Scrolling down the line

a few notes on using Instagram as point of access for graffiti research

Abstract

This article discusses using social media, here Instagram, as a point of access in studies on subcultural graffiti, so as to provide an established arena for initiating contact with a variety of participants. Drawing from an ongoing ethnography of Swedish graffiti writers, the approach presented here works to mitigate the often so major hurdle within ethnographic work on subcultural groups: that of access, not only to the field, but also to the diversities and peripheries of that field. Actively exploring diversities and interactions through social media as part of a larger methodological frame opens up an innovative investigation of plural subcultural scripts of what and how and where the subcultural should be, that can then be assessed and explored through other methodological means. As such it also provides the researcher with the means to ground parts of the analysis in how and where the participants themselves present their subcultural activity.