Amongst the various competing networks, Snapchat is the social media platform that declares “life’s more fun when you live in the moment.” While the prototype for the product was launched as a private, photo-sharing app, Snapchat has evolved to be a network within the social media landscape. The application exists as a platform where users can send ephemeral ‘selfies’ and videos, as well as communicating and engaging in the wider network of Snapchat users. Created by Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, the mobile app is steadily developing its features and continuously introducing new affordances. As Snapchat extends and grows, the users are establishing and maintaining particular norms of the social network. When further explored, the social media site is home to the many processes of constructing an idea of one’s self. Interestingly, the instantaneous nature and connectivity of Snapchat’s affordances allow prosumers to increase social capital and build their own brand.
Snapchat screenshots via Apple Store
Snapchat screenshots via Apple Store
Initially, Snapchat doesn’t appear to resemble a social media network but when further examined its role as a media platform, and its affordances, becomes apparent. Compared to other common networks, such as Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat’s essence and functions significantly differ. However, Meikle brings attention to the idea that “social media are networked database platforms that combine public with personal communication” and allows the users to participate and engage with others (6). The explicitly short-lived messages and photos, that can disappear after 1-10 seconds, frame Snapchat as a simple messaging app but other elements such as the snap stories and discover feature fits in securely with Meikle’s definition. Snapchat enables the users to be both producers and consumers with the site’s content, as well as communicate privately and publicly. Along with the various features of Snapchat follows it’s affordances. Snapchat is the visual platform that moves photographs into the center of communication. However, the features of the site are employed in different ways and users are able to converse without the obligation of a full, intensive discussion. The brisk and fleeting nature of the communication also affords the users to connect through the shared moment in time. With the limited amount of seconds that users are given to view the shared content, they are forced to pay attention. This instantaneous feature invites focus. People are beginning to engage on a deeper level. In a Web 2.0 generation, where people are preoccupied with social media and their online presence, Snapchat affords a refreshing feeling of being ‘in the moment.’ Compared to profile-based networks like Facebook, Snapchat instead provides ‘snap stories’ that develop a behind the scenes effect. The collection of photos, videos, and filters on the stories give a more casual and authentic atmosphere. This affords users to gain more extensive insight into their friends and family’s life. Even simply including facial expressions and poses adds a deeper, and truer to life, understanding of one another.
A process that one undergoes in Snapchat is social surveillance. In the social context of a media platform, “people monitor their digital actions with an audience in mind, often tailoring social media content to particular individuals” (Marwick 379). The affordances of Snapchat lead to this type of surveillance as many of its features surround Marwick’s concept of self-monitoring (379). Especially seen through the feature of snap stories, where users upload their own content and are able to view other stories. After uploading photos or videos, Snapchat users are then able to take notice of who has viewed or screenshot their collection of visual media. Through this affordance, Snapchat users are consciously sharing to be seen. Users of the social media app are able to both consume and produce which “creates a symmetrical model of surveillance in which watchers expect and desire to be watched” (Marwick 380). Compared to the traditional sense of surveillance, Snapchat allows its users to carry out the social surveillance that “takes place between individuals, rather than organizational entities” (Marwick 385). It is intrinsic to crave attention and broadcast a sense of social status and this is clearly seen through the uploaded Snapchat stories. The Snapchat features don’t afford the users to like or broadcast their comments, instead one is only there to watch and share their own story. Users of the social media site are able to utilize this process to build their own brand. Snapchat user Cyrene Quiamco, a graphic designer found on the site, both participate in social surveillance and uses it to develop a micro-celebrity status as a Snapchat influencer. Quiamco is able to utilise Snapchat’s alluring snap stories to captivate his viewers and benefits from people’s interest in watching a collection of his memories and snaps. The social media platform bids for memory as it presents the prospect of forgetting what was posted. This means that users hang onto the content with more attention and further opens up the possibility for more interactivity and involvement in the brand. Through this platform, Quiamco has been in a position to campaign for significant brands like Walmart and Samsung.
Another notable process that is present on the social media site is the attainment of social capital. Bourdieu extends the idea of social capital as “all the goods, material and symbolic, without distinction, that presents themselves as rare and worthy of being sought after in a particular social function.” (22) Like most social media, Snapchat contains this concept as it enables users to visually present themselves through particular object and situations. Through the app’s discover feature and the introduction of official snap stories for both celebrities and influencers, the attainment of social capital are seen most clearly. The discover section of the app holds significance as it allows business and community-curated content to be just as alluring as the private information that is shared between the users. This affords influencers, including Cyrene Quiamco, and celebrities to broadcast their own lives to a wider community. Through the app’s tagging section, Quiamco can be searched under the tag ‘art’ and is easily broadcasted to a larger niche. The personalisation that the app introduces also adds and develops positive capital that engages the audiences and builds relationships and loyalty. Enabling the influencers to consciously build self-identity and broadcast it on the platform demonstrates Marwick’s concept of social capital being “a way of thinking about the self as a saleable commodity that can tempt a potential employer” (Marwick 166). Even the feature of the ‘bitmoji’ is intended to resemble what you look like and add to the self-brand. Snapchat aids influencers to strengthen their brands that allow them to strive in a commercial context. The self-brands that exist on the network are founded on a particular habitus.
With Snapchat’s refreshingly instantaneous and radical nature, it contains particular norms that differ from its competitors. For this particular media platform, it is evidently more effective for sharing fleeting moments and quick communication. Compared to Facebook’s profile-based network, containing copious amounts of information, Snapchat centers on the limited amount of detail and “feels less like a permanent records, and more like a conversation.” The collective norm is that Snapchat is used principally by a young demographic that share moments and information that is considered far more informal than other social networks [fig.1]. It is often considered a breach of norms if one decides to excessively overshare personal details and rant about passions or politics. The instantaneity of the site allows for the casual communication that centers more around humour and notable moments. Prosumer’s self-branding particularly improves with this norm as more trust and intimacy is shared amongst the relaxed and natural essence of the platform. Snapchat particularly differs to other social media networks in relation to the ‘selfie.’ On the platform, users tend to share content that would be considered unconventional and unattractive, as the site doesn’t afford for receiving likes or public affirmations. There is no need for excessive filters or superficial poses if one cannot receive praise or assurance. Sharing an unflattering, and more humble representation of oneself has become the norm. Incorporating this into a self-brand proves to be successful with gaining a closer relationship with their audience as influencers and celebrities appear to be more real and relatable. This develops into a loyal network where influencers gain trust from their audiences, that corporate brands need to sell products. These norms are anticipated in the ways that it communicates its affordances. However, users of the site hold the responsibility and control to dictate and change the norms of the site. For instance, screenshotting a photo, that is intended to be self-deleting and fleeting, was previously considered a breach in norms. Through gradual developments, the notorious screenshot can actually be seen as a lighthearted move in playful betrayal. The feature of screenshots can be normalised and interpreted as a friend appreciating the snap enough to make it a permanent memory. This formulates Ian Hutchby’s claim that “technologies can be understood as artefacts which may be both shaped by and shaping of practices humans use in interaction with, around and through them” (444).
FIGURE 1. ’15 TYPES OF SNAPCHATTERS!’ – DEMONSTRATING NORMS OF THE APP
In conclusion, Snapchat intricately reveals the ways in which affordances, social processes, and norms are linked and benefit influencers. Through the various features of the platform, Snapchat plays with the intrinsic need to tell stories, share and be connected with others. The ways in which these affordances are communicated dictates how users participate in the social surveillance of watching and being watched. Overall, Snapchat involves and interacts with social capital of influencers and how they use the norms of the network to build their own brands.
Works Cited
Hutchby, Ian. “Technologies, Texts and Affordances.” Sociology, vol.35, no.2, 2001, pp. 441-56. Print.
Marwick, Alice E. “SELF-BRANDING: The (Safe for Work) Self.” Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, and Branding in the Social Media Age, 2013, pp. 163-204. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vkzxr.
Marwick, Alice E. “The Public Domain: Social Surveillance in Everyday Life.” Surveillance & Society, vol.9, no. 4, 2012, pp. 378-393. Proquest, https://search.proquest.com/docview/1314689547?accountid=14782.
Meikle, Graham. Social Media: Communication, Sharing and Visibility. Taylor & Francis, 2016. Print.
Videography.
“15 TYPES of Snapchatters” Youtube, uploaded by MamaMaiMakeup, 24 April 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=-CYDmNI4iRk
#media #snapchat #technology #affordances #norms #social surveillance #socialcapital
SOCIAL AND INTERACTIVE MEDIA 