REDEFINING IDENTITIES IN THE DIGITAL AGE: A MULTIMODAL ANALYSIS OF PAKISTANI INFLUENCERS’ POSTS AND CAPTIONS ON INSTAGRAM
Abstract
The increasing influence of social media has transformed the ways individuals construct and communicate their identities, particularly through visual-centered platforms such as Instagram. While existing research has extensively examined influencer culture, limited attention has been given to the multimodal construction of digital identities in the Pakistani context. This study investigates how Pakistani social media influencers construct and redefine their identities through the interaction of linguistic, visual, symbolic, and interactive resources in Instagram posts and captions. Grounded in the theory of Social Constructionism (Berger & Luckmann, 1966), the study adopts a qualitative research design and employs a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)-based Multimodal Discourse Analysis (Halliday, 1978; Kress & van Leeuwen, 2021). A purposive sample of Instagram posts from Pakistani influencers was analyzed to examine how different semiotic resources contribute to identity construction. The findings reveal that influencer identities are not created through isolated communicative modes but emerge from the coordinated use of language, visuals, cultural symbols, and audience interaction. The analysis demonstrates that Pakistani influencers strategically negotiate cultural authenticity, religious values, emotional expression, and commercial branding to construct digital identities that are both relatable and aspirational. Furthermore, bilingual language practices, culturally significant symbols, and carefully curated visual aesthetics enable influencers to balance local socio-cultural expectations with global digital trends. By focusing on the underexplored Pakistani social media landscape, this research contributes to the growing body of multimodal discourse studies and provides insights into how digital identities are continuously performed and redefined in contemporary online environments.