DOCSLIB.ORG

The Rise of Social Media Marketing: How an Entire Industry Has Transformed

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Rise of Social Media Marketing: How an Entire Industry Has Transformed University of Northern Iowa UNI ScholarWorks Honors Program Theses Honors Program 2018 The rise of social media marketing: How an entire industry has transformed Ryan Steven Doser University of Northern Iowa Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy Copyright ©2018 Ryan Doser Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/hpt Recommended Citation Doser, Ryan Steven, "The rise of social media marketing: How an entire industry has transformed" (2018). Honors Program Theses. 313. https://scholarworks.uni.edu/hpt/313 This Open Access Honors Program Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors Program at UNI ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Program Theses by an authorized administrator of UNI ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE RISE OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING: HOW AN ENTIRE INDUSTRY HAS TRANSFORMED A Thesis Submitted In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Designation University Honors Ryan Steven Doser University of Northern Iowa May 2018 This Study by: Ryan Doser Entitled: The Rise Of Social Media Marketing: How An Entire Industry Has Transformed has been approved as meeting the thesis or project requirement for the Designation University Honors ______ ______________________________________________________ Date Matthew Wilson, Honors Thesis Advisor ______ ______________________________________________________ Date Dr. Jessica Moon, Director, University Honors Program Doser 1 Purpose With social media continuing to play an integral role in our daily lives, being a marketing major and interning for a digital marketing agency, I have real world experience with social media marketing and have expanded on that knowledge through thesis research. There are three main accomplishments I plan to take away from the thesis after completion. The first is to incorporate the social media marketing knowledge I have developed through this process into my future career. Secondly, providing this information and data for readers is important, as social media continues to evolve and become more prevalent in the business world. The final accomplishment to take away is to help separate myself from job competition in a competitive industry. Showcasing a thesis on my portfolio will be a beneficial project to show employers. Introduction This thesis focuses on social media from its initial roots to the massive impacts it has made on the advertising industry today. With that in mind, the main research question to explore is “how has the social media industry transformed over time?” In order to answer this, I evaluated key sources through online research and incorporated my own personal work experiences. The overall intent of this project is to evaluate three important central themes: the history of social media, today’s dominant platforms & marketing practices, and future implications of social media marketing. The research method used throughout this thesis project was analytical and foresightful. Extensive research has been focused on past and current social media marketing trends, in addition to future implications. Idea generation, utilizing credible resources, meeting deadlines, showcasing graphs/statistics, and making necessary revisions has all helped me work towards a Doser 2 final product. When researching and continually generating ideas for my project, it has been critical to find insightful and industry trusted sources to ensure success for my thesis. Literature Review and Analysis Social media plays an integral role in today’s digital world, not only in the advertising field, but in the midst of society. As seen in Figure One from Statista, “from 2008 to 2017 the percentage of the U.S. population who currently uses any social media has increased by 57 percent, accounting for a total of 81 percent of the entire U.S. population. The number of worldwide social media users has reached 2.34 billion, and is expected to hit 2.95 billion by 2020” (“Percentage of U.S. Population”). Figure One: “Percentage of U.S. Population with Social Media Profiles” (Statista) Because of its astronomical usage rate, there is plenty of useful, existing information Doser 3 regarding social media. Utilizing credible sources like AdWeek, AdAge, MarketingLand, Business Insider, Digital Trends, Social News Daily, and even blog posts from respected influencers has provided me with industry trusted information to support the claims I will be making. Influencers in the field are typically individuals with experience in the social media marketing industry, which have proven themselves with their work. Although figures like Gary Vaynerchuk and Larry Kim are well known and considered influencers in the field, leaving them out of my research proved to be beneficial. Their content is usually geared towards promoting their own products and developed with baseless assertions with a lack of objectivity. Therefore, researching and utilizing works from influencers such as Lauren Johnson, Laura Collins, among others with less subjectivity and self-promotion ended up being the superior route. In addition to articles from media sources, I have found gaining information from blog posts to be very valuable. There are millions of blogs published on the Internet regarding social media marketing, so it is important to decipher the trusted information from the click bait. The best social media marketing blogs I came across through research were from both influence bloggers and digital marketing agencies. Although media articles are valuable, implementing blog posts and other direct outlets allow the thesis to sound more authoritative and realistic. Central Theme #1: Background and History of Social Media Where did the “social media” concept evolve from and when did it all begin? What would Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms look like today without the ideas from the original social networking sites from the 1990s and early 2000s? What were the main implications of the first social networking sites created? These are just a few critical questions that must be addressed when evaluating the history of social media and its impact on the industry Doser 4 we know of today. Although through research I discovered information about organizations like the Bulletin Board System (BBS), CompuServe, and AOL, most credible sources do not consider these programs to be the first legitimate social networks. According to an article from Digital Trends, “in 1997 a site called SixDegrees.com sprung up being the very first to allow users to create profiles, invite friends, organize groups, and surf other user profiles. At its peak it had an estimated 3.5 million registered members” (Shah). SixDegrees was eventually bought out in 1999, and the next notable social giant that followed was Friendster in 2002. It is well known that Friendster used similar concepts to SixDegrees, yet what qualified them to be next in line as the major social giant? Shah points out that “Friendster focused on a routine dubbed the “Circle of Friends,” and promoted the idea that a popular online community can only exist between people who truly have common bonds. Friendster’s user base peaked over 115 million members by 2011” (Shah). Therefore, it is evident that Friendster capitalized off of SixDegrees, yet what led to their complete demise in 2015? Friendster’s foundation paved the way for numerous social networking giants to follow. Although LinkedIn technically launched in 2003, their popularity did not take off until around 2010. Other notable networks that followed Friendster were Tribe.net in 2003 and Orkut in 2004. Tribe.net was a social network focusing on “users being able to establish tribes, which enabled them to elaborate on a computerized social network with thousands of tribe members. In other words, the tribes resembled topical forums” (Ruberg). The popularity of tribe.net never really took off compared to other networks, as they encountered a content policy controversy along with strong competition in the industry. Similar to tribe.net, Orkut was a social networking website that lasted a bit longer and experienced worldwide user exposure. An engineer from Doser 5 Google originally founded the network, and Google took ultimate control until Orkut’s departure in 2014. Alexa describes Orkut as a “service designed to help users meet new and old friends while maintaining existing relationships. The features changed significantly over time and popularity of the network quickly shifted from the U.S. to Brazil and India users” (Alexa). Moreover, Orkut’s American user base quickly died off due to an influx of fake profiles, hate groups, and censorship issues. The platform was ultimately inept when it came to adapting to maintain engaged members. The social network that became the next major player in the industry after Friendster in 2003 was MySpace. MySpace was huge during the mid 2000s and according to Mashable was “the most visited site in 2006, as MySpace surpassed Google” (Cashmore). The platform was best known for their emphasis on music, pop culture, and having a young generation of users. Digital Trends credits MySpace’s initial success as being “attractive to the young adult demographic with music, videos, and a funky, feature filled environment. It felt hipper than Friendster from the start and that drew users to switch to MySpace” (Shah). Therefore, MySpace at its peak was untouchable, as their user base continued to exponentially grow throughout the mid 2000s. Like their social networking predecessors, MySpace eventually fell around 2011. Who was the next social media player to take over? Founded in 2004 by Harvard University students, Facebook originated as a “Harvard only exercise and campus-oriented site” for two years prior to opening to the general public (Shah). Facebook was launched to the public domain in 2006 and quickly captured the attention of millions who were eager to switch to the social network. The social network was already classified as “big business” by multiple investors. So much so that in 2009, “Silicon Valley bigwigs such as Paypal founder and billionaire Peter Theil invested tens of millions of dollars Doser 6 into the platform” (Shah).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Effects of Content Likeability, Content Credibility
    Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research This paper is available online at ISSN 0718–1876 Electronic Version www.jtaer.com VOL 15 / ISSUE 3 / SEPTEMBER 2020 / 1-19 DOI: 10.4067/S0718-18762020000300102 © 2020 Universidad de Talca - Chile The Effects of Content Likeability, Content Credibility, and Social Media Engagement on Users’ Acceptance of Product Placement in Mobile Social Networks Ivan Ka Wai Lai 1 and Yide Liu 2 1 City University of Macau, Faculty of International Tourism and Management, Taipa, Macau, [email protected] 2 Macau University of Science and Technology, School of Business, Taipa, Macau, [email protected] Received 29 August 2018; received in revised form 11 June 2019; accepted 1 October 2019 Abstract Nowadays, product placements are commonly presented on mobile social media but related studies are rare. The main purpose of the study is to investigate the effects of content likeability, content credibility, and social media engagement on users’ acceptance of product placement in mobile social networks. The results of the online survey indicate that content likeability is an antecedent of social media engagement and content credibility; social media engagement has an influence on content credibility; and content likeability, content credibility, and social media engagement both directly affect user acceptance of product placement in mobile social networks. Furthermore, social media engagement has an interaction effect with content likeability on the content credibility of mobile social networks. The results of the multi-group analysis indicate that young adults show differences with middle-aged adults in the direct effect of content likeability on social media engagement and in the interaction effect of content credibility and social media engagement on the acceptance of product placement in mobile social networks.
    [Show full text]
  • How to Find the Best Hashtags for Your Business Hashtags Are a Simple Way to Boost Your Traffic and Target Specific Online Communities
    CHECKLIST How to find the best hashtags for your business Hashtags are a simple way to boost your traffic and target specific online communities. This checklist will show you everything you need to know— from the best research tools to tactics for each social media network. What is a hashtag? A hashtag is keyword or phrase (without spaces) that contains the # symbol. Marketers tend to use hashtags to either join a conversation around a particular topic (such as #veganhealthchat) or create a branded community (such as Herschel’s #WellTravelled). HOW TO FIND THE BEST HASHTAGS FOR YOUR BUSINESS 1 WAYS TO USE 3 HASHTAGS 1. Find a specific audience Need to reach lawyers interested in tech? Or music lovers chatting about their favorite stereo gear? Hashtags are a simple way to find and reach niche audiences. 2. Ride a trend From discovering soon-to-be viral videos to inspiring social movements, hashtags can quickly connect your brand to new customers. Use hashtags to discover trending cultural moments. 3. Track results It’s easy to monitor hashtags across multiple social channels. From live events to new brand campaigns, hashtags both boost engagement and simplify your reporting. HOW TO FIND THE BEST HASHTAGS FOR YOUR BUSINESS 2 HOW HASHTAGS WORK ON EACH SOCIAL NETWORK Twitter Hashtags are an essential way to categorize content on Twitter. Users will often follow and discover new brands via hashtags. Try to limit to two or three. Instagram Hashtags are used to build communities and help users find topics they care about. For example, the popular NYC designer Jessica Walsh hosts a weekly Q&A session tagged #jessicasamamondays.
    [Show full text]
  • What Is Gab? a Bastion of Free Speech Or an Alt-Right Echo Chamber?
    What is Gab? A Bastion of Free Speech or an Alt-Right Echo Chamber? Savvas Zannettou Barry Bradlyn Emiliano De Cristofaro Cyprus University of Technology Princeton Center for Theoretical Science University College London [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Haewoon Kwak Michael Sirivianos Gianluca Stringhini Qatar Computing Research Institute Cyprus University of Technology University College London & Hamad Bin Khalifa University [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Jeremy Blackburn University of Alabama at Birmingham [email protected] ABSTRACT ACM Reference Format: Over the past few years, a number of new “fringe” communities, Savvas Zannettou, Barry Bradlyn, Emiliano De Cristofaro, Haewoon Kwak, like 4chan or certain subreddits, have gained traction on the Web Michael Sirivianos, Gianluca Stringhini, and Jeremy Blackburn. 2018. What is Gab? A Bastion of Free Speech or an Alt-Right Echo Chamber?. In WWW at a rapid pace. However, more often than not, little is known about ’18 Companion: The 2018 Web Conference Companion, April 23–27, 2018, Lyon, how they evolve or what kind of activities they attract, despite France. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 8 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3184558. recent research has shown that they influence how false informa- 3191531 tion reaches mainstream communities. This motivates the need to monitor these communities and analyze their impact on the Web’s information ecosystem. 1 INTRODUCTION In August 2016, a new social network called Gab was created The Web’s information ecosystem is composed of multiple com- as an alternative to Twitter.
    [Show full text]
  • Advertising Content and Consumer Engagement on Social Media: Evidence from Facebook
    University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Marketing Papers Wharton Faculty Research 1-2018 Advertising Content and Consumer Engagement on Social Media: Evidence from Facebook Dokyun Lee Kartik Hosanagar University of Pennsylvania Harikesh Nair Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/marketing_papers Part of the Advertising and Promotion Management Commons, Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons, Business Analytics Commons, Business and Corporate Communications Commons, Communication Technology and New Media Commons, Marketing Commons, Mass Communication Commons, Social Media Commons, and the Technology and Innovation Commons Recommended Citation Lee, D., Hosanagar, K., & Nair, H. (2018). Advertising Content and Consumer Engagement on Social Media: Evidence from Facebook. Management Science, http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2902 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/marketing_papers/339 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Advertising Content and Consumer Engagement on Social Media: Evidence from Facebook Abstract We describe the effect of social media advertising content on customer engagement using data from Facebook. We content-code 106,316 Facebook messages across 782 companies, using a combination of Amazon Mechanical Turk and natural language processing algorithms. We use this data set to study the association of various kinds of social media marketing content with user engagement—defined as Likes, comments, shares, and click-throughs—with the messages. We find that inclusion of widely used content related to brand personality—like humor and emotion—is associated with higher levels of consumer engagement (Likes, comments, shares) with a message. We find that directly informative content—like mentions of price and deals—is associated with lower levels of engagement when included in messages in isolation, but higher engagement levels when provided in combination with brand personality–related attributes.
    [Show full text]
  • CDC Social Media Guidelines: Facebook Requirements and Best Practices
    Social Media Guidelines and Best Practices Facebook Purpose This document is designed to provide guidance to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees and contractors on the process for planning and development, as well as best practices for participating and engaging, on the social networking site Facebook. Background Facebook is a social networking service launched in February 2004. As of March 2012, Facebook has more than 901 million active users, who generate an average of 3.2 billion Likes and Comments per day. For additional information on Facebook, visit http://newsroom.fb.com/. The first CDC Facebook page, managed by the Office of the Associate Director for Communication Science (OADC), Division of News and Electronic Media (DNEM), Electronic Media Branch (EMB), was launched in May 2009 to share featured health and safety updates and to build an active and participatory community around the work of the agency. The agency has expanded its Facebook presence beyond the main CDC profile, and now supports multiple Facebook profiles connecting users with information on a range of CDC health and safety topics. Communications Strategy Facebook, as with other social media tools, is intended to be part of a larger integrated health communications strategy or campaign developed under the leadership of the Associate Director of Communication Science (ADCS) in the Health Communication Science Office (HCSO) of CDC’s National Centers, Institutes, and Offices (CIOs). Clearance and Approval 1. New Accounts: As per the CDC Enterprise Social Media policy (link not available outside CDC network): • All new Facebook accounts must be cleared by the program’s HCSO office.
    [Show full text]
  • Form and Function of Complex Networks
    F O R M A N D F U N C T I O N O F C O M P L E X N E T W O R K S P e t t e r H o l m e Department of Physics Umeå University Umeå 2004 Department of Physics Umeå University 901 87 Umeå, Sweden This online version differs from the printed version only in that the figures are in colour, the text is hyperlinked and that the Acknowledgement section is omitted. Copyright c 2004 Petter Holme ° ISBN 91-7305-629-4 Printed by Print & Media, Umeå 2004 Abstract etworks are all around us, all the time. From the biochemistry of our cells to the web of friendships across the planet. From the circuitry Nof modern electronics to chains of historical events. A network is the result of the forces that shaped it. Thus the principles of network formation can be, to some extent, deciphered from the network itself. All such informa- tion comprises the structure of the network. The study of network structure is the core of modern network science. This thesis centres around three as- pects of network structure: What kinds of network structures are there and how can they be measured? How can we build models for network formation that give the structure of networks in the real world? How does the network structure affect dynamical systems confined to the networks? These questions are discussed using a variety of statistical, analytical and modelling techniques developed by physicists, mathematicians, biologists, chemists, psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists.
    [Show full text]
  • Public Displays of Connection
    Public displays of connection J Donath and d boyd Participants in social network sites create self-descriptive profiles that include their links to other members, creating a visible network of connections — the ostensible purpose of these sites is to use this network to make friends, dates, and business connections. In this paper we explore the social implications of the public display of one’s social network. Why do people display their social connections in everyday life, and why do they do so in these networking sites? What do people learn about another’s identity through the signal of network display? How does this display facilitate connections, and how does it change the costs and benefits of making and brokering such connections compared to traditional means? The paper includes several design recommendations for future networking sites. 1. Introduction Since then, use of the Internet has greatly expanded and today ‘Orkut [1] is an on-line community that connects people it is much more likely that one’s friends and the people one through a network of trusted friends’ would like to befriend are present in cyberspace. People are accustomed to thinking of the on-line world as a social space. Today, networking sites are suddenly extremely popular. ‘Find the people you need through the people you trust’ — LinkedIn [2]. Social networks — our connections with other people — have many important functions. They are sources of emotional and ‘Access people you want to reach through people you financial support, and of information about jobs, other people, know and trust. Spoke Network helps you cultivate a and the world at large.
    [Show full text]
  • Tribes Learning Communities Prevention Program
    The author(s) shown below used Federal funds provided by the U.S. Department of Justice and prepared the following final report: Document Title: A Randomized Experimental Evaluation of the Tribes Learning Communities Prevention Program Author: Thomas Hanson, Jo Ann Izu, Anthony Petrosino, Bo Delong-Cotty, Hong Zheng Document No.: 237958 Date Received: March 2012 Award Number: 2006-JP-FX-0059 This report has not been published by the U.S. Department of Justice. To provide better customer service, NCJRS has made this Federally- funded grant final report available electronically in addition to traditional paper copies. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. A Randomized Experimental Evaluation of the Tribes Learning Communities Prevention Program Final report October 2011 Authors: Thomas Hanson Jo Ann Izu Anthony Petrosino Bo Delong-Cotty Hong Zheng This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. A RANDOMIZED EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF THE TRIBES LEARNING COMMUNITIES (TLC) PREVENTION PROGRAM Thomas Hanson, Jo Ann Izu, Anthony Petrosino, Bo Delong-Cotty, and Hong Zheng WestEd Acknowledgements A grant from the U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Kipling and the Dialect of the Tribe
    Dennis Duffy KIPLING AND THE DIALECT OF THE TRIBE No EXTE"SIVE STUDY of Kipling is necessary to the realization that much of Kipling's most characteristic work employs dialect in one form or anorher: the Learoyd, Ortheris, and Mulvaney stories, including such major pieces as "On Greenhaw Hill", "The C nurtincr of Dinah Shadd" (bmh in Life's Handi­ cap), and ''His Private H o nour·· (j-fany Inventions); Barrack-Room Ballads; "'M'A11drcw's H ymn'' (Tiu: Seve11 Seas), a work r~v ea ling so much of the author's poetic; "A Walking D elegate"' (The Day's Work)- for most readers too revealing a presentation of the auth or's soci:I! outlook-and ".007" (also in T l1e Da y')· }Vorl\) which, fo r all its c hildi shne~s , is as illuminating an example as any of the K ipling Gospel of Work. These are but a few of the obvious instances of the use of dialect. Most of t.hc cliaracrers in Kim. for example, fail to speak in Srand::ud English, and tn such Indian-narrated tales as ''Dray Wara Yow Dee (In Black md White) and "In the Pre<ence·' (A DIIJen·ity of Creatures), everyone speaks in an elab­ orate. stately manner supposed to approximate native speech in the raw. The "point", dubious as it is. of '·The Comprehension of Priv::tte Copper" (Traffics and Discoveries) 1 is that the _\nglo..South A£riCJnS, under Boer oppression following Lhe British r!efr-:11 :1 Majuha in l , 7 , have :1cquired the characteristics of a helot race (rhe term '·helot" being Lord Milner's propagandist inspiration in his dispatch of M:.ty 4, 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Using Social Network Analysis of Human Aspects for Online Social Network Software: a Design Methodology
    Ghafoor and Niazi Complex Adapt Syst Model (2016) 4:14 DOI 10.1186/s40294-016-0024-9 METHODOLOGY Open Access Using social network analysis of human aspects for online social network software: a design methodology Faiza Ghafoor1 and Muaz A. Niazi2* *Correspondence: [email protected] Abstract 2 Department of Computer Background: Online social networks share similar topological characteristics as real- Science, COMSATS Institute of IT, Islamabad, Pakistan world social networks. Many studies have been conducted to analyze the online social Full list of author information networks, but it is difficult to link human interests with social network software design. is available at the end of the article Purpose: The goal of this work is to propose a methodology involving the analysis of human interactions for use in designing online social network software. Methods: We propose a novel use of social network analysis techniques to elicit requirements in order to design better online Social network-based software. The vali- dation case study involved the collection of real-world data by means of a question- naire to perform a network design construction and analysis. The key idea is to exam- ine social network to help in the identification of behaviors and interests of people for better software requirements elicitation. Results: The validation case study demonstrates how unexpected centrality measures can emerge in real world networks. Our case study can thus conducted as a baseline for better requirement elicitation studies for online social network software design. This work also indicates how sociometric methods may be used to analyze any social domain as a possible standard practice in online social network software design.
    [Show full text]
  • My Tribe: Post-Subcultural Manifestations of Belonging on Social Network Sites Author(S): Brady Robards and Andy Bennett Source: Sociology, Vol
    My Tribe: Post-subcultural Manifestations of Belonging on Social Network Sites Author(s): Brady Robards and Andy Bennett Source: Sociology, Vol. 45, No. 2 (APRIL 2011), pp. 303-317 Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/42857540 Accessed: 27-04-2015 05:23 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Sage Publications, Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Sociology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.195.64.2 on Mon, 27 Apr 2015 05:23:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Article Sociology 45(2)303-317 MyTribe: Post-subcultural ©TheAuthor(s) 2011 Reprintsandpermission: sagepub. Manifestations of Belonging co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI:10.1 177/0038038510394025 on Social Network Sites soc.sagepub.com (USAGE Brady Robards GriffithUniversity, Australia Andy Bennett GriffithUniversity, Australia Abstract Sincethe early2000s, sociologists of youthhave been engagedin a debateconcerning the relevanceof 'subculture' as a theoreticalframework inthe light of morerecent postmodern- influencedinterpretations ofyouth identities as fluid, dynamic and reflexively constructed. Utilizing ethnographicdata collected on theGold Coast inQueensland, Australia, this article considers suchdebates in relation to socialnetwork sites such as MySpaceand Facebook.
    [Show full text]
  • Visual Social Media and Big Data. Interpreting Instagram Images Posted on Twitter
    Visual Social Media and Big Data Interpreting Instagram Images Posted on Twitter Dhiraj Murthy, Alexander Gross, Marisa McGarry Abstract Social media such as Twitter and Instagram are fast, free, and multi- cast. These attributes make them particularly useful for crisis commu- nication. However, the speed and volume also make them challenging to study. Historically, journalists controlled what/how images repre- sented crises. Large volumes of social media can change the politics of representing disasters. However, methodologically, it is challenging to study visual social media data. Specifically, the process is usually labour-intensive, using human coding of images to discern themes and subjects. For this reason, Studies investigating social media during crises tend to examine text. In addition, application programming interfaces (APIs) for visual social media services such as Instagram and Snapchat are restrictive or even non-existent. Our work uses images posted by Instagram users on Twitter during Hurricane Sandy as a case study. This particular case is unique as it is perhaps the first US disaster where Instagram played a key role in how victims experi- enced Sandy. It is also the last major US disaster to take place before Instagram images were removed from Twitter feeds. Our sample con- sists of 11,964 Instagram images embedded into tweets during a two- week timeline surrounding Hurricane Sandy. We found that the pro- duction and consumption of selfies, food/drink, pets, and humorous macro images highlight possible changes in the politics of representing disasters – a potential turn from top-down understandings of disas- ters to bottom-up, citizen informed views.
    [Show full text]