Instagram and hashtags as a resource for information retrieval

Abstract

This is an exploratory and descriptive research that aims to examine the nature of hashtags as an informational resource for naming and information retrieval on Instagram. Tagging is addressed as a process that is carried out in order to freely naming photos and videos by users through the use of tags (labels) in the studied social network. Instagram is understood as a social network of great popularity, which has been increasingly adhered to by society as a source of information, but, on the other hand, there it also points out the issue of disinformation. Bibliographic research to survey the literature referring to the theme in databases and empirical research carried out in the Instagram environment in order to collect the sample and the object of investigation are used as methodological procedures. The adopted approach in the study is quanti-qualitative, in which photos and videos hashtags used in thirty-three travel and tourism profiles were examined, resulting in 330 publications, including photos and videos, and 945 different hashtags. These are identified and examined according to categories of analysis derived from the Information Science literature. The results are presented statistically and commented. We conclude that hashtags partially fulfill the function of means of searching for information, but the relationship between the source of information (photos and videos) and its naming by means of intuitive hashtags present problems: among others, inconsistencies in relation to the content. The possibility of creating guidelines for the use of Instagram hashtags should be considered.