#Grab, #Touch, #Drink: A Content Analysis of College Party Culture in Instagram Fraternity Pictures

The purpose of this study was to understand how elements of the “party culture” (i.e., grabbing, touching, alcohol, inebriation, and risk-taking) are represented in Instagram fraternity pictures, as well as which photos are the most “liked.” Our sample included 600 Instagram pictures that tagged fraternities. Grabbing, defined as forceful touching a person’s body parts with obvious pressure from the hands, occurred in one out of every four pictures, whereas touching occurred in one out of five. Also, 11.7% of pictures contained inebriation cues, 17.0% contained alcohol presence, and 6.3% contained risk-taking. Photos containing depictions of inebriation were significantly less likely to be “liked.” Findings are discussed in light of a scriptsbased theory approach, suggesting that such social media depictions of Greek Life members could serve two purposes: (a) they reinforce to other Greek life members how to apply the party scripts they have acquired elsewhere (e.g., personal experience, the media), and (b) they could provide non-Greek life members the party scripts that might be activated and applied in similar contexts.