Networked Media | Assignment 3 – Report

Assignment 3 – Report
Name: Khang Nguyen – s3709755

I declare that in submitting all work for this assessment I have read, understood and agree to the content and expectations of the assessment declaration – https://www.rmit.edu.au/students/support-and-facilities/student-support/equitable-learning-services

Making Media blog links

Week 9 – Instagram photo
Week 9 – Instagram video
Week 10 – Instagram photo
Week 10 – Instagram video
Week 11 – Instagram photo
Week 11 – Instagram video

This report responds directly to the course prompt:

How do the affordances of Instagram affect the way photos and videos are authored, published and distributed in the network?

Title of report: The dynamic nature of user generated content makes social networking sites and media platforms being only the supporting tools.

Introduction

In this report, I would like to explore the significance of Instagram’s affordances on user generated content. This is explored through how the app supports such content – in this case to be photos and videos to be authored, published and distributed with a level of effectiveness and freedom.

Background

In response to the course’s prompt, it is fundamental to acknowledge a few key concepts and terms, most notably affordances. As defined by Donald Norman, “the term ‘affordances’ refers to the perceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used” (1998, p.9). So in short, they are the qualities and components that allow a thing (either tangible or intangible) to function.

In refer to Instagram, the stats from Omnicore shows that it is the 6th most popular social networking site. More than one billion users are active on the site monthly with half of them use the app in whatever extent on a daily basis. To date, the app has circulated more than 50 billion photos. In terms of affordances, the app simply allows users to generate and circulate photos. In generating, users have the power to create and edit the photo or video in whatever means that fancy them. This could be done through the app itself with its support to take photos via the user’s devices and edit with its cropping tool and applying filters along with other adjusting tools to help users edit their media in the best way that they fancy. This whole process of creating and editing is also called authoring. As I actually authored in one of the sets of media that I created, users could also author via an external app. Instagram then helps users to share their media work to other users, from family members, friends to other followers, or just users of the app itself. This is done by posting the media on the site, and with the help of factors such as hashtags, this circulating process is also called publishing. At the same time, users have the choice to share the content to other social networking sites, ranging from Facebook to Twitter in naming a few. This process of sharing is also called distributing.

Evidence

The focal point of my report is to emphasise on the significance of user generated content and its dynamic nature in particular. I want to show that social networking sites like Instagram in particular aids users with the freedom to create by providing options via their affordances that give user the power to create on their will. This could be done by showing that users do not face many constraints in creating media in terms of binding exclusively with a site.

As I mentioned in a blog post before, Instagram provides a wide range of affordances for users to be creative. An example would be their filters to edit photos right before posting. However, I want to put into test the ability to choose the authoring platform for users and how Instagram would support external authoring sites. Hence, for methodology, each of the three sets of media being produced, I chose a different way to author. All media would be authored on a same device – my iPhone 8Plus, but through different apps. The first set was produced though the camera app of my iPhone. The second set was done through an app called Foodie – the app that I mainly use to author photos and videos (not only for this particular part of the course). The third set was created through the Instagram app itself, exploring both the camera and the story functions. I also explored how the photos and videos would be circulated using components such as location or hashtags which were all related to the content being made. The ability to distribute to other social networking sites was also attempted. The sites chosen were Tumblr and Twitter. All sites were tested with new accounts created specifically for the course of the assignment.

Evaluating

In regards to authoring, I acknowledge that Instagram provides a suitable level of support for users to generate media the way they seek. Whether produced via the Instagram app or not, the affordances provided remain the same and users are not bind to create exclusively with Instagram if they will to publish. This was shown as the media I created through the camera app of the phone, the Foodie app and the Instagram app were all given the option to edit further before posting with components from filters to cropping or adjusting brightness and contrast. This is an indication of Instagram as being a supporting platform where users have the freedom to create media however they fancy. The only constraint is probably the gridding feature that limits the size of photos, but this would apply to all photos and videos without considering where they are originally authored.

Meanwhile, in terms of publishing, the platform allows content to be posted right after the authoring process. Users could put in location, caption and hashtags in order for their work to reach as many other users as possible. I acknowledge that this is perhaps the most significant feature of the post, arguably more than the content. The use of hashtags in particular (location and caption are less significance in reducing order) is crucial to how a post would reach other viewers as adding in a hashtag would help the post to appear when another user searches that particular hashtag. When choosing hashtags, I realised that the more hashtags of relevance I add in, the more people my post would attract. This does not mean that more people would like my photos and videos, but this increases the chance for me to create a follower base. While this is unrelated to the freedom to author, the power of publishing relies heavily on the affordances that Instagram promotes.

Lastly, I found that for the media I created, distributing is too insignificant as I found that sites like Twitter and Tublr did not help my post to reach more audience. Sharing it via these sites is quite restricted: the tweets on Twitter provide no media apart from the links to the posts while Tumblr would rely on a follower base to work usefully. Of course, I need to take into account the fact that the two accounts I created were fresh with no follower. The results could have been really different if the accounts have, say, hundreds of followers.

Conclusion

My methodology only seems to point out the focus of the report on the authoring side of the argument. Yes, users have the freedom to create media however they seek, but publishing and distributing the content would rely on certain methodologies to reach to more and more users. Hence, Instagram is a useful platform that supports all types of visual media, but could only be supportive in sharing if certain factors are met, such as an account should have an established base of follower or picking the right hashtags.

Also, I acknowledge that my methodology is not one without flaws. I did not exploring further with the distributing side of Instagram. Perhaps with another go at the task, I could try out to see how an established Twitter and Tumblr account could affect the virality of my content.

References

Norman, D 1998, ‘The psychopathology of everyday things’, in D Norman (ed.), The design of everyday things, Basic Book, NY, pp. 1-13.

Omnicore 2020, Instagram by the Numbers: Stats, Demographics & Fun Facts, Omnicore, viewed 31 May 2020, <https://www.omnicoreagency.com/instagram-statistics/>.