The platform of Snapchat affords the dissemination of quick snippets of users’ daily activities; majority captured with the smartphone’s front-facing camera taking the form of a selfie. The selfie is a form of locative media that “attempts to represent the self as embodied in particular spaces” both physical and digital. It allows the user to construct an identity and situate themselves in relation to their device, in a physical space as well as in a network (Hess, 2015). The selfie has become a representation of the way one understands themselves and how they want others to understand them.
Snapchat has worked to develop ways to use their selfie-focused platform to generate profit. Their most recent advancement has been selling advertising space with their filter and framing features. Hess (2015) argues that filtering selfies help the audience understand the selfie-taker in relation to the material and mediated spaces around them. Inscribing an advertisement on top of a selfie constitutes a representation of the selfie-takers' relation to that advertisement.
In other words, Snapchat exploits their users by selling a space where users document and share the “practices and meanings about [their] everyday life” (Hess, 2015) to advertisers. The company has monetized users’ desire to construct their identity through selfies. It has managed to attach a $500,000.00 price tag onto the most contemporary form of mediated self expression (Wagner, 2015). Millions of Snapchat users promote and disseminate advertisements as a part of their self expression without compensation. These filters inscribe a new layer of power relations into the Snapchat platform. This feature articulates the notion that “posting content to the network not only expresses a desire to be seen and the agency of circulation, but also carries users into corporate controlled spaces that profit off of Web 2.0 labour” (van Dijck, 2009).
Hess, A. (2015). The Selfie Assemblage, International Journal of Communication, 9, 1629-1646.
Wagner, K. (October, 21015). Snapchat’s Money Train Gains Steam With New Sponsored Lense Ads. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://recode.net/2015/10/30/snapchats-money-train-gains-steam-with-new-sponsored-lenses-ad/
Van Dijk, J. (2009). Users like you? Theorizing agency in user-generated content. Media, Culture & Society, 31, 41-58.
Interesting post Maria! I have found myself guilty of taking a selfie.. or ten.. now and then.
ReplyDeleteYour post brings up an interesting discussion regarding the exploitation of users through the monetization of selfies. Although the "selfie" culture is beneficial to social networking sites due to the mass amounts of data they generate, from likes, shares, comments, etc., I believe Snapchat is the first to have actually been able to "sell the space" of a selfie. Selfies were commonly understood to be under the control of the user as they are taken by the user, on the users devices, and the user decided what message they wanted to convey with their selfie. With the introduction of SnapChat selfie filters, Snapchat is able to use users' identity construction as a vehicle for selling ad-space.
When thinking about Snapchat filters and their relation to identity, I wonder what role these Snapchat filters play in the construction of one's self, specifically ones' self perception. If selfies, as Hess states, truly are a means through which users construct and convey they're identity, how does the selfie attached to a particular brand or product impact user's perceptions of self and self-identity? It becomes a kind of "chicken or the egg" question. Do users associate themselves with the particular brands in the Snapchat filters, and thus use them in conveying a particular identity? Or, is it possible that using these specific SnapChat filters have the reverse effect, and impact the way users come to understand their "selves"?
Could this not be the intention of the brand in paying $500,000 for a Snapchat filter? To associate individual's with their brands to create loyal consumers?
Like you, Haley, I am also guilty of the occasional selfie every now and again - it's hard not to when Snapchat can make you look like something different on any given day with their constantly changing filters (Living alone has even prompted me to Snapchat face swap with my cat... an arguably impressive success...)
ReplyDeleteI am also interested in how sponsored and spatial Snapchat filters can act as a form of locative media. They provide an interesting new way to consider the writing and archiving of space. Similarly to geotagging a photo on Instagram, users may end up "advertising", and therefore, writing, a place for future visitors unintentionally. On Snapchat, however, the sending out of the photo to chosen friends, or posting as a Story, enables that "advertisement" to happen on an even more personal level, and with a new degree of temporality than before. Snapchat users who add a geo-filter to their Snap are writing the space, if even for the 10 seconds that it will be viewed, to their contacts.
Since we know that personalized, targeted advertisements, particularly those which include your friends' names or pictures of them, have proved most effective, I believe that the Snapchat geo-filters may provide an even higher degree of this. By being sent what could be considered an advertisement firsthand, the audience of these posts may be more likely to go and visit themselves, or to associate a brand positively. In this case, once again, the affective is effective.
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