Institutional communication and platformization of organizational identities: an analysis based on the Instagram of a Brazilian Federal Institute of Education

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24137/raeic.12.24.10

Keywords:

identidade organizacional, Instagram, Instituto Federal, mídias sociais, plataformização

Abstract

This article discusses the platformization of organizational identities. It aims to analyze how the organizational identity of the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Rio Grande do Sul (IFRS) is conveyed through its institutional communication on the social media platform Instagram. The theoretical framework is grounded in studies on platformization (Van Dijck et al., 2018), social media platforms (D’Andrea, 2020), content moderation and social media (Gillespie, 2018), identity (Hall, 2000, 2005; Woodward, 2012), and organizational identity (Morgan, 2011). The research adopts a qualitative approach, with an exploratory and descriptive design, and is classified as both bibliographic and documentary. The corpus consists of IFRS institutional documents and posts published on the @ifrsoficial Instagram account in 2023. The analytical method is based on Content Analysis (Bardin, 2016). The results indicate the presence of identity affirmation strategies, supported by institutional documents and visually expressed through Instagram’s publication formats. These findings highlight a process of platformization of organizational identity at IFRS. The study concludes that the use of this platform serves as a strategic communication tool to promote attributes that reinforce the institution’s identity.

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Author Biographies

  • Cristine Stella Thomas, Universidade Feevale e Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Rio Grande do Sul

    PhD student and master's degree holder in Processes and Cultural Manifestations from Feevale University (2020). Specialist in Communication Planning and Image Crisis Management (2013) from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS) and Bachelor’s degree in Social Communication - Journalism from Feevale University (2008). A federal public servant, working as a Journalist in the Communication Advisory of the Porto Alegre Campus of the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Rio Grande do Sul (IFRS). She has experience and interest in the areas of Organizational Communication, Organizational Culture, Discourse Analysis, Social Media, Languages, Education, Identity, and Institutional Memory.

  • Sandra Portella Montardo, Universidade Feevale

    Sandra Portella Montardo holds a Ph.D. and a Master's degree in Communication (PUCRS) and a Bachelor's degree in Social Communication - Advertising  (UFSM). She completed a doctoral internship at Université René Descartes, Paris V, Sorbonne. She works as a professor and researcher at Feevale University in the Graduate Program in Processes and Cultural Manifestations, the Graduate Program in Creative Industry, and the Advertising Course. She is the coordinator of the Research Group in Digital Communication, Culture, and Consumption (c3dig). She leads the projects "Platformization of Cultural Production in Brazil" (CNPq 408110/2021-0) and "Creator Economy and Algorithmic Imaginaire: The Ecosystem of Cultural Production on Digital Platforms in Brazil" (CNPq 311265/2023-5). She is a CNPq Productivity Fellow (Level 2).

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Published

2025-12-18

Issue

Vol. 12 No. 24 (2025): Communication and Audiovisual Culture in the Context of Platform Capitalism

Section

Miscellaneous

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Copyright (c) 2025 Cristine Stella Thomas, Sandra Portella Montardo

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Institutional communication and platformization of organizational identities: an analysis based on the Instagram of a Brazilian Federal Institute of Education. (2025). Revista De La Asociación Española De Investigación De La Comunicación, 12(24), raeic122410. https://doi.org/10.24137/raeic.12.24.10