I analyzed an Instagram story I posted on January 1st. It was a picture of a cake with “Happy New Year’s” written in icing. The picture was not taken through the Instagram camera feature, but rather taken through the default iPhone camera with the best positioned one shared online. I took creative liberties in zooming in on the picture to remove unwanted objects and adding subtle filters to adjust coloring and overall aesthetic.
The overall message is to wish my online connections a Happy New Year in a way that comes across as organic — unlike a typed out message — but conveys that I am engaging in some form of celebration on this day. The main form of engagement was ‘hearts’, presumably from people flipping through many Instagram stories, but wanting to quickly return the wish. Only a handful of viewers (mainly long distance connections) engaged through a message reply. Though I constructed the story carefully, I wished for it to come across candid and ephemeral — and how my followers chose to engage reflected that. It was only viewed by a third of them, while even less of a percentage chose to engage in some form.
Barnea et al. posits that “unrestricted content can freely watch it again later to collect additional information or verify their comprehension, viewers of ephemeral content must sufficiently process it the first time around” (752). This might help to explain why some viewers might choose to like a story rather than comment. A heart can take place for any positive response a viewer has without requiring direct engagement or comprehension of the content. One person might have seen simply a cake and liked it which becomes a safe way to engage without having to conjure up a well-thought out response.
Based on my experience on Instagram, permanent posts will receive more comments within 24 hours then a story, yet I don’t imagine that users spend more time comprehending a timeline post then a story. Though we know that a viewer can rewatch a story multiples time in the 24 hour period as well as view it for as long as they’d like in a given moment, Barnea et al. found that ephemerality affects viewers’ use of cognitive resources, regardless of whether time pressure was present or not (762). This leads me to question how ephemeral content and time-pressure affects the way audiences choose to engage with the content through social media. In vein of Barnea et al. 's finding, it might be that users become passive when watching a story so engagement becomes inherently different to when they consume other forms of content, even without time-pressure.
Hi Fyruz, I really enjoyed reading your reflection. I think your example is very clear and relatable, especially because you analyzed your own Instagram story. Your description of how you edited the image and tried to make it feel “organic” helps show how even simple posts are carefully constructed. This connects well to the idea that even ephemeral content is still curated, not completely spontaneous.
ReplyDeleteI also found your discussion of engagement very interesting. Your point about people using “hearts” instead of replying made me think about how ephemerality changes audience behavior. Since stories disappear quickly, viewers may not want to spend time writing a response, so they choose faster and lower-effort interactions. This connects well to Barnea et al.’s idea that ephemeral content requires immediate processing, which may limit deeper engagement.
One question I have is whether you think the “organic” feeling you aimed for actually increases authenticity, or if it is just another form of performance shaped by platform expectations. Also, do you think the low engagement you observed is mainly due to ephemerality, or could it also relate to the type of content (for example, a simple image versus something more interactive)?
Overall, I think your reflection clearly shows how temporality influences both content creation and audience engagement, and it provides a strong connection between personal experience and course concepts.