Social media storytelling is a process which is constantly evolving, specifically in terms of content, platform and delivery. In relation to Snapchat, the self-destructing nature ensures users have to remain active within the application. As Murdock (2013) proposed, Snapchat’s ephemeral nature ensures users have a platform which allows them to “express themselves naturally with their friends”. Concepts of group memories self expression, self presentation and maintaining social relationships (Van House, Davis et al, 2004, pg.1) also remain important to Snapchat users, as they manipulate the 10 second time barrier as a way to communicate with friends and family.

Snapchat’s ‘Story’ function remediates the concept of the traditional storytelling method, by allowing data to exist for a maximum of 24 hours. While platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are still being used to tell stories, applications such as Snapchat provide a new way to explore what storytelling means in the 21st Century. While exact audience size is still being determined, estimates of 25 million (Carlson, 2015) suggest that platforms such as Snapchat have audiences which rival traditional media platforms, such as television.

Given the inherent of social media storytelling, and Snapchat in particular, academic research limited. Our research project aimed to discover how Australian audiences where interacting with mobile applications to tell stories, within the larger global context of storytelling on social media platforms. Our research survey discovered that the way users interact with applications such as Snapchat differs wildly from how they understand and interact with film and television. As such, the concepts of ‘storytelling’ and ‘story’ within Snapchat have different definitions from those we have used in the past to define media.

Our research demonstrates that Snapchat is the next platform in the ongoing process of social media storytelling. With users choosing to share ‘snaps’ which feature their personal experiences, we can conclude that mobile applications such as Snapchat give users an opportunity to broadcast slice of life content, which stands in direct opposition to more traditional storytelling seen on film and television.

Our research also found that users were drawn to the ephemeral nature of Snapchat, choosing to manipulate the constraint of 10-second to send content which was wildly different to the content they choose to broadcast on other social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. The perceived ‘lack of judgement’ was another large part of the user experience, with survey respondents citing that this was a major aspect of why they use Snapchat to communicate with their social networks. Despite the stigma that the ephemeral nature of Snapchat encourages the sharing of sexually explicit photos and behaviour, our survey results conclude that only two users expressed this as their primary use of the app.

Overall, our research suggests that Snapchat can be understood as an overall positive addition to the social media storytelling world. With users overwhelmingly emphasising the positive effects of the application, as well as the concept of ‘fun’ within the application, we can safely conclude that Snapchat is understood as a social media tool with encourages social relationships and promotes friendship within the creation of ephemeral content.

The concept of ‘storytelling’ is one which is being remediated within the context of social media in the 21st Century. Trends shifting towards shorter, more user created and more personal content suggests that traditional storytelling methods, such as film and television, will soon become ways of the past. Mobile applications such as Snapchat provide more consumers with the power to create and contribute to ‘big name’ media productions, using their smartphones to create content which rivals content being made by media professionals.

Within mobile applications such as Snapchat, users are encouraged to create temporary, slice of life stories to share with their immediate networks, as well as providing an opportunity to broadcast to larger audiences. Given the inherent newness of this media form, it is hard to predict how it will develop into the future, however we can only hope that the storytelling process will continue to evolve into the 21st Century.