Street art in the Insta -city: Mobile audiences and urban placemaking.

This article examines how street art murals and Instagram interact to shape urban identities and contribute to processes of gentrification, focusing on the concept of the "Insta-city"—a coproduction of art, photography, location, the Instagram platform, and its users that functions as a site of digital placemaking. Using Denver's River North (RiNo) Art District as a case study, it highlights how Instagram users primarily use murals as backdrops for self-presentation, often overlooking the art's social or political messages, while these digital practices influence neighborhood transformation and displacement. The article also discusses how some artists and audiences resist dominant narratives by critiquing gentrification through street art and Instagram interactions, illustrating the complex role of mobile audiences as active producers ("produsers") of meaning in urban communication. Ultimately, it calls for greater awareness of how digital placemaking via platforms like Instagram affects urban spaces and their social dynamics.