The Surfacing of Snapchat in the Web Culture through the Uses and Gratifications Approach

An Undergraduate Theoretical Paper presented to the

Department of Communication and Media Studies

Faculty of Arts and Letters

University of Santo Tomas

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

Course CA 8: Communication & Socio-Cultural Change

By:

Andres, Jerald Carl DR.

3CA1

Submitted on:

November 11, 2015

1

Abstract:

This theoretical paper argues that with the ascending utility of the new web standard,

Media Capture API through an emerging mobile application called Snapchat, this “ephemeral

social media” is a factor towards gratifying the personal and social integrative need of a human

person. Moreover, this study is anchored upon the 1974 Uses and Gratifications research wherein

it goes beyond within the paradigm of Functionalism and studies the audience per se; their

selective behaviour and their individual perceptions.

Moreover, this paper looks into the relevance and implications of the Uses and

Gratifications Theory in the 21st Century, especially now with the advent of new media, such as

digital and social media. This would also look into studies about Smartphones, mobile

applications, Media Capture API and recent studies about Snapchat.

Keywords: Smartphones, Mobile Applications, Media Capture API, Snapchat, Uses and Gratifications Theory, Interactivity, Demassification, Asynchroneity and Hypertextuality

Technology has become part of everyone’s life. Nowadays, it becomes more than just a

medium to keep in touch with our loved ones and stay updated with today’s latest news. It has

become a lifestyle.

The cultural, educational and the professional landscape have been changing due to

technology, especially with the rise of mobile phones, most specifically smart phones. Remote

work (which is now the trend) is now becoming mainstream, as people work more efficiently and

they accomplish more. Users are accessing data economically, meeting deadlines, servicing

clients purposefully, solving problems, and moving business forward, while collaborating with

fellow colleagues from wherever they are located and whenever they need to. These devices are

2

further powered by the Cloud and devices with super computing power that fit in our pockets.

Students and the workforce are more capable than ever of being mobile (Newman, 2015).

Smartphones were defined differently over the course of time. Smartphones are wireless-

transmission-devices that can receive and transmit through digital or analogue shortwave (Rouse,

2007). People communicate with one another using these devices. Smartphones were coined later

on when mobile or cellular phones progressed and advanced. Mobile phones are now smarter;

eventually people started calling it ‘Smartphones.’ The only thing that differentiates a mobile

phone and a Smartphone is that “[a] smartphone is a mobile phone that offers more advanced

computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary basic ‘feature phone’” (Litchfield,

2010).

Moreover, Internet utility of this kind of technology also makes the Smartphone even

better. According to Litchfield’s article “Defining the Smartphone,” Smartphones are devices

that “run an open (to new apps) operating system and are permanently connected to the internet”

(Litchfield, 2010).

According to Professor John F. Clark from the School of Journalism and

Telecommunications, University of Kentucky, in his lecture slides for MAS 490: Theory and

Practice of Mobile Applications, mobile communication is part and parcel of our lives that most

people, if not all feel uncomfortable without a cell phone in their pockets. Before, cell phones

were only used to for calling and sending text messages. Nowadays, with the rise of

Smartphones, it is now a multifunctional device that does not only communicate, but helps

people to learn, earn, and have fun. This is of course a made potential by the progress of mobile

applications.

3

Clark argued that mobile applications date back to the end of the twentieth century. Prior

to what we know today as mobile applications, they were just small arcade games, ring tone

editors, calculators, calendars, and many others. The dawn of the new millennium brought about

a hasty market progression of mobile content and applications. Operating systems for smart

phones like Windows Mobile, Symbian, RIM, Android, Mac iOS, opened up to the opportunities

developing third-party software, contrasting to the usual programming interface of standard and

conformist cell phones (Clark, 2012).

21st century mobile users now demand a variety of choices, further prospects to modify

and personalize their mobile phones, and of course, they expect more functionality. These

advancements gave the idea for mobile operators to innovate and endow mobile applications

with value-added content to their loyal subscribers in a convenient and worthwhile manner.

Mobile developers in this age now fancy the liberty to enhance their potent mobile applications

users with their demands devoid of boundaries. Ultimately, handset manufacturers want an

unwavering, protected and reasonably priced platform to power their devices (Clark, 2012).

A new emerging web standard in mobile applications is called “Media Capture API

(Application Programming Interface)” which provides media capture access capabilities (audio,

image and video) to the device specifically a Smartphone or other Mobile Internet devices

(Kliche et al., 2010). In layman’s term, this web standard makes it possible to create mobile

applications allowing users to photograph or record sound and video with mobile camera and

microphone - directly into the web page.

Capturing Audio and Video Media are said to be the “holy grail” of web development

(Bidelman, 2012). From the previous years, people rely on browser plug-ins like Flash and

Silverlight. According to the PC Magazine Encyclopaedia, a browser plug-in is a kind of

4

software that adds functionality to a Web browser like Google Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer,

Mozilla Firefox and the likes. Typically, it is a third party application other than

the browser developer and is also called "add-ons" or "extensions." They are used to add toolbars

and support a variety of graphics, animation, audio and video formats.

The Capture API defines a high-level interface for accessing the microphone and camera

of a hosting device. The terms camera application, camcorder application, and audio capture

application are utilized to refer to a piece of interactive software implemented either by the user

or the underlying operating environment that carry out the real capture operation. The API in this

specification launches the capture application which allows the user to take pictures, record voice

or record video and provides a handle to the content. But this feature posits this information to

compromise potentially the user’s privacy. In conforming to this implementation of this

specification, the application must provide a mechanism that protects the user's privacy and this

mechanism should ensure that such operations must not happen without user consent (Kliche et

al., 2010). This is very evident in Smartphones, when a dialogue box appears asking the consent

of a user through a note in allowing microphone and camera access.

Mobile applications like Facetime, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Instagram,

Viber, VSCOCam, Skype, Youtube and many others utilize this kind of web standard. But 2011

in Stanford University posted upon us a new mobile application wherein users can take photos,

record videos, add text and drawings, and send them to a controlled list of recipients – Snapchat

is now taking the world by storm.

5

Understanding Snapchat: An Ephemeral Social Media

Bobby Murphy and Evan Spiegel created the video-messaging application for one of

Spiegel's classes at Stanford University, where Spiegel was a product design major. Snapchat is

said to be a mobile application known as a form of "ephemeral social media," which is a media

platform that exhibits a shared content for a definite amount of time.

In the website’s (Snapchat.com) first blog post, the company describes their mission:

“Snapchat isn’t about capturing the traditional Kodak moment. It’s about communicating with

the full range of human emotion -- not just what appears to be pretty or perfect”. They present

Snapchat as the solution to stresses caused by the longevity of personal information on social

media, evidenced by “emergency detagging of Facebook photos before job interviews and

photoshopping blemishes out of candid shots before they hit the internet”.

According to their website, Snapchat.com, the application is best way to reach 13-34

year-olds. Not only the millennials are its audience but brands all over the world love to

advertise at Snapchat.

Andrew Morse, CNN Digital General Manager said “They have a massive audience,

that’s passionate and engaged, but it’s one that CNN is reaching on a day-to-day basis.”

Moreover, Victor Peneiro of AdAge said that “[Snapchat] offers something unique in the

world of mostly-broadcast, feed centric social media – intimacy at scale.”

In May 2014, Snapchatters were sending 700 million photos and videos per day, while

Snapchat Stories content was being viewed 500 million times per day (via Snapchat.com).

6

Figure I. Audience Demographics of Snapchat in the USA (from https://www.snapchat.com/ads)

Pocket-lint.com (the leading independent gadget news and reviews website in the UK)

posted a blog regarding Snapchat and gave a quick breakdown of all the common terms and

phrases used in the Snapchat application. Words are as follows:

Snapchatters: Snapchatters are Snapchat users.

Snap: A snap is a photo or video taken with Snapchat. You can send a snap to a

Snapchatter (or multiple snaps to multiple Snapchatters), but it can only be viewed by the

recipient for a limited amount of time (1 to 10 seconds).

Snapback: A Snapback is a reply to your Snap.

Story: A story is a snap you can mass-send to friends. Recipients can view it an

unlimited amount of times in 24 hours. You can also send multiple snaps to your story in one

day. They will be compiled to create one story.

Scores: Your Score is the total number of Snaps you have sent and received. It appears

next to your name in friends' contact lists and vice versa.

7

Chat: Chat is a feature that lets you privately message with friends on Snapchat.

Here: Here is a sub-feature within Chat. It lets you broadcast live video and audio to

friends while chatting.

In Business Insider’s article entitled 77% Of Surveyed College Kids Use Snapchat Every

Day, a study polled 1,600 social media-savvy college students and found 77% of them use

Snapchat daily. The study showed only 2% of them using Snapchat to send sexts (sex texts).

Mostly both sexes send selfies (A photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken

with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media. Definition by Oxford Dictionary)

back and forth. The study also found that Friday and Saturday are the most popular evenings to

swap disappearing photos, and that more than half the time, both sexes send selfies (Shontell,

2014).

According to an article by Daily News posted last November 3, 2015, a new study

concluded that Snapchat interactions are associated with more social enjoyment and positive

emotions and mood than Facebook and other social media.

Joseph Bayer, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication Studies at the

University of Michigan and the study's lead author said that people view Snapchat as a sexting

(sex texting application).

"But instead, we found that Snapchat is typically being used to communicate

spontaneously with close friends in a new and often more enjoyable way," he said (Bayer, 2015).

"At the same time, Snapchat interactions were perceived as having less social support

than other social media. These findings open up important questions about the benefits and costs

of different social media," (Bayer, 2015) he said.

8

The study by Bayer and his colleagues used "experience sampling" among recruited 154

college students who make use of Smartphones. The research measured how people think, feel

and behave moment-to-moment in their daily lives and to assess the participants' well-being by

texting them at random times six times a day for two weeks asking questions such as how

pleasant or unpleasant was their most recent interaction and how close they are to that person,

reported the Times of India.

According to Larson and Csikszentmihalyi, (2014) and The Experience Sampling

Method (ESM) is a research procedure for studying what people do, feel, and think during their

daily lives. It consists in asking individuals to provide systematic self-reports at random

occasions during the waking hours of a normal week.

Researchers found that Snapchat interactions are associated with more positive emotions

than Facebook and other social technologies. Simultaneously, Snapchat interactions are viewed

as less "supportive" than other types of interaction, including Twitter, texting, email, calling and

face-to-face.

The study found that next to face-to-face interactions, the most "rewarding"

communication happened through Snapchat. The findings indicate that one of the main reasons

that users have a better experience on Snapchat is because of fewer "self-presentational"

concerns meaning that users are less concerned with presenting the perfect image on Snapchat.

Bayer pointed out that people use Facebook to post well-crafted messages and staged photos for

births, graduations and birthdays, whereas Snapchat users are simply capturing small moments of

life. In addition, participants reported focusing more attention on Snapchat messages compared

to other platforms (Kedia, 2015).

9

A study conducted by the University of Houston earlier this year found that the amount

of time people spend on Facebook can be linked to depressive symptoms, and an experiment by

Facebook last year was met with public backlash after the News Feed was tweaked to show more

negative posts (Heath, 2015).

In an article by Emily Truax, a Social Media Manager from Boston University entitled

Snapchat: A Case Study, she gave situations on how Snapchat are used in the higher education space.

1) Events

Snapchat is ideal for giving a user’s followers a “behind-the-scenes” look at events going

on around.

2) News

Snapchat is also a great way to effectively reach people in times of breaking news. We can

say that Twitter has always been the primordial medium for breaking news, complemented

by news stories on Rappler and Facebook posts, Snapchat on the other hand has been a fun

and interactive way to inform our community of important events & deadlines.

3) Celebrations

Snapchatters are sending out congratulatory videos, artwork & photos and sharing their

enthusiasm and excitement.

4) Q&A’s

Snaps can be sent to facilitate personalized and interactive question and answer sessions.

5) Catching Up

Snapchat is said to be a great medium to get a feel for the pulse of your community.

10

Moreover, Snapchat.com released their own reasons why people employ their

mobile application. Snapchat according to them is how people get perspectives, be in a specific

place in a specific time and a way to express oneself.

Figure II. Why 13-34 Year-Olds love Snapchat (from https://www.snapchat.com/ads)

Uses and Gratifications Theory: The Study’s Framework

In Hanson, Jarice and David J. Maxcy, eds. (1996) entitled Notable Selections in Mass

Media, the article “Utilization of Mass Communication by the Individual” written by

11

Communication scholars namely Elihu Katz, Jay G. Blumler and Michael Gurevitch, they

discussed on how empirical research in uses and gratifications evolved. One of the important

features about the uses and gratifications approach is that it examines the process of

communication starting from the audience members’ individual perceptions.

The uses and gratifications perspective investigates why individuals choose to use media.

The areas of greatest difficulty for researchers following this approach are to understand and

account for the audience’s selective behaviour. Why does a person choose video rather than a

book? Why Snapchat and not Instagram and Youtube? Are people turning to media for reasons

other than a habit?

Figure III. An Integrated Social Media Model of the Uses and Gratifications Theory

The theory focused mainly on the medium – as a cultural institution with its own social

and psychological functions and perhaps long-run effects. Early studies like the Lazarsfeld-

Stanton collections (1942, 1944, 1949) posted list of functions served either by some specific

contents or by the medium in question: to match one’s wits against others, to get information, or

12

advice for daily living, to provide a framework for one’s day, to prepare oneself culturally for the

demands of upward mobility, or to be reassured about the dignity and usefulness of one’s role.

Mcquail, Blumler and Brown (1972) have put forward a typology consisting of the

following categories: diversion (including escape from the constraints of routing and the burdens

of problems and emotional release); personal relationships (including substitute companionship

as well as social utility); personal identity (including personal reference, reality exploration and

value reinforcement); and surveillance.

Katz, Gurevitch and Haas (1973) furthered upon an effort to encompass the large variety

of specific functions that have been proposed is made in the elaborate scheme. Their central

notion is that mass communication is used by individuals to connect (or sometimes to

disconnect) themselves via instrumental, affective or integrative relations – with different kinds

of others (self, family, friends, nation, etc.).

These are attempts to understand the totality of the individual gratification of the many

facets of the need “to be connected.”

In the informational field, for example the surveillance function may be traced to a desire

for security or the satisfaction of curiosity and the exploratory drive, seeking reinforcement of

one’s attitudes and values may derive from a need or reassurance that one is right; and attempts

to correlate informational elements may stem from a more basic need to develop one’s cognitive

mastery of the environment.

The Uses and Gratifications Theory takes a more humanistic approach in examining

media use.  Blumler and Katz consider that there is not simply one manner that the general

public consume the media content.  In its place, they suppose that there are as a lot of factors for

using the media, as there are media users.  In addition to that, the theory argues that media

13

consumers have the freedom to make a decision on how they will utilize the media and how it

will effect and affect them. 

The perspectives of Blumler and Katz are evidently seen by the fact that they believe that

media consumers can decide the influence media has on them as well as the idea that users

choose media alternatives purely as a means to an end.  Uses and Gratifications Theory,

generally is the optimist’s view of the media.  The theory takes out the opportunity that the

media can have an unconscious influence over our lives and what is our outlook to the world. 

Generally, it would conclude that a medium will be used more when the existing motives to use

the medium leads to more satisfaction.

Table I. Needs gratified by a specific medium

Looking Through the 21 st Century: The Uses and Gratifications Approach in the Modern Era

Thomas E. Ruggiero of the Communications Department, University of Texas at El Paso

in his paper Uses and Gratifications Theory in the 21st Century argued that the rise of computer-

14

mediated communication has invigorated the importance of uses and gratifications perspective.

In fact, uses and gratifications have always provided a cutting-edge theoretical approach in the

preliminary stages of every new mass communications medium: newspapers, radio and

television, and now the Internet. Ruggiero also argued that most probably, researchers are likely

to continue using traditional tools and typologies to answer questions about media use, but we

must also be prepared to expand our current theoretical models of uses and gratifications.

Contemporary and future models of the Uses and Gratifications approach must include

concepts such as interactivity, demassification, hypertextuality, and asynchroneity. Ruggiero also

suggested that researchers must also be keen to see the sights around interpersonal and

qualitative aspects of mediated communication in a more holistic method (Ruggiero, 2000).

Interactivity considerably strengthens the central part of the Uses and Gratifications

notion of an active user for the reason that it has been defined as “the degree to which

participants in the communication process have control over, and can exchange roles in their

mutual discourse” (Williams et al., 1988).

Furthermore, Demassification as the control of a human being over the medium, “which

likens the new media to face-to-face interpersonal communication” Demassification is the

capability of the media user to choose from a broad menu (Williams et al., 1988).

Moreover, Hypertextuality, which constitutes the core of Internet documents, is created

by the simple hypertext markup language (HTML), so that the text represents not a fixed linear

sequence, but performs as a network to be actively composed (Sandbothe, 1996).

Asynchroneity refers to the conception that messages may be spread over a period of time

Senders and receivers of electronic messages can read mail at different times and still interact at

their expediency (Williams et al., 1988).

15

The Internet lies at the locus of a new media ecology that has “altered the structural

relations among traditional and analogue media such as print and broadcast and unites them

around the defining technologies of computer and satellite” (Carey, 1998). This media

convergence makes the old print–electronic and verbal–nonverbal distinctions, so long the focus

of communication researchers, less relevant in light of messages that combine writing, still and

animated images, and voices and other sounds (Weaver, 1993). Forusers, text, voice, pictures,

animation, video, virtual reality motion codes, and even smell have already become part of the

Internet experience (Newhagen & Rafaeli, 1996). Nowadays, the communication experience on

the Internet travels at unparalleled velocity. The Internet presents its audience a massive variety

of communication opportunities. Networks are always available, tolerating a 24/7 asynchronous

or synchronous interactions and information retrieval and swap among persons and groups

(Kiesler, 1997).

Fortuitous for Uses and Gratifications researchers, communication on the Internet also

leaves a trail that is effortlessly traceable. Audience demographics can now be easily tracked.

These days, views, shares, comments on different mediums like videos or photos can be seen

readily. Also, messages and even chats have time stamps, accurate to one hundredth of a second.

Content in the Internet is willingly apparent, recorded, and copied. Moreover, user

demographics, behaviour in the cyber world, especially their patterns of consumption, choice,

attention, reaction, and learning results to astonishing study opportunities (Newhagen & Rafaeli,

1996).

Furthermore, Internet forums such as electronic bulletin boards, discussion boards and

even blogs fulfil many potentialities of equally the interpersonal and mass communication

scheme (James et al., 1995). Consequently, we can conclude that if the Internet is a new

16

dominion of human activity, it is also a new dominion for Uses and Gratifications researchers. If

the Internet is a technology that is predicted to be authentically transformative, it will direct to

the thoughtful changes in today’s landscape of media users’ especially their personal and social

habits and roles. Inevitably, the Internet’s expansion rates are exponential. The figure of users

has doubled in every of the last 6 years. If this growth continues at the same rate, the Internet

will soon be an extensively dispersed medium and can be comparable to the everyday utility

same as the television or the telephone before (Quarterman & Carl-Mitchell, 1993). Thus,

electronic communication technology may adequately change the circumstances of media use

that the previous mass communication theories do not yet address. Some predict, for instance,

that in a little while, the novelty of combining music, video, graphics, and text will diminish, and

more natural methods will be created for Web users to interact in, such as data “landscapes”

(Aldersey-Williams, 1996).

Theoretically and practically, for Uses and Gratifications scholars, however, the basic

questions stay the same. Why do people become concerned in one specific type of mediated

communication or another, and what gratifications do they obtain from it? Even though we are

possible to persist with traditional tools and typologies to get an answer to these questions, we

must also be equipped with the knowledge of current theoretical models of Uses and

Gratifications to include concepts such as interactivity, demassification, hypertextuality,

asynchroneity, and interpersonal aspects of mediated communication. Then, if we are able to

accept a contemporary and modernized Uses and Gratifications Theory within this new media

ecology, in an embryonic psychological, sociological, and cultural context, we should be able to

look forward to an exceedingly pragmatic hypothesis for the 21st century (Ruggiero, 2000).

17

Based on survey research in Hong Kong 1999 in the academic journal entitled Journalism

and Mass Communication Quarterly, and article title More Than Just Talk on the Move: Uses

and Gratifications of the Cellular Phone; mobility, immediacy and instrumentality are found to

be the strongest instrumental motives in predicting the use of cellular phones, followed by

intrinsic factors such as affection/sociability (Leung and Wei, 2000).

Furthermore, the study’s abstract posed upon subscriptions to functionally enhanced

services such as call transfers and caller ID appears to be important predictors for overall cellular

phone use, especially for those who are on the go. As expected, the use of cellular phones on

buses, cars, and trains or in malls and restaurants is strongly linked to mobility and immediate

access gratifications. Finally, talking to co-workers and business partners via cellular phones

appears to be for instrumental reasons, while talking to immediate family members is for

mobility and showing affection (Leung and Wei, 2000).

Snapchat: What Human Need and How Gratifying?

The Internet is viewed by some communication researchers as the primordial in

individualism, it is said to be “a medium with the capability to empower the individual in terms

of both the information he or she seeks and the information he or she creates” (Singer, 1998). On

the other hand, the Web is seemingly viewed as the ultimate in community building and

fortification, through which users can generate relationships online in a manner that have never,

been probable through analogue media. Moreover, Rafaeli (1986) studied that computer-

mediated communication by individuals may lead to loneliness and isolation.

Furthermore, Young (1996) raised concern that excessive use of new media such as the

personal computer may leave users vulnerable to technological dependencies like “Internet

18

addiction.” Reasons for using the Internet differ from person to person. Some individuals are

goal directed and may want to complete a task through visiting specific Web sites. Others may

only be curious and surf the Web for fun. Additionally, in electronic discussion groups, for

example, some users are quiet observers and “lurkers” who never participate, whereas others

frequently participate in the discussion (Ha, 1995). Moreover, differences in quality and quantity

of activity exist among individual online users. Sundar (1998) contended that experienced

Internet users make different choices than do novices, particularly in matters such as

attentiveness to sources in electronic news stories.

Snapchat in their website gave reasons why people, specifically the youth, utilize their

video-messaging application. First is to get perspectives. Snaps provide a personal window into

the way you and your friends see the world. Second is to be here, now. Stories are updated in

real-time and expire after 24 hours. Third and last is to express yourself. Snaps are a reflection of

who you are in the moment – there is no need to curate an everlasting phenomenon. But what

specific need and how does Snapchat, the medium gratify it?

On a poll posted upon the researcher, with a question of “What is the role of Snapchat in

facilitating your web culture?” with choices:

A) Updates from people (Get perspectives)

B) Share what I am doing (Express yourself)

With a total of 54 votes (with the poll posted for 24 hours), 69% of the votes chose the

“Share what I’m doing” choice over the “Updates from people” choice with it having 31%. This

only means that 37 people voted that Snapchat is to share what his or her doing in the moment,

and 17 people voted surveillance of his or her peers, and the world as well.

19

With this, we can conclude that the type of need gratified by Snapchat would be personal

integrative, with the snaps shared by the user enhances his or her credibility, confidence and

status. Media users would like to post a video or a photo on Snapchat to share the now – with

less hassle and more privacy. Moreover, it also try to fulfil the social integrative need of a human

person, that the enhanced connections with family, friends and so forth. People now get updated

with their friends through Snapchat.

4 case studies were also chosen to answer the question same with the poll, “What is the

role of Snapchat in facilitating your web culture?” Here are their answers.

1) Alfredo Navarro III, 22 years old

“I seldom use Snapchat. I only open it to check on updates from friends and put filter on my videos. There are filters on Snapchat na wala sa Twitter and Facebook. And it avoids flooding on timelines. Tapos storage din. Kasi after 24 hours, deleted na yung snaps.”

2) John Michael Santos, 22 years old

“Snapchat provides me the avenue to release my inner desire to be a star like showing myself as if I am a star with fans to see my every move. It's different from Facebook because it is a less formal avenue of social media and a little more private than Twitter because only your friends can see your moves and snaps. It gratifies my need to be given attention because I can be who I am since it is less formal than Facebook without filtering because it is more private than Twitter.”

3) Marc Angelo Pacumio, 19 years old

“Like other social networking sites, Snapchat updates me with what's happening with different people from different parts of the world. This is basically the culture of social media, for one to virtually tell their story to the world and for one to know other people's stories as well. What makes Snapchat different from other social networking sites is that it takes a more personal and more visual approach as it snaps what happens to a person at a specific time. The culture of Snapchat is similar to Twitter, however, what sets them apart from each other is that Twitter uses tweets or texts to tell a story, while Snapchat uses snaps, photos or videos to tell a story.”

4) Mikaela Therese Obach, 18 years old20

“Snapchat has become a part of my daily routine. It somewhat limits and controls me from the things I do. It has become my basis in every action I do to the point I always think first whether the things I do is worthy to post it in my feed because other people would see it. Also, Snapchat would post live news/updates everyday regarding a certain event from different places and in this way it gives me an idea to what are the things that I should be aware of and give importance to. The difference is that FB and Twitter uses a different language and form of presenting one's thought. Unlike in Snapchat you don't necessarily need to post a long status or a 140-character tweet just to convey a message. It is innate for people to seek for something that will give them pleasure. Most of the time we want instant gratification. By using Snapchat we instantly get feedback from our friends or the people who uses Snapchat as well. People become satisfied once they get a response/feedback because they are being recognized by others.”

Furthermore, to break it all down, based on the interviews made, Snapchat is mainly

utilized for the following functions.

First is to get updated from family, friends and peers. Since this is still social media, its

primordial responsibility is to enhance connection with people. News and events are posted

through Snaps, so that people will stay informed with today’s latest happenings.

Second is its comparison with other social media sites or applications. It can be compared

with Twitter and Facebook but it is said to be a much more personal and a much more visual

approach. Other services or features are also not present in other sites, like filters in photos,

together with animations. It is like Twitter but much more visual. Also, you get to have a much

more private because the people who follow you can only view your Snaps. Additionally it is

less formal than Facebook.

Third, you can share the now, the moment with less hassle and it avoids the longevity of

posts. It is ephemeral and short-lived. It is not high maintenance. To compare it with other sites,

in Instagram, you get to only post “artsy” and “creative” photographs. It avoids flooding of posts.

21

Last is for attention or recognition purposes. It is used to confer status. You get gratified

when people view your snaps. You get satisfied when you get feedback or you get noticed by

other Snapchatters.

Conclusion

To conclude, Smartphones are devices that are said to “run an open (to new apps)

operating system and are permanently connected to the internet” (Litchfield, 2010). These

Smartphones are equipped with third-party software, contrasting to the usual programming

interface of standard and conformist cell phones called mobile applications (Clark, 2012).

Nowadays, with the rise of these mobile applications, a rise of a web standard is deemed

necessary. A new web standard called “Media Capture API (Application Programming

Interface)” makes it possible to create mobile applications allowing users to photograph or

record sound and video with mobile camera and microphone - directly into the web page.

Snapchat have this web standard. Snapchat allows photograph, sound, and video with

mobile camera and microphone access. Bobby Murphy and Evan Spiegel, students of the

Stanford University, designed the mobile application known as a form of "ephemeral social

media," which is a media platform that exhibits a shared content for a definite amount of time.

This new emerging medium now facilitates a web culture because of the needs of the human

person, and Snapchat readily gratifies it explained further in the communication theory called the

Uses and Gratifications Approach.

A recent study concluded by Joseph Bayer that next to face-to-face interactions, the most

"rewarding" communication happened through Snapchat. The findings indicate that one of the

main reasons that users have a better experience on Snapchat is because of fewer "self-

22

presentational" concerns meaning that users are less concerned with presenting the perfect image

on Snapchat. Bayer pointed out that people use Facebook to post well-crafted messages and

staged photos for births, graduations and birthdays, whereas Snapchat users are simply capturing

small moments of life (Kedia, 2015).

The Uses and Gratifications Theory is a perspective that examines the process of

communication starting from the audience members’ individual perceptions. It is relevant in the

modern era because the rise of computer-mediated communication has invigorated the

importance of uses and gratifications perspective. But to adapt with the changing times, the 21 st

Century Uses and Gratifications approach must include concepts such as interactivity,

demassification, hypertextuality, and asynchroneity.

Through the poll and the interviews made, we came into conclusion that Snapchat helps

to gratify the personal integrative need of the human being through enhancing credibility,

confidence and status and the social integrative need of a person, enhancing connection with

family, friends and the world as well.

In retrospect, we can say that in a fast-paced technological environment that we are a part

of today, vast choices of media are posted upon us, perfect for each type of need – may it be

cognitive, affective, personal integrative, social integrative and tension release, each gratified by

a specific medium. Conclusively, our utilization and ways of consuming them becomes vital.

May be we be responsible enough in using them and not be enslaved. After all, the human being

created the machines, not the other way around.

References:

Aldersey-Williams, H. (1996). Interactivity with a human face. Technology Review, 99, 34–4023

Bayer, J, Ellison, N. B., Falk, Emily B., & Schoenebeck, S.Y. (2015). Sharing the small moments: ephemeral social interaction on Snapchat. Information, Communication Society 2015 , 1-5.

Bidelman, E. (2012). Retrieved November 1, 2015, from html5rocks.com: www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/getusermedia/intro/

Carey, J. W. (1998). The Internet and the end of the National Communication System: Uncertain predictions of an uncertain future. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 75(1), 28–34.

Clark, J. F. (2012). Retrieved November 1, 2015, from uky.edu: www.uky.edu/~jclark/mas490apps/History%20of%20Mobile%20Apps.pdf

Ha, L. (1995). Subscriber’s behavior in electronic discussion groups: A comparison between academics and practitioners. In Proceedings of the first annual conference on telecommunications and information markets (pp. 27–36).

Hanson, J., & Maxcy, D. J. (1996). Sources: Notable Selections in Mass Media. Guilford, Connecticut: McGraw- Hill Higher Education.

Heath, A. (2015). Business Insider Australia. Retrieved November 3, 2015, from Business Insider Australia Web Site: www.businessinsider.com.au/snapchat-makes-you-happier-than-facebook-2015-10

James, M. L., Wotring, C. E., & Forrest, E. J. (1995). An exploratory study of the perceived benefits of electronic bulletin board use and their impact on other communication activities. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 39, 30–50.

Kedia, M. (2015). K Drama Stars. Retrieved November 1, 2015, from K Drama Stars Web Site: www.kdramastars.com/articles/103651/20151105/snapchat-interactions-more-positive.htm

Kiesler, S. (Ed.). (1997). Culture of the Internet. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc

Kliche, I. et al. (2010). Retrieved November 1, 2015, from W3.org: www.w3.org/TR/media-capture-api/

Leung, L., & Wei, R. (2000). More Than Just Talk on the Move: Uses and Gratifications of the Cellular Phone. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly , 308.

Litchfield, S. (2010). Defining the smartphone. Retrieved from www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/item/Defining_the_Smartphone.php

24

Newhagen, J., & Rafaeli, S. (1996). Why communication researchers should study the Internet: A dialogue. Journal of Communications, 46(1), 4–13.

Newman, D. (2015). Retrieved November 1, 2015, from Huffington Post: www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-newman/mobile-is-a-lifestyle-not_b_7151508.html

Quarterman, J. S., & Carl-Mitchell, S. (1993). The computing paradigm shift. Journal of Organizational Computing, 3, 31–50.

Rafaeli, S. (1986). The electronic bulletin board: A computer-driven mass medium. Computers and the Social Sciences, 2, 123–136.

Reed , L. (2014). Flows and Foundations of Positive Psychology: The Collected Works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. New York City: Springer Publishing.

Rouse, M. (2007). Cellular phone (mobile telephone). SearchMobileComputing. Retrieved from www.searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/definition/cellular-telephone

Ruggiero, T. E. (2000). Uses and Gratifications Theory in the 21st Century. Mass Communication and Society , 3-37.

Sandbothe, M. (1996). Interactivity—hypertexuality—transversality: A media-philosophical analysis of the Internet. Retrieved May 1999 from the World Wide Web: http://www.uni-jena.de/ms/tele/ part2.html

Singer, J. B. (1998). Online journalists: Foundations for research into their changing roles. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 4. Retrieved May 1999 from the World Wide Web: http:// jcmc.huji.ac.il/vol4/issue1/smith.html#ABSTRACT

Shontell, A. (2014). Retrieved November 2, 2015, from Businessinsider.com: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-college-kids-use-snapchat-2014-2

Sundar, S. S. (1998). Effect of source attribution on perception of online news stories. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 75, 55–68.

Truax, E. (2015). Medium. Retrieved November 2, 2015, from Medium Web site: www.medium.com/snapchat-strategy/snapchat-a-case-study-ae23308a7bab

Weaver, D. H. (1993). Communication research in the 1990s. In P. Gaunt (Ed.), Beyond agendas: New directions in communication research (pp. 199–220). Westport, CT: Greenwood.

Williams, F., Rice, R. E., & Rogers, E. M. (1988). Research methods and the new media. New York: Free Press

25

Young, K. (1996, August). Internet addiction: The emergence of a new addictive disorder. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Toronto, Canada

26