A Communication’s Theory Approach to Snapchat
Since Snapchat’s inception in 2011, the mega-popular app has taken the world (or at least the world millennials live in) by storm. It has changed the way people interact and the way they express themselves, whether it be their core beliefs or what they had for lunch. The app started off as just a way to send temporary pictures back and forth with friends- then there was the creation of the screenshot- then “best friends”- then stories… you get the idea. The complexity of the app continues to grow and gets further away from a fun way to chat with friends and towards a platform for discussion, media access, and global integration. In fact, “… there has been a significant growth in mobile news aggregators, notably Apple News, but also Snapchat for younger audiences. ” (Newman, 2017). Magazines such as Cosmopolitan and news channels like CNN have begun to let snapchat users access short snippets of their content- a sort of concentrated news source. Not only that, but global events are given a platform to be live-streamed whether it’s a rally or a campus news story based on your location. With these new innovations it’s about time that people stop disregarding the app as a “time waster”. While it’s true it can be used as a prime tool for procrastination and a quick boredom cure, by analyzing the ways in which the app has the potential to facilitate communication between people as well as between cultures in the world and beyond, perhaps we can give the app the recognition it deserves. Whether it be good or bad, Snapchat is dominating the lives of the current generation, so it’s crucial to understand why and how it’s being used. The first 3 sections will use Rhetorical communications theories (Participatory Media, Social Movements, and Media-scape) to help you understand how people use the app to communicate on a larger scale. The following 3 will explain how Communication Science theories (Natural Relation Dialectics, Expectancy Violations Theory, and the Hyperpersonal Model) analyze why people use this app the way they do. All of this, in hopes to understand what the huge deal is about this little app that seems to be everywhere.
“Update there are actually tables at College library RUN”
Snapchat’s creation of the “selective Snapchat story” has provided a space for people who have common interests to post and interact with one another. Whether it be the “Green Bay Packers Fans Story” consisting of fans giving personal insights and updates on the team, or the “Wisconsin Campus Story”, where students collaboratively post updates about the availability of coveted study spots, or Gordons running out of waffle batter, these Stories are the place to get access to the publics opinion. This is a prime example of Participatory Media, or media that members of the public are involved in creating and sharing like blogs and things of that nature (Gent, 1). This typically has a political motivation but can also be people’s general responses they contribute to various topics. The collaborative nature of these selective stories allows people to get constant updates from real people rather than official news stations, providing a change in access or who’s controlling what we see.
“WTF have you heard about this net neutrality thing??”
Social movements are large groups of individuals and/or organizations that focus on specific political and social issues (Gent, 2). There are many aspects of social movements that determine their success or failure, but it is absolutely essential to first and foremost get the message out. These days, one of the most effective modes of advocacy is social protest via the media- and Snapchat is a prime platform. It’s now possible to “repost” Snap stories, a virtual way ofsaying “I second that.”. Last year, the photo above went around my personal snapchat feed, and a long chain formed with upwards of 50 people showing their support for this issue. More recently, people have been constantly posting about Net Neutrality, informing their friends about the topic, and let me tell you, there’s been a snapchat uproar, and even I reposted the message. It’s not in vain either, it’s been proven that, “the use of tools such as Snapchat to garner international interest in climate activism” (and other movements) is an effective method of advocacy (Titifanue, 2017). Not only do users do their part to advocate on their personal mystories, on a larger scale, as mentioned before, whenever there’s an important rally for Black Lives Matter, or a Women’s march, Snapchat gives these organizations an opportunity to “livestream” the event, allowing users who are in the rally/area to post on it which will show up on everyone’s feed sometimes worldwide. This ability to communicate to millions of people about a certain cause and spread the message worldwide is a huge weapon that, if used correctly, can bring about great support. As famously theorized by Griffin, there are to be three stages of social movements, inception, rhetorical crisis, and consummation. Snapchat activism helps especially in the rhetorical crisis stage of social movements, which is the phase midway into the fight for change where there’s a power struggle between opposing groups, the “pro” and the “anti” (Gent, 2). Whoever gains enough support in this period of the movement’s lifespan essentially shifts the power balance to one’s favor- and Snapchat advocacy might just be one of the keys to achieving that, especially as the Snapchat user age matures.
“GUYS the behind the scenes Victoria’s Secret fashion show in Shanghai is live on snap”
Ever since the computer went on the market technology has evolved exponentially, and with that, so did our ability to communicate. Time and space became distorted and now the world seems smaller than ever. With Snapchat,messages are sent in less than 3 seconds and stories go live in even less than that. With the tap of a finger, content can be viewed half way around the world. If I were to post a Story right now, it’s possible that my friend in the Netherlands could potentially view it in less time than someone sitting right next to me. And, where communication runs freely so do ideas and trends. This occurrence is defined by one of social scientist Arjun Appadurai’s 5 Dimensions of Global Cultural flow, the Mediascape: the movement of media around the world and how it allows distant cultures to view each other (Gent, 3). This cyber-flow of ideas allows people from all over the world to see how people live and what their day to day lives are like. Before things like Snapchat, opinions on other cultures depended on oftentimes distorted written works portraying especially Eastern cultures as “barbaric”. Although there’s still plenty of bias regarding different global cultures, Snapchat has contributed to making this Mediascape more transparent, as it allows for people to engage directly with one another. Watching a 19 year old girl living in Japan post a mystory wearing a shirt that I own using an app that I’m apart of blurs the cultural lines. Not only that, but Snapchat users view the same news, events, and even filters, so the fact that we’re reading the same material and keeping up with the same events like the Victoria’s Secret fashion show almost makes it seem like when we’re on the app, the “Snapchat culture” that surpasses the difference in geographical ones.
“[Insert teen girls name] I swear to god if you post that…”
Snapchat stories are arguably one of the apps best features. If you don’t know, it’s basically a picture you can post that all of your friends’ can access and see, rather than just being sent to a specific person. Completely left to the design of the user, when what and how much content people share to their Snapchat community is up to them. Over time, a sort of “behavioral divide” has appeared; there are those who thrive on posting stories constantly, whether it be of their food, walking to class their outfit…
And then there are those who get uncomfortable being so exposed to the world, and who never pop up on the feed. In a study conducted on the opinions people had on Snapchat, critics claimed snapchat could be “annoying” when people posted too much and too personally. (Vaterlaus, 2016). This is an example of the Natural Relations Dialectic (basically, two tendencies humans have that contradict and cause friction between one another) of expression vs. privacy (Gent, 4). The conflicting behaviors of oversharing and undersharing at times make it difficult to interact, and can even put a strain on relationships. That being said, these tensions don’t have to be negative. People with different tactics of communicating, or in this case expressing themselves on their Snapchats, can actually push people on opposite ends of the spectrum to try and expand their skills and be more open to the different methods of communication. It wouldn’t be interesting if everyone had the same mode of sharing.
*Gasp* he did not just screenshot that…
Constant use and popularity over the years has created an entire “Snapchat etiquette”, and those who use the app know how to speak the language without even realizing it. These social norms got cemented over time, and since Snapchat is such a big part of so many people’s lives, when someone steps outside of the “rules” it can be almost alarming- either in a good or bad way. This is to be expected, as the Expectancy Violations Theory tells us that after repeated communication, people develop expectations about how another person should act based on social norms and experiences with the other person or people (Gent, 5).
Since the origins of snapchat, it was supposed to be this “safe, secret place”, where you send a pictures and messages for one persons eyes only and then they disappear forever. While most everyone now knows these pictures don’t actually go away, us users like to think once they are sent they cease to exist. So, when someone catches you off guard by “screenshotting” your message, essentially saving it, it can be almost like a breach of trust. Since it goes against the standard ettiquette of Snapchat, screenshotting is a perfect example of a negative expectancy violation.
These breaches in behavior patterns can be positive, too. There’s this sort of unsaid rule that you can’t “double snap”, or Snapchat you twice in a row without getting a response from the other person. This is practically a sacrament for young people, and it’s especially imperitive if you ~like~ the person you’re snapchatting. Whereas before you waited to call back for a certain amount of time to “play it cool”, now you wait to Snap back. I’ve had girls even set timers in front of me before responding to a guy. It’s apparently a very cool thing to do, to make it seem like you’re ignoring each other (oh young love). Typically, you have to wait out a respectable amount of time before responding, however if someone takes the initiative to, heaven forbid, snapchats you twice in a row without your response, that’s an expectancy violation, however in certain situations it’s a positive one because it “means” they like you enough to ignore the unwritten code.
“You guys get in my room right now and help me respond”
There’s a lot of negative criticisms towards snapchat saying that this constant stream of pictures of someones face is a shallow and pointless kind of communication. However, this sort of communication, where we can actually see one another’s faces virtually, has been theorized and proven to actually make deeper connections with one another- at least in comparison to other modes of mobile communication, “Because Snapchat allows users to send pictures along with text (i.e., drawn or typed), many [participants] reported that it allowed for better understanding of the emotional context of the conversation.” (Vaterlaus, 2016). It basically provides the facial cues that texting lacks, bettering our ability to read the message correctly. Another theory as to why snapchat might be a beneficial way to communicate originates in Walther’s Hyperpersonal model, which argues that being able to edit ourselves actually betters social interaction because it allows us to be a better version of ourselves (Gent, 6). Rather than just saying what rolls off the tongue, typing and editing messages before they’re sent gives the sender time to assess whether or not it’s appropriate or the right thing to say. While there’s definitely a material aspect to snapchat communication, the facial expression allows for facial cues to enhance conversations compared to text, and it allows us to think before we speak (or, rather, type).
Young adults spend more time with technology than any other daily activity, so it’s positively imperative that we see how this method communication has changed the way people interact (Coyne). However, as shown with these examples, it still falls into the patterns of theories published upwards of 50 years ago. Perhaps this “communication revolution” isn’t the end of human interaction as our parents claim it to be. Perhaps all we need to do is look to the fundamentals of human communication, and with that knowledge go about mobile, and specifically snapchat communication with those ideas in mind because there’s clearly more to Snapchat than we let on.
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Bibliography
**Special thanks to my phone obsessed friends for being perfectly quotable for each of these theories :)**
Coyne, Sarah M. “Emerging in a Digital World.” Emerging Adulthood, Sage Journals, 2013. <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2167696813479782.>
Newman, Nic and Fletcher, Richard and Kalogeropoulos, Antonis and Levy, David A. L. and Nielsen, Rasmus Kleis, Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017 (June 2017). <https://ssrn.com/abstract=3026082>.
Titifanue, Jason; Kant, Romitesh; Finau, Glen and Tarai, Jope. Climate change advocacy in the Pacific: The role of information and communication technologies [online]. Pacific Journalism Review, Vol. 23, №1, Jul 2017: 133–149. Availability:<http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=960323149436305;res=IELHSS>
Vaterlaus, J., and Kathryn Barnett. “Full Length Article‘Snapchat Is More Personal’: An Exploratory Study on Snapchat Behaviors and Young Adult Interpersonal Relationships.” Computers in Human Behavior, Pergamon, 26 Apr. 2016, <www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563216303041#bib43>
Gent, Whitney. (1). “Vernacular Rhetoric.” ( Participatory Media) (2). “Social Movements.” (Social Movements Rhetorical Crisis) (3). “Post Colonialism and Globalization.” (Dimensions of Culture, Media-scape) (4). “Friendship & Dialectics.” (Relational Dialectics) (5). “Intimate Relationships.” ( Expectancy Violations) (6). “Computer Mediated Communication.” (Hyperpersonal Model)
All Gent Lectures can be found at: <https://canvas.wisc.edu/courses/51707/files/folder/Slides?preview=3034458>.
