A Social Media Project; Why and How Do We Use Instagram?

What Will This Presentation Cover:

• What is my technology project?• What will it involve?• How did I come up with this idea? • Why am I doing it?• What do I wish to achieve/learn?• What Is Instagram?• What have I done so far?• How will I test it?• Problems I will face?• What will I do next?

I will be taking questions at the end…

What Is ‘Me & My Instagram’?

Me And My Instagram is an ongoing project, researching into why and how people use the photo sharing app that is Instagram. Everyday, we use social media and new technology, for various reasons. It’s a part of our day to day culture, that now we are just used to!Instagram is currently leading the photography world by storm, making it one of our favourite and more frequent apps to use.But why?This is what I want to find out.

What will my project Involve?

-Participant Observation- Frequent participator and spectator using the app

-Questionnaire- gaining feedback from a mixture of people that uses the

app-Netnographic studies

- studying six others and myself, about how we use Instagram.

- includes interviews to gain further insight

Why?

What makes us decide whether to use it? What do we get out of it?

Social Media Addict

Love for photography+ =

What are my products?

There will be three final products used to represent my discoveries:

An exhibition demonstrating all my findings from both my questionnaire and those that I have studied.

A book showing all the information that I have shared during the exhibition.

A blog, used to record all my research and findings, and finally concluding my project’s success.

Product 1: Exhibition

• Wish to create a story through the exhibition, following the journey of my project, beginning with participant observation

• Each board side will include a profile, a portrait and various Instagram posts that best describes to the subject why they use Instagram; 10 photographs. Alongside a profile a bit about them and quotes from the interviews.

• For research purposes, I will go to London to look and research into how exhibitions are set up and displayed.

Product 2: Book

• The book will be created including what my project is about, parts that were included within the exhibition (such as profiles of subjects, subjects photographs etc.) , stills of photographs from the exhibition and a conclusion of what I have learnt throughout the project.

• This will be created online.

Product 3: Personal Logbook

Throughout my project I will be using a logbook to document my findings, to help me reminisce and learn from my research/studies.

This will take place as a blog.

This way, all media types can be uploaded onto the blog and shared online, keeping everything documented together, which is also accessible anywhere at anytime.

What do I aim to achieve?

By gathering different sources of information, I hope to achieve a idea as to why we females of the age 16-21, use Instagram and to find out what they get out of using it.

Creating products to demonstrate my findings will further develop an creative overview of what I have learnt and hopefully, will make others think more subjectivity about what they upload online, and think more as a ‘outsider’ than a ‘insider’, become aware.

What Is Instagram? - A Photosharing app - Owned by Facebook- Used Worldwide- Free

- Feeds- ‘Like’- Comment- Upload- Photography and Video- Filters- Share Facebook

Twitter Flickr Tumblr

What Have I done So Far?

- Project Proposal & Brief

- Ethics Form

- Consent Forms

- Chosen Participants

- Construction of the blog

- Research

- Questionnaire

ProMS

Using the online documentation site, ProMS, I have submitted both my Project Proposal, Brief and Ethics form.

“My project is called 'Me and My Instagram' based around the topic of online photography, specifically looking into the social platform that is Instagram. Here I will be studying seven participants, including myself, investigating into how often we use instagram, what types of photographs we upload and why we use it.”

Ethics

A qualitative research method, with netnographic study:

• An information statement booklet including the consent form allowing subjects to learn fully what the project involves and requires from them.

• Ability to remove themselves from the project at any point• Voluntary Participation• Keeping appropriate records• Signed Acknowledgment and understanding from participants• Consideration of relevant codes of conduct/guidelines

Consent Forms

To keep my project ethical I wished to create a Information Statement and Consent forms, so the participants understand what the project involves and what input they will have being a part of it.

Participants

Participant Observation

• Joining in using Instagram and studying myself over & after xmasbreak

• Keeping record of the types of photographs I upload• Being in the natural environment of the site online• Commenting and liking other photos as usually would• Tracking what kind of pictures and photos I like, comment on and

upload/share• Use of hashtags? If not, then why?

Netnographic Studies

“Netnography is a new qualitative method devised specifically to investigate the consumer behaviour of cultures and communities present on the Internet”

What I will be looking for: - Times of day uploads were present- Use of Hashtags and filters- What the photograph of, patterns? - Category the upload takes place in - Types of comments - Number of likes & followers - Other activity e.g. commenting and liking others; certain pages

Research

As you have seen, I have constructed my blog using Wordpress, creating a logo of the title of my project and made posts that can be easily read and found.

So far, I have used this to put all of my research onto, that I have found interesting that is relevant to my project.

I have also used it to publish my questionnaire, so my followers can also view and fill it out.

Research

• Zachary McCune: -Cambridge student - ‘Consumer Production in Social Media Networks’

- ‘Why do users share personal media content with global networks?’

- Used three research methods; -Participant Observation- Ethnography; Instameet in London- 25 Open- Responsive Survey

Other research

Jill Walker Rettberg‘ Seeing Ourselves Through Technology’

Caroline Moss‘How Teens Use Instagram’

Alicia Eler‘Is Instagram the new social site for stardom?’

Rachel Simmons‘The Secret Language of Girls On Instagram?’

Questionnaire

These research examples, influenced my questions for my questionnaire.

I felt it was appropriate to create a questionnaire at the beginning of my project production, to compare the results of those I study at the end of the project to gain a clear explanation for why people use the app.

I also felt that the results will give me inspiration as to which questions I shall ask the subjects when interviewing them.

Questions that I asked:The questions I decided to ask were;1) What Gender Are You?2) What Age Are You?I decided to keep the maximum of age being 28+ as my project will be targeted at young adults3) Is your instagram on private?4) Do you always use filters on your uploads?5) How long does it usually take to choose a filter?6) Have you ever used another app to enhance your photograph before uploading to Instagram? e.g. Instasize, VSCO etc.7) Have you ever participated in any social media on Instagram? e.g. 100 Happy Days, Five photos that make you happy, throwback thursday etc.8) Do you use hashtags on your instagram uploads?9) Do you feel it is important to you to achieve a certain number of likes on your upload?110) What are the majority of your photos that you upload onto Instagram? e.g. everyday experiences, selfies, social events etc.11) What kind of Instagram profiles do you follow? e.g. just friends, fitness, photographers, animals etc.12) Do you feel you upload photos on Instagram for yourself or for others?13) Would you consider yourself more as an participant on Instagram uploading photos, or a spectator witnessing other uploads?14) Does the number of followers you have on your profile matter to you?15) Why do you use Instagram?

ResultsOverall I gained 100 responses back using the survey software; ‘Smart Survey’. This was created and checked by my supervisor, and distributed among social media sites such as Facebook & Twitter.

From the findings I have discovered that most of those who filled the questionnaire were females, 16-21 with public profiles.

Of course, this was shared on my social sites thus it is unreliable as it is targeted to those of the same, or around the same age.

So, I have decided to base my project of this age group; 16-21 to research further into how the photosharing app is used by girls of this age.The results have been posted onto my blog so they can be reflected on.

These results have helped clarify what I should be researching into, when interviewing and reviewing my participants of this age range.

How will I test it?

• Questionnaire; closed and open ended answers• Open ended interviews• Personal study of subjects & participation• Studying myself also• Using a ‘comments’ book at my exhibition for spectators to write

their opinions on the subject • Using my online blog to look back at previous interviews, statements,

research and personal learning to help see what I have learnt over the research project

Problems

Questionnaire was filled by 100 people, but on certain questions there were participants that skipped questions thus is not as reliable. However, my data is not focused on quantitative data but more qualitative so is not a issue; open ended questions were found more relevant.

Subjects have the ability to remove themselves from the project at any point, however this could be a problem as the project revolves around these participants and thus could make the project less sufficient and unsuccessful. May not achieve the aim of understanding how people use the app.

Planning Chart Christmas break

What am I going to do next?During Xmas Holidays:Participant Observation- Use Instagram how I would usually, recording what activity takes place- Record and study participants activity - Continue with the blog- Continue with the reportAfter Xmas Holidays:- Record interviews of participants, asking open ended questions regarding their activity and how/why

they use the app (with help from answers from questionnaire)- Create portraits for the participants- Create advertising posters and arrange the exhibiton- Create book based on the exhibition- Continue with the blog- Continue with the report

Thank you for listening

Any questions?

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Walker Rettberg, J (2014). ‘Seeing Ourselves Through Technology’, UK: Palgrave Pilot.

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Dhiraj, H (2011). ‘ What is Netnography’, Open Business Council [WWW]. Also Available from: http://www.openbusinesscouncil.org/2011/11/what-is-netnography-the-effects-it-places-on-the-web-and-social-media-industry/ [Accessed on: 07/12/14]