Transmedia literacy and social networks: Case study of Instagram as a teaching instrument in university classrooms

Alfabetización transmedia y redes sociales: Estudio de caso de Instagram como herramienta docente en el aula universitaria

Alfabetização transmídia e redes sociais: estudo de caso do Instagram como ferramenta de ensino na sala de aula da universidade

Nadia Alonso López naallo1@har.upv.es

(Polytechnic University of València), España

Raúl Terol Bolinches rautebo@upv.es

Audiovisual communication, Documentation and Art History Department, España

This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.

Alonso López, N. & Terol Bolinches, R. (2020). Transmedia literacy and social networks: Case study of Instagram as a teaching instrument in university classrooms, Icono 14, 18 (2), 138-160. doi: 10.7195/ri14.v18i2.1518

Undeniably mobile devices and social networks form part of the life of young university students. These youths are part of the Z Generation, born between 1994 and 2010 (Vilanova and Ortega, 2017), the period of massive Internet expansion. This Z Generation masters technology and has grown during a peak period of social networks (Fumero, 2016, Montaña, 2018, Álvarez, Heredia and Romero, 2019). The new technological tools, like social networks, but also blogs and video platforms like YouTube, have empowered them to share, create, notify and communicate with each other, all that becoming an essential element in their lives (Gómez, Roses and Farías, 2012, Del Barrio and Ruiz, 2014, Cerezo, 2016). There are diverse studies showing that close relationship of youths with technologies, specifically with smartphones, which they constantly carry with them. In this sense, we highlight the Pew Research Center study (2018), that situates at 95% the percentage of youths between 14 and 24 who have smartphones, increasing by 22% over the last three years. In Spain, the study conducted by the Centro Reina Sofia and the Fundacion Mapfre about youths in the virtual world (2018) positions the smartphone as the device owned by the majority of youths and that is most used to connect to Internet both at home or during mobility. According to the same report, most of these youths -more than 91%- have a profile in social networks they normally use. We add that the youths between 16 and 24 are those that connect most to Internet (ONTSI, 2018), compared to the other age groups. Considering this, evidently smartphones are the devices most used also for access to social networks. This is specifically the third most usual activity conducted on Internet, only behind the consulting of instant messaging services, specifically WhatsApp, and checking e-mail accounts (Fundación Telefónica, 2019).

Among the social networks, Instagram is that which is mainly used by youths between 16 and 30, positioning 70% of its users in this age band (IAB, 2019) therefore we can declare that it already is a central social media in the life of youths (Márquez and Lanzeni, 2018). In fact, as Marcelino (2015) indicates, over the last years there has been a migration of youths from Facebook to Instagram fostered by diverse factors like the ease for visual and simple content, the presence in the same of their juvenile idols and reference brands and the perception they are granted greater freedom in comparison with other similar networks. In this sense, reference is made to a more adult public in Facebook, which coincides with the growth in Instagram of the juvenile public. Effectively, Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012 and therefore it makes us think of the differentiation of two types of target for each social network. Therefore, it can be stated that Instagram is the most popular social network service among youths, who use this platform during their academic period and leisure time, forming part of their daily life and as a central element in social interactions (Kofoed and Larsen, 2016; Márquez and Lanzeni, 2018). In this interaction we can highlight the pre-eminence of audio-visual content through Stories, or Instagram histories that occupy an outstanding place on the profile. This content is characterised by its brevity, only having a duration of 15 seconds, and for being ephemeral, because it is only available for 24 hours after being published. The social network has the Instagram TV tool for longer-lasting videos.

This way, and as seen in previous lines, in the new mediatic and communicative ecosystem where we are based in the applications, social networks, and the new audio-visual content platforms, youths spontaneously and naturally coexist with screens (Marcelino, 2015; Alonso, 2017; Terol, 2018). In this context, special relevance is gained by taking advantage of transmedia skills of youths for their application to the educational world.

“Skills like web browsing, accumulation of information, making and sharing photos, coordinating different level of communication, building an identity in a virtual environment, watching an online serial, or managing privacy and personal identity in online platforms are the same basic skills for browsing around a digital environment” (Scolari, 2018).

If at the beginning of the XXI century we talk about mediatic literacy to “approach all aspects, objectives, content, implications, etc. related to the presence and importance of the media in our society” (Gutiérrez and Tyner, 2012), in the current communicative context “transmedia literacy situates digital networks and experience with interactive media at the centre of practical and analytical experience” (Scolari, 2018). This is about applying in the educational world transmedia knowledge and skills of youths, considering they comply with the two transmedia narrative conditions: the expansion of the story by different media and platforms, and the active participation of users in that expansion process (Jenkins, 2003, 2006, 2013; Scolari, 2009, 2013, 2019) with which the possibilities of participation and implication of the students is increased based on the design of the learning situated, significant and based on activity of the students (Molas, 2018: 59). In this sense the social networks play a fundamental role because they allow creating content, sharing it an interacting with it, but, in addition, youths create their identities according to what they see in the networks, which are their main sources of information they use regarding tendencies and news (Marinas, 2019: 188).

Therefore, thinking of the transmedia capacities of youths is interesting together with the advantages of social networks and proposing new formulas to exploit them by professors in university education.

In this sense, we see that social networks are the network tools where students are more easily mobile, therefore the main challenge consists of using that environment to facilitate teaching by integrating them int the teaching-learning processes. This “can help to improve communication in the teaching process, stimulating the attention of students, promoting significant learning and optimising the effort of all participants in the process” (Cabrera et al., 2013).

Diverse studies consider the method by which the teaching-learning process can be improved with social networks. An interesting revision in this respect made by Hortigüela and Pérez (2015) based on the question of how to achieve that social networks are rationally and educationally used in the classrooms, focussing on their usefulness as a means for diffusion and deepening of the content considered in the class and not in the teaching of its use, to increase motivation and interest of the students.

Along this line, the advantage offered by social networks and the mentioned transmedia skills of the students can be used to take advantage of the teachers and, in turn, show them they can be a useful tool for their academic training. To do that, the implication of professors is fundamental, who also must use their own transmedia skills and use the social networks as a means for communication with the students.

“Teachers can strengthen their credibility among their students manifesting and understanding the contemporary culture of their students. [...] Continuing these strategies we can agree that the students can perceive the use that their professors make of the networks as an attempt to foster positive relationships with them, which will have an also positive repercussion in the results of the students” (Amici and Taddeo, 2018).

In fact, studies like that of Gómez, Roses and Farías (2012), that of Cabrera et al. (2013) or that of Santoveña y Bernal (2019) about the academic use of social networks, clearly manifest the positive consideration of social networks by the students as a teaching resource and from an educational point of view as an important motivating element that helps to establish relationships in the group and improve classroom and subject climate. In addition, add the development of skills with social networks indicated by the European Higher Education Area, to corroborate the relevance of the same in the teaching-learning process in the university world.

Therefore, considering and conjugating the mentioned factors like the close relationship of university youths with technologies, a transmedia education taking into account the digital skills of these Z generation youths in their university stage, the positive consideration among the students of the academic use of social networks and the peak of the Instagram social network in this age group, these actions can be designed aimed at adapting the teaching-learning process to the new environment, and that way achieve greater implication of the students, optimising the communication with the professors and obtain better results.

In this sense, diverse experiences have been conducted by professors in the use of social networks in Degree subjects. Specifically referring to the Instagram social network, object of this study, reference is made to the Projects 1 subject in the ETSAE School of Architecture and Building Engineering of the Cartagena Polytechnic University in which the introduction of Instagram contributed to “keep attention on the subject during extra time because of not being limited to the teaching period” (Moreno, 2018). Likewise, other experiences were seen in the teaching use of Instagram in Degree subjects of Journalism in the CEU Saint Paul University and the Barcelona University that, in the 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 courses respectively have created an Instagram channel associated to the subject in which they share teaching material and classroom practices among others, through publications both in the feed as in stories with good results regarding monitoring and participation of the students. Also, it highlights the experience conducted by the authors of this research during the 2018/2019 course in the Theory and Aesthetics of Mass Communication subject, given in the first Degree course in Audio-Visual Communication in the Gandia Campus of the Polytechnic University of Valencia. In this case, diverse actions were initiated with the aim of optimising the teacher-students communication in the subject, with warnings, notifications, and expansion of the teaching content through Instagram publications and stories. All that with a positive balance which shows what Instagram means as support to teaching when expanding content and bringing teaching closer to the target public to obtain that the students can monitor the subject better.

This way, based on that previously mentioned, we propose the objective of implementing the transmedia skills of youths in university teaching with the creation of an Instagram channel associated to a Degree subject in Audio-Visual Communication given in the Gandia Campus of the Polytechnic University of Valencia. Related to the above, the following specific objectives are proposed:

1. 1. Improve communication between students and professors.
2. 2. Increase the attention in the subject outside of the teaching time in the classroom.
3. 3. Teach responsible use of the mobile phone and social networks, which can have teaching use, but without being perceived by the students as educational resources.
4. 4. Check if there is better progress in the subject by the students.
5. 5. Improve knowledge of the students and confirm that the social network in which they spend more time is Instagram.

A quantitative and qualitative methodology was used for this research, examining students’ response to the Instagram account @procesoradiofonico that is created associated to the Radiophonic Broadcasting Process subject, of the first Degree course in Audio-Visual given in the Gandia Campus of the Polytechnic University of Valencia. This is a compulsory four-month period subject for 4.5 credits, which has 6 teaching units and the mainstream project that is common to all the subjects of the four-month period with a teaching methodology based on projects (ABP).

This is conducted quantifying the number of students present and active in the Instagram social network account and the interactions with the publications through stories. Likewise, the results of implementation in the subject with the perception that the students have of the same.

2.1. Initial survey and creation of the Instagram profile of the subject

A previous survey was made of the students registered in the subject with the mentioned aim -a total of 86 students, 53% women and 47% men- in which they were asked about their predisposition to use the Instagram social network to communicate with the professor and check warnings, notifications, and teaching material through a profile associated to the subject in this network. They were also asked about in which social networks they develop better. The questions made and the response options can be seen in table 1.

Table 1:

Previous questions.

Self-development.

During the third session of the subject the profile @procesoradiofonico is made known to the students and they are notified about the publication of stories with content related with the subject by the professors. The fact that they are this type of publications is due to checking the immediacy with which the students check the profile and interact with the same, because they last for 24 hours.

2.2. Final survey

After finalising the academic period, they are consulted again, on this occasion by means of another survey about their perception of the implementation of Instagram as a teaching resource in the subject. Table 2 shows the questions and response options.

Table 2:

Later questions.

Self-development.

In order to obtain a complete view about the question, focus is set on the interest shown in Instagram, materialised by the monitoring of the subject in the mentioned social network, the use given to the profile of subject and the repercussion that the implementation of Instagram as a teaching resource has had in the attention and dedication given to the subject.

Hereafter, firstly we show the results of the survey before starting the course, where the aim is to know if what is going to be done is sensible or not. Later we explain in detail the different publications that from the subject have been shared by the professors and interactions of the students. These publications are grouped attending to their aim. Lastly, we show the results of the survey passed to the students at the end of the subject, in which they give their opinion, and if they have followed all those recommendation and messages they have been sent through the Instagram social network.

3.2. The use of Instagram in the Radiophonic Broadcasting Process subject

During the course different stories were published in the Instagram profile of the subject. The majority of these were fixed images with some animated .gif, to attract greater interaction with the students. This way, we were able to classify the publications into: information channel, recommended books, links to additional materials, reminders for the next session or laboratory practice.

Information channel

This section includes the announcements notifications and reminders of important dates. This content is officially notified by e-mail from the university and is available on the institutional platform but is also published through stories on the Instagram social network, so it reaches the students in much less time. Courses, sessions or congresses that have been held in the Campus related to the Audio-Visual Communication degrees (GCAV) have been divulged using this media.

With the publishing of the poster of a session about the role of women in means of communication, that appeared in figure 1, and an Instagram story in the subject account, two persons visited the subject profile and another ten had access to the profile of the university campus that was labelled in the publication, according to the data offered by the social network in its smartphone app.

Figure 1:

Informative story published by the account @procesoradiofonico

(Self-development).

In the case of this study diverse stories were published related to adverse climate phenomena. Specifically, referring to the suspension or not of the classes and their resumption after suffering different episodes of the cold drop, or what is technically known as Isolated Depression at High Levels (DANA). It was exactly in the months of October and November 2018 and in September 2019 when urgently the students had to be quickly notified to warn them, that either classes were suspended because of the warning given by the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET), or were resumed after returning to normality and the warning being cancelled by the AEMET.

In addition, the resource of Instagram stories was used to give information to the students that the classifications of evaluable exercises or teste were already available on the platform of the university, as well as in their e-mails.

Recommended books

The academic guide of the subject defines, in addition to granting a percentage to the final degree, the preparation of a work about a book which is linked to the subject. Therefore, the students are given a list of more than one hundred books, so each student chooses one and that way shares with work colleagues about the reading they have done and their considerations about the mentioned reading. Besides the list, some stories were published on Instagram notifying the students that there is a library on the Gandia Campus where they can look for available copies and choose the one they consider most appealing for their reading. Likewise, several stories were offered with editorial news and publications that had recently been acquired by the library.

Links to additional materials

Among these publications were those that included in the Instagram story a link to expand information with additional audio-visual material. To allow sharing videos from other accounts with relevant information and contribution of content to the syllabus of the subject, it was not considered necessary that the videos were self-produced. An example in this study case is one of the videos that Cadena Sur published on Instagram TV. This is a radiophonic report which included a fixed image in which the journalist of the Cadena SER, Severino Donate journeys through the extensive trajectory of the radio as means of communication.

Reminders for the next session

The Radiophonic Broadcasting Process, on which this case study is based, is immerse in the Flipped Classroom programme conducted by the Vice-chancellorship of Digital Resources and Documentation of the Polytechnic University of Valencia. In this sense, publications were made to notify of all the documentation that must be read for the next session, the activities to be conducted both outside and inside the classroom or the exercises to be delivered. This way, the students are overlapping with the development of the so-called Flipped Classroom, to that way reach the classroom with the tasks already finished.

Practical laboratory interaction

This typology of Instagram stories is related to sharing all those images and videos that the students have published in their personal accounts, so the rest of the class and those that have not been able to attend can know the activities that have been developed in the laboratory practice sessions. The purpose of this type of publications is to motivate the students around the subject and content of the same, focussing on the practical activity in the laboratory sessions carried out in the computer classroom or, in the majority of cases, in the radio studio and recording cabins.

The experience analysed in this study case, that of the first course of Audio-Visual Communication Degree, in the Radiophonic Broadcasting Process subject, was completely positive in relation to the use of the Instagram social network by students born after 1994 as can be seen form the analysis of results. We see that there is a major use of the Instagram network by the students, in which the majority have a profile, in detriment of other social networks, like Twitter and Facebook, with minority use. Likewise, with the study of Instagram stories, we see that these can be a very efficient tool that complies with the proposed objectives, specifically achieving greater performance of the subject by the students and increasing attention to the subject outside of the academic time in the classroom.

On the other hand, there is specific interest among the students for the subject profile, showing a percentage that accessed the social network only to consult its publications. In addition, the majority of students that accessed the social network to check their own profile also consulted the subject profile, which indicates that practically all of the students consulted the Radiophonic Broadcasting Process subject profile throughout the academic period.

Therefore, we can affirm that the use of this social network as a channel so professors and students can communicate is going to establish closer relationships and foster interest towards the subject and awaken concerns among its students.

In this sense, we propose a classification to try and help all those professors to decide applying this method to connect with their students. All the different stories that had been published throughout the course are classified among the different channel typologies of information, recommended books, links to additional materials, reminders for the next session, and the interaction with the students related to practice or exercises.

The following consideration is interesting: the publication of this content also responds to the objective of teaching a responsible use and providing an academic use of both mobile phones and social networks, employed by the students as an educational resource for access to materials related to the subject through Instagram.

The fact that the study has been conducted in a subject in which the students have to pass some evaluative tests to pass the course are indicated as a limitation in the research. Due to this circumstance, the responses to the surveys conducted may have been induced to positive results.

Taking this into account, conveniently we must indicate that this research work starts with the gradual implementation in diverse subjects. This way, we can highlight that this research is the continuation of some previous studies which were analysed in promotions and different subjects how the professor, from his personal account, communicated with the students using Instagram for that, either by direct messages or through stories, although without replacing the pertinent deliveries of corporate e-mails, announcements on the university website and in the different social networks of the university and its centres.

In this case, based on previous student surveys, we saw a major use of the Instagram social network where the majority have a profile and the most sporadic use of the university institutional e-mail. Also, the positive opinion regarding that the professors have a profile in social networks and can use it for communicating with their students. The satisfactory results obtained are the basis for implementation of Instagram as a teaching tool in the course 2019/2020 but, on this occasion, as previously mentioned, creating a channel associated to the subject. This social network has been chosen again because, as we have seen, it is the network most used among youths, together with YouTube, and because of the valuable experience in the previous course.

Regarding this previous experience, in this study, the creation of subject profile that the students can follow is proposed as new, to avoid that the message reaches unwanted targets, like relations and friends, being exclusively focussed on the students that are registered in the subject, after approving the requests for monitoring.

To conclude, it is evident that the current society advances technologically at gigantic steps. Over the last years the elevated penetration of the smartphone and the evolution in the way in which we communicate, has made possible that we reconsider if the massages from the professor optimally and efficiently reach the students. To achieve that there must be a series of necessary changes in the classroom, as we have seen, and that the professor is capable of adapting to a public that is used to audio-visual consumption and to communicate through the screen. A necessary transmedia literacy that can become transcendental in the teaching-learning process.

The implantation in many universities of the Flipped Classroom methodology involves using social networks and technological means to monitor the students both inside and outside of the classroom. The students spend much time of their day in social networks and very present on them. Through the case studied, we consider their interest towards the subject being given can be increased and favour that the students communicate more directly with their professor.

In fact, with all the positive aspects mentioned, the management of the GCAV title has considered this method as very important for divulging the activities, creating this 2019/2020 course an account in Instagram to make known all that information that is relevant for the students, as well as sharing the projects in which the students are working, both at academic and personal level.

Figure 2:

Profile of the @infocaugandia account

(Self-development).

Therefore, it is seen that the implementation of Instagram in university teaching can be a support for the teaching to expand content and bring the teacher closer to the target public to achieve that the students can monitor the subject better, which is reflected in better results in the evaluation, producing, after the teaching experience, greater performance by the students of the subject and an improvement in communication with the professors which opens the door to continue the studies along this line.

Instagram Stories:: content situated at the upper part of the Instagram profile. Characterised by its brevity and for only being available during 24 hours after being published. Recently the option of saving these publications has been incorporated int the section Outstanding Stories included in the profile

Feed:: In that regarding the Instagram social network, this is the initial image seen by then user when accessing the profile, without entering the publications or the stories. This is formed by the photograph of the profile, miniature images and outstanding stories, among others.

InstagramTV:: Instagram tool that allows creating one’s own videos of up to 60 minutes duration and in vertical format.