Football for Empowerment : The Interplay of Empowerment and Critical Cosmopolitanism in Street Football World’s Instagram Images

Abstract

The fields of development communication and intercultural communication have both undergone important paradigm shifts. While development communication strives for empowerment, intercultural communication tries to transcend differences and essentialism. This study examines the visual communication of an international non-governmental organisation (NGO), Street Football World (SFW), through their images on Instagram. At the same time, it also takes into account both empowerment from development communication and critical cosmopolitanism from intercultural communication. The focus of this study is to explore the interplay of paradigm shifts in both fields in reflected in SFW’s Instagram activity. It also aims to see how Instagram, as a social media platform, aids empowerment. The study used qualitative visual content analysis with the help of tabulation to analyse a total of 113 static Instagram images on SFW’s official Instagram page from January to April 2018. The findings show that there are three main themes that are interwoven in each of SFW’s images: equality, togetherness and positive outlook (or “count smiles, not goals”). The elements of the images and these themes together reflect the new perspectives in both communication fields. It also shows how the affordances of Instagram are beneficial in helping an international organisation like SFW in conveying empowered participation.