Microcelebrity Practices: a Cross-Platform Study Through a Richness Framework

Syracuse University SURFACE Dissertations - ALL SURFACE May 2018 Microcelebrity Practices: A Cross-Platform Study Through a Richness Framework Sikana Tanupabrungsun Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/etd Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Tanupabrungsun, Sikana, "Microcelebrity Practices: A Cross-Platform Study Through a Richness Framework" (2018). Dissertations - ALL. 879. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/879 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the SURFACE at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact surface@syr.edu. ABSTRACT Social media have introduced a contemporary shift from broadcast to participatory media, which has brought about major changes to the celebrity management model. It is now common for celebrities to bypass traditional mass media and take control over their promotional discourse through the practice of microcelebrity. The theory of microcelebrity explains how people turn their public persona into media content with the goal of gaining and maintaining audiences who are regarded as an aggregated fan base. To accomplish this, the theory suggests that people employ a set of online self- presentation techniques that typically consist of three core practices: identity constructions, fan interactions and promoting visibility beyond the existing fan base. Studies on single platforms (e.g., Twitter), however, show that not all celebrities necessarily engage in all core practices to the same degree. Importantly, celebrities are increasingly using multiple social media platforms simultaneously to expand their audience, while overcoming the limitations of a particular platform. This points to a gap in the literature and calls for a cross-platform study. This dissertation employed a mixed-methods research design to reveal how social media platforms i.e., Twitter and Instagram, helped celebrities grow and maintain their audience. The first phase of the study relied on a richness scoring framework that quantified social media activities using affordance richness, a measure of the ability of a post to deliver the information necessary in affording a celebrity to perform an action by using social media artifacts. The analyses addressed several research questions regarding social media uses by different groups of celebrities and how the audience responded to different microcelebrity strategies. The findings informed the design of the follow-up interviews with audience members. Understanding expectations and behaviors of fans is relevant not only as a means to enhance the practice’s outcome and sustain promotional activity, but also as a contribution to our understandings about contemporary celebrity-fans relationships mediated by social media. Three findings are highlighted. First, I found that celebrities used the two platforms differently, and that different groups of celebrities emphasized different core practices. This finding was well explained by the interviews suggesting that the audiences had different expectations from different groups of celebrities. Second, microcelebrity strategies played an important role in an audience’s engagement decisions. The finding was supported by the interviews indicating that audience preferences were based on some core practices. Lastly, while their strategies had no effect on follow and unfollow decisions, the consistency of the practices had significant effects on the decisions. This study makes contributions to the theory of Microcelebrity and offers practical contributions by providing broad insights from both practitioners’ and audiences’ perspectives. This is essential given that microcelebrity is a learned practice rather than an inborn trait. MICROCELEBRITY PRACTICES: A CROSS-PLATFORM STUDY THROUGH A RICHNESS FRAMEWORK by Sikana Tanupabrungsun B.Eng., King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Thailand, 2008 M.Eng., King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Thailand, 2012 Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Information Science and Technology. Syracuse University May 2018 Copyright Ó Sikana Tanupabrungsun 2018 All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my doctoral advisor, Jeff Hemsley, for his endless encouragement, mentorship and support of my study, research and my life in general. I could not imagine having a better doctoral advisor. I am also grateful to the members of my committee for their insightful comments and thoughtful feedback throughout writing this dissertation. This dissertation would not have been possible without funding from the Center for Computational and Data Sciences (CCDS). Last but not least, I would like to thank my family and friends for their encouragement and support during the hard times. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................... I ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ............................................................................................................................ V TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................................ VI LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................................. VIII LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................................ X LIST OF EQUATIONS ............................................................................................................................ XIII CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................1 1.1 BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION .......................................................................................................2 1.2 RESEARCH PROBLEM ...........................................................................................................................4 1.3 RESEARCH METHODS AND FINDINGS ..................................................................................................5 1.4 TERMINOLOGIES ..................................................................................................................................9 1.5 CONTRIBUTIONS ................................................................................................................................10 1.6 DOCUMENT ORGANIZATION ..............................................................................................................12 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................................................13 2.1 CELEBRITY STUDIES ..........................................................................................................................13 2.1.1 Theory of Microcelebrity ............................................................................................................14 2.1.2 Core Practices of Microcelebrity ...............................................................................................18 2.1.3 Related Studies ...........................................................................................................................20 2.1.4 Summary .....................................................................................................................................26 2.2 THEORETICAL MODELS .....................................................................................................................28 2.2.1 Theory of Affordances ................................................................................................................29 2.2.2 Media Richness Theory ..............................................................................................................38 2.2.3 Summary .....................................................................................................................................52 2.3 TECHNOLOGY ARTIFACTS, ENGAGEMENT AND FOLLOWERSHIP ON SOCIAL MEDIA ........................54 2.3.1 Technological Artifacts ..............................................................................................................55 2.3.2 Followership on Social Media ...................................................................................................57 2.3.3 Follower Engagement on Social Media .....................................................................................64 2.3.4 Summary .....................................................................................................................................69 2.4 LITERATURE SUMMARY .....................................................................................................................69 2.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ......................................................................................................................70 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY OVERVIEW ..........................................................................................74 3.1 METHODOLOGY REVIEW ...................................................................................................................75 3.2 QUANTITATIVE STUDIES ....................................................................................................................76

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