We, as a society, are often talking about the selective exposure seen on Google or Facebook. However, I have never come across an article or news story evaluating the very popular Instagram. Instagram, in the past, has been a source to post photos of family, friends and experiences. However, with so much political heat and “drama”, Instagram, through their stories feature, has now become a way to voice your opinions on politics and social justice, becoming much like Facebook. With this “Facebook-like” change to Instagram, comes Facebook qualities, such as the selective exposure.

Selective Exposure is a theory often used in media that refers to individuals’ tendency to favor information which supports their pre-existing views while avoiding contradictory information. Not only does selective exposure apply to political views, but selective exposure also effects the ads your get on your apps.

I noticed this one day while on Instagram. I had just finished talking to my mom about getting a new Long Champ backpack. After our conversation, on my Instagram feed, was an ad of a woman holding a Long Champ bag. This is when selective exposure caught my attention.

In a study done by John H. Parmelee and Nataliya Roman, a survey of “politically active Instagram users measured how often users expose themselves to opinion-reinforcing political leaders and the extent to which users avoid opinion-challenging leaders”. In their findings, the data indicated that there is a high level of selective avoidance behavior on Instagram, especially by users who are conservative, Republican, very ideological, and female. Selective avoidance and selective exposure go hand and hand in this study. Selective avoidance is to avoid contradictory information. This avoidance also increases resistance to persuasion. Therefore, the study found that when most Instagram users who are conservative, Republican, very ideological, and female, tend to “tune out” these ads, whether it be politically driven or a simple purse ad. Which then poses a question of are these people who practice selective avoidance the reason why Instagram does not receive more criticism about their selective exposure practices?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0736585320300915

https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/10/instagram-adds-qa-feature-to-stories/

https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/26/18759518/instagram-explore-page-ads