Invisible disability, instagram, and health communications

Visual social media platforms such as Instagram are becoming increasingly important components of health campaigns. Given that invisible disability does not lend itself to visual communication, this chapter considers how the capacity to visually communicate disability may affect the representation of people with invisible and visible disability in Instagram health contexts. We draw on the 2016 Australian Instagram health campaign Girls Make Your Move (GMYM) as a case study and Garland-Thomson's concept of staring to explain the differing levels of representation offered to girls and women with invisible and visible disability. It suggests that the higher representation offered to girls and women with visible disability is due to an overlap between diversity branding as a trend and Instagram's visual identity. It also considers how the limited representation offered to people with invisible disability can have potential implications of how health is constructed in health campaigns.