Melanesian reimagining: a digital tok stori of Papua New Guinean identity on Instagram

Abstract

Expanding social media research on the Pacific Digital Revolution, this article explores the significance of Papua New Guineans’ digital and visual articulations of Papua New Guinean identity through Instagram by analysing two public Papua New Guinean Instagram accounts, @archiveples and @taniabphoto. The research triangulates between Pacific, Indigenous, and Cultural studies, drawing on articulation theory and a multimodal thematic and visual cultural studies analysis. A Melanesian tok stori (storytelling) framework reveals how social media interactions fit within a culturally relevant Melanesian concept of storytelling and illustrates how social media has become a contemporary site for Pacific digital storytelling. This digital tok stori is a decolonsing digital wave of the Pacific artistic renaissance and reimagining emerging in 1970s post-independence art and literature. This research demonstrates how Papua New Guineans are subversively harnessing the tools and affordances of social media to counter reductive colonial narratives and mass media representations of Papua New Guineans.