backstage identity are frequently drawn upon in scholarship. However, emphasis on face and self-portraiture tends to background other forms of representation exhibiting objects, places and the various people that could be viewed as facets of the extended or disembodied self. In this article, Instagram is taken as a case to illustrate self-(re)presentations, beyond icons or selfies (the popular term for photographic self-portraiture), to include the symbols and indexical signs of subjectification. To this purpose, the author draws on the semiotic philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) in order to develop an analytic table of sign correlates. The Peircean sign doctrine is applied to systematically analyse observable elements as well as to consider the routine, abstract and conceptual sign phenomena constituting meanings in an interpreter’s mind. The analytic framework helps to unravel a series of densely stitched compound-signs, interweaving Instagrammers’ self-(re)presentations. Importantly, the sign typology does not dispense with performative ontologies entirely but suggests that signs of self cannot necessarily be removed ‘backstage’. Conversely, considering self-(re)presentations, beyond facial displays, is fruitful for theorizing what is shown, inferred as well as obscured. In turn, this illuminates self-(re)presentations orchestrated within broader sociomaterial constructs and the symphony of signs.