A Social Informatics Approach to Online Communities of Practice of the Art Recreation Challenge on Instagram during COVID-19

• Published in: The Usage and Impact of ICTs During the Covid-19 Pandemic pp. 67 - 97
• Main Authors: Fichman, Pnina, Dedema, Meredith
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United Kingdom Routledge 2023; Taylor & Francis Group
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: CoP Literature; English CoPs; Low Health Literacy Group; Sociotechnical Affordances; Social Informatics; Vaccine Hesitancy; Boundary Brokers; Visible Posts; Peach Culture; ICT Consequence; Art Recreation; Social Media Challenge; Horizontal Bar Graph; ICT Governance; Social Informatics Research; CoP Leader; Major Depression Group; Visual Affordances; ANOVA Statistic; Online CoPs; Virtual CoP; Boundary Crossing Processes; Getty Museum; Boundary Maintenance; Social Media Features
• ISBN: 9781032139746; 9781032139753; 1032139757; 1032139749
• DOI: 10.4324/9781003231769-6

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced people all over the world into lockdowns, the role of technology in society shifted and became the glue that bonded isolated individuals. Many used social media platforms to connect with others and join various art, dance, cooking, and other challenges. We analyze posts from an art recreation challenge from several online communities of practice (CoPs) on Instagram and aim to gain a better understanding of the relationships between technology and society. We found that the boundaries of some of these CoPs are more permeable than others, and that, while practice is shared across CoPs, boundary maintenance processes sometimes are not. We make contributions to social informatics research and enhance our knowledge of boundary maintenance and boundary-crossing processes, discussing the role of both textual and visual sociotechnical affordances.