Exploring Visual Representation of #ShoutYourAbortion Hashtag Movement and the Public’s Responses on Instagram: Descriptive and Infodemiology Study (Preprint)

Abstract

Hashtag movement has become one of the major ways of online movement, but few studies have examined how social media photos were used for the movement. Also, it has not been actively investigated how photo features were related to the public’s responses in hashtag movements.

The aim of the present research was to explore Instagram photos with #ShoutYourAbortion hashtag, as an example of hashtag movements via photos, in terms of their visual representation and the relationships between photo features and the public’s responses to the photos.

Instagram photos with #ShoutYourAbortion hashtag, 11,176 in total, were downloaded, and their content and embedded texts were analyzed using online artificial intelligence services. The photos were clustered into subgroups based on the features extracted using a pretrained convolutional neural network model. The resulting clusters were compared in terms of their content tags, embedded texts, and photo features which were manually extracted at the content and pixel levels. The public’s responses were measured by engagement and comment sentiment. Correlational analysis and predictive analytics were conducted to examine the relationships between photo features and the public’s responses.

It was found that the photos in the text category took the largest share (57.19%), and the embedded texts were mainly about stories told in first person point of view as a woman. A possible evidence of hashtag hijacking was observed. The photos were grouped into two clusters; the first cluster comprised photos which exhibit text materials on them, while the second cluster consisted of photos which contain human faces with texts. The photos in the first cluster were brighter, while the photos in the second cluster were more colorful than the others. And public responses were found to be related to photo features such as size of faces, happy emotion, and share of warm colors. Engagement was predicted from the photo features with an acceptable level of accuracy, while comment sentiment was not.

This This study has shown the visual representation of #ShoutYourAbortion hashtag movement. It has also shown how photo features at content and pixel levels were related to the public’s responses to the photos. The results are expected to contribute to the understanding of hashtag movements via photos and making photos in hashtag movements more appealing to the public.

Not Applicable