VI SEING: Ana E. Sancho-Ortiz examines social media post design to explore expert identity

PhD candidate Ana E. Sancho-Ortiz was a participant at the VI Seminar in English Studies (SEING 2026), which was celebrated on the 8th of May 2026, at the Faculty of Arts (University of Zaragoza, Spain). This year’s edition had “Research as Resistance in a World at Odds” as its motto.

In her presentation, Ana focuses on analysing the interplay of various visual resources and their organisation with regard to the impact it has on shaping experts’ self-presentation. Her findings throw light on how the strategic use of visual design is employed by health professionals to project themselves as a branded yet trustable source of knowledge on Instagram.

Read her abstract below:

From instruction to self-branding on social media health communication: A qualitative exploration of expert identity on Instagram through visual post design

Recognised as identity shaping tools (Van Dijck 2013), social media support self-presentation in health communication, enabling self-performance credibility and self-branding among wellness professionals (Wellman 2023). While existing research has examined discursive self-presentation of wellness experts (Atef et al., 2023), the role of social media post design in health professionals’ construction of their expert identity remains underexplored. To fill this gap, this proposal addresses the potential relation between expert identity and visual composition on Instagram, particularly focusing on instructional content from physiotherapy by way of case study. For this purpose, 50 Instagram posts from one physiotherapist are qualitatively analysed drawing on Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2021) framework for functional design and Van Leeuwen’s (2021) model of identity design. The study specifically investigates the orchestration of visual resources (namely, overlaid imagery, iconographic elements, typography, and colour) and their organizational layout attending to principles of (post) design.

Preliminary findings indicate a strategic reliance on visual elements to serve both instructional and self-promotional functions, while simultaneously shaping the expert’s self-presentation as a legitimised knowledge provider and a branded professional. Functionally, posts appear rhetorically segmented through deliberate colour and typographical choices that signal distinctions between instructional and promotional content. Iconographic elements further contribute to this functional differentiation, as graphical icons (namely arrows) are exclusively used to support instruction, whereas photographic elements (self-portraits) operate as self-promotional cues. Beyond this functional role, an aesthetics of professionalism appears to be achieved solely within self-promotional content, particularly through the use of cold-temperature colour schemes evoking institutionalisation, which are absent from instructional content. Overall, a dual functional and identity-oriented analysis of post design points to the emergence of hybridised professional identities in social media health communication, in which experts adopt a curated visual style that supports the effective dissemination of specialised knowledge while constructing a science-like aesthetics that reinforces the expert’s projection as a branded individual.

References

Atef, N., Fleerackers, A., Alperin, J.P. (2023). “Influencers” or “Doctors”? Physicians’ Presentation of Self in YouTube and Facebook Videos. International Journal of Communication, 17, 26652668.

Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (2021). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (3rd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003099857

Van Dijck, J. (2013). ‘You have one identity’: Performing the self on Facebook and LinkedIn. Media, culture & society, 35(2), 199-215.

Van Leeuwen, T. (2021). Multimodality and identity. Routledge. Wellman, M. L. (2023). “A friend who knows what they’re talking about”: Extending source credibility theory to analyze the wellness influencer industry on Instagram. New Media & Society, 26(12), 7020-7036. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231162064