Sample

The data we collected for our research was done so over a staggered period of time leading up to our second last week of semester. We initially sought participants within our immediate social circles (people we knew who used Snapchat and could provide initial data for our first half of research) before opening up the sample size dramatically starting from Week 5 of the semester. A total of 59 people completed our survey which we reduced to 50 (due mostly to incomplete questions or incomprehensible responses). Of these people, a number of them are social contacts within our personal lives but, as we will illustrate in the following procedure section of this research paper, our sample size grew in diversity thanks to the the manner in which we distributed the survey.

Procedure

Considering the relative newness of social media, and our primary research question investigating what stories are being told through Snapchat, we decided that the best way in which to gather data for our project was to approach the people who use the app. We developed five questions directed towards users of Snapchat. These five questions are:

1. How long have you been Snapchat?
2. Why do you use it?
3. What do you film?
4. How do you think it differs from traditional media?
5. Have you seen any positive effects from using this app?

We initially began the survey through a small group of friends that we knew directly through email and the responses were text-based. These were people that we knew used the app significantly throughout their day to day life. We then approached five different people on and around the RMIT University city campus indiscriminately with a video camera and filmed their responses. After this, we created an online survey questionnaire using http://www.surveymonkey.com and shared this across our group’s various Facebook accounts. We encouraged participants of the survey to then share the survey across their Facebook accounts after they had completed it. The online survey was the most successful in generating data and allowed us to access a large number of Snapchat users than what we had anticipated. However, the nature of anonymous survey results ended in a number of participants considered not suitable for our data pool (incomplete questions, incomprehensible responses, skipped questions) and as such were cut from the final tabulations. We provided no incentive for people to complete the survey.

Measures

In order to maintain consistent and accurate results from all surveys conducted, all questions remained the same.

Socio-demographics

As our research question is not concerned with identifying people or analysing popular Snapchat users in order to formulate a response, we did not choose to track socio-demographics in any of our surveys. As such, our work is most interested in tracking usage results and how stories are being produced through Snapchat. While our first survey conducted involved contact with friends and associates, details of their age, sex, gender, and name have been removed from the final submitted work and do not factor into our findings.

Structure

Other than our last question, all questions in the survey were open-ended and designed to encourage participants to evaluate and explain their personal reasons for using Snapchat. While this was most effective in generating a complex and diverse data stream, the format proved difficult to simplify and arrange in a graphical manner. However, most responses tracked towards certain feelings and general themes and, as such, were simplified by our group into keywords or phrases in order to produce the pie-charts we developed below.

Limitations

As our research data was collected in Australia, the results that we have accrued may not be applicable to other countries. The lack of user information about the participants who completed the survey also limits the data being applied to specific demographics. Furthermore, our efforts to reduce open-ended questions to a limited number of themes for the purpose of visualising the data we collected erases detail and, as such, does not accurately represent the opinions of all participants. This is not to say that our research is useless, rather, it represents a summation of all information gathered. Finally, our survey represents minimal author curation on our behalf. By minimal, we mean that the questions produced for the survey were written by our group but the lack of closed-questions imposed no assumptions on Snapchat usage outside of the data provided by our participants. As such, data collected through the survey has use outside of our paper only so much as it relates to the individual question being asked.