Instagram use, Sense of Place and Sense of Community

Public spaces and meeting venues are elements that can foster the Sense of Community (SoC) by facilitating chance encounters among neighbours (Talen, 2000) and Sense of Place (SoP) by strengthening the connection such places. Nevertheless, in Western local communities the bond between people and communities is decreasing (Bonaiuto et al., 2003) and public places are losing their social meanings (Arcidiacono & Di Napoli, 2010). As social venues and activities represent social categories that foster individuals’ identification with communities and places (Bonaiuto et al., 2016), being updated about them and participating in them could promote the recovery of the social functions within local communities. The study deepens the use of Instagram to be updated about social venues and events in the city. Indeed, as photography allows attributing and sharing meanings about one’s life events and contexts (Purcell, 2007), the new online chances to share and search photos about one’s local community social life can have a role with reference to the bonds with it and its places. The study deepens whether the motive to use Instagram to be updated about social places and events in the city and the subsequent Instagram behaviours associate with higher SoP and SoC, through sequential mediation analyses. A questionnaire including items ad hoc for Instagram motive and use, the SoP scale (Jorgensen & Stedman, 2001) and the Brief Sense of Community Scale (Peterson et al., 2007) was administered to 350 Italian respondents. The results show that these Instagram motive and use associate with higher SoP, B = 0.030, p < .05, and SoC, B = 0.108, p < .001, and higher SoC via higher SoP, B = 0.026, p < .05. Thus, the idea that sharing photos about community’s social life among its members can foster individuals’ bond to it and its places will be discussed.