Now Showing on a Smartphone Near You: Snapchat Goes Narrative with Stories

Running head: SNAPCHAT STORIES
Now Showing on a Smartphone Near You: Snapchat Goes Narrative with Stories
Alanna Mager
PC8005
Ryerson University
December 9, 2013
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Now Showing on a Smartphone Near You: Snapchat Goes Narrative with Stories
Introduction
Throughout 2013, Snapchat was at the centre of discussions about social media.
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The smartphone application (app), which allows people to send photos and videos that
appear and disappear within seconds, has exploded in popularity. However, Snapchat
Stories, a new feature that allows content to last for 24-hours, was added to the app in
October 2013. This change left many people wondering why a company that experienced
rapid success with its existing model would add a function that goes against the
instantaneousness it originally stood for. The following paper begins by relaying
Techcrunch.com writer Darrell Etherington’s argument that Stories makes Snapchat a
viable business. Then, the literature review looks at social networking sites (SNSs)
through a narrative lens, exploring the struggle to define narrative; the narrative
capabilities of social networking sites; the “connective turn” of SNSs in recent years; and
the reasons why some scholars believe this connectivity might be the key to SNS
profitability. The final critique of Etherington’s article argues that an SNS platform
merely allowing for narrativity does not guarantee sufficient connectivity for users, or
profitability for site owners.
Context
In “Snapchat Gets Its Own Timeline,” Etherington discusses the October 2013
update to Snapchat. The app previously had but one capability: sending photos and
videos that could be viewed once, for a maximum of ten seconds. The new feature,
Stories, allows users to share photos and videos with all of their friends at once, and also
allows users to add new pieces of content to their story at any time, each of which can be

viewed for 24-hours after being posted. Etherington claims that this feature is Snapchat’s
version of a “timeline,” a feature that is now the norm on websites such as Facebook. A
timeline, he says, “is a core component of any app that wants to turn social activity into
marketing revenue opportunities, or at least it has been thus far.” With a timeline-like
structure, Snapchat Stories “manage to build a more lasting narrative,” Etherington
explains, “which provides much better opportunities for brand use in terms of doing
things like advertisements, offers, and marketing campaigns.” This feature, he says, was
added in order to make Snapchat a more viable longterm business, because the narrative
capabilities of Stories add a space for advertisers.
Literature Review
This review investigates narrative trends in social media, by identifying common
features of narrative and storytelling; narrative qualities of social networking sites; the
ways people and brands use storytelling; and the profitability of digital storytelling using
SNSs. It is important to note that there are two main discussions in the literature on social
media and its relationship to narrative and storytelling: the first is a discussion about how
people and organizations develop narratives online, and the second is a discussion about
how SNSs have shifted their platforms to have stronger narrative capabilities. These two
discussions are intimately intertwined, which creates a “chicken-and-egg” scenario within
the literature: Has the human inclination to tell stories forced SNSs to create narrative-capable
architecture; or does narrative-capable architecture force users to shape their
content into stories? As a result of the mutually constitutive nature of storytelling and
SNS architecture, the literature review will simultaneously use these two discussions to
work through narrative issues that surround social media.
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In order to understand how narrative affects the growth, connective abilities, and
success of SNSs, the term narrative, and common qualities of narratives, must be
understood. However, as scholars like Scolari (2009) have noted, there is a “conceptual
chaos” surrounding digital narrative topics like transmedia storytelling, for example. He
explains that “this semantic chaos is not new to digital communication conversations” (p.
586). Similarly, Singh and Sonnenburg (2012) draw attention to issues surrounding the
current conceptualization of storytelling and narrative in a branding context; the
relationship between the terms story and narrative, they explain, is not clearly established
as it relates to social media branding, and as a result story and narrative are used
synonymously, and sometimes incorrectly (p. 195). Narrative scholar Ruth Page (2010)
explains that researching the narrative potential of SNS content like status updates
“requires the analyst to confront the well-documented dilemma of trying to define
narrative in the first place” (p. 426). Keeping this conceptual chaos in mind, it is
advisable in reading this paper to note that the terms narrative and story (and their
variants) will be used interchangeably, as they commonly are in the literature.
As the difficulty to define terms suggests, some scholars – like Bryan Alexander
(2011) in his book The New Digital Storytelling – see narrative as a broad, fluid
construct, and spend little time defining storytelling or narrative before jumping into
discussion of it. Stories, Alexander believes, can be created using any device or
technology – and our “toolbox,” he says, is growing each day (p. 3). “If digital
storytelling is so extensive in our culture… What isn’t digital storytelling?” he asks (p.
15). Everyone does it, and yet it is difficult to define – so perhaps humans just know
narrative when they experience it. Page (2010) says that a view of narrative has been
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favored that sees it as a “fuzzy” set of qualities that allow people to recognize texts to be
narrative-like. Some of these qualities include the following: narrative is ordered within a
temporal framework; it is filtered by an entity (person or organization) reporting events
(p. 427); and it has qualities that enable it to be interpreted as more or less story-like
(Page, 2013, p. 33). In digital culture writer Jason Farman’s new book, The Mobile Story:
Narrative Practices with Locative Technologies (2013), he argues that location deeply
affects narrative, and says there is a long history of attaching narratives to specific places.
“The desire to attach a story to space,” he says, “is found in the connection between the
historical context of a community and the need to determine the character of that space”
(p. 3). Coming at the discussion from a branding perspective, Sigh and Sonnenburg
(2012) explain that stories contain “indices” like locations, actions, attitudes, problems,
and characters that incite empathy in the listener, to help the story be recalled later on.
The more indices a story has, the more places the story can reside in memory and the
better it can be recalled (Singh and Sonnenbeurg, p. 189).
Now that an understanding of narrative features has been established, it is
important to look at the shifting structural SNS trend that many scholars have identified,
in order to analyze the recent change Snapchat has made to its service. Alexander (2011)
emphasizes the importance of thinking historically about digital storytelling, instead of
thinking of it as something new, because “a feel for the past helps explain some of the
present’s technological structures and practices” (p. 17). Ever since the first computer
networks existed, human have been telling digital stories (p. 17), but digital storytelling
advanced rapidly in the 21st century (p. 29). Web 2.0, he explains, offered the ease to
upload content without having to think about form, and in fact worked to mitigate the

digital divide (p. 29). “The ability to create content for zero software cost is historically
significant,” Alexander explains, because it allowed virtually anyone with a smartphone
or access to computer to become a storyteller (p. 31).
In José van Dijck’s (2013) article, “’You have one identity’: performing the self
on Facebook and LinkedIn,” she similarly explores the shift from community-oriented
platforms that were databases of information, to tools that were capable of narrative and
storytelling. She calls this the “connective turn” in social media, in which platforms
changed their architecture (p. 203) and users (including companies) were forced to
rethink their presentation strategies to be more narrative-oriented, so that stories about
products or events could be shared with “friends” (p. 206). This connective turn was a
deliberate shift; platform owners worked to “make everything social – from ads to apps
and from people to companies – [which] means making everything narrative as well as
connective,” van Dijck explains (p. 206). Platform owners have a vested interest in
uniform narratives, controlled by specific architecture that maximizes connectivity, she
says. The main architectural element that Facebook, for example, has used to make its
site more narrative and connective is the timeline.
The increasingly social framework of SNSs allows for an increase in connectivity,
because every digital story can become a part of social media. Alexander (2011) explains
that the very makeup of Web 2.0 allows all narratives to engage with social media,
because platforms support actions like linking, editing, sharing, and other audience co-creative
activities (p. 41). This connectivity is what many theorists think is the key to
making these websites monetizable. “Connectivity and narrative are two important
principles by which platforms and companies galvanize their economic and symbolic
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currency,” van Dijck (2013, p. 207) explains.
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The word currency brings to mind the measurable data that can be collected from
the huge numbers of people that use SNSs. Van Dijck (2013) says that platform owners
are interested in creating systems that allow for data to be inserted and presented
uniformly so that advertisers can “mass customize and personalize their marketing
strategies,” and use real-time statistics to help them measure success and alter strategies
accordingly (p. 206). Jill Walker Rettberg (2009) also points to the ways that users feed
into the data systems of SNSs, and the ways that companies use this data. “Companies
harvest our data because they can use it to sell better ads,” she explains (p. 461). And, in
a surprisingly uncritical manner, she says that our fascination with creating digital
“narratives of our lives” (p. 451) is mutually beneficial for users and SNS owners.
“Documenting these events [like a child’s first haircut or loose tooth] helps us structure
our lives and our memories,” she says. “They also help ground us in our cultures. The
relationship between these cultural templates and commercial forces is symbiotic, not
one-way” (p. 460).
From a semiotic perspective, Scolari (2009) sees brands as devices that can
produce discussion and narrative for their audiences. Institutional communications and
advertising, he says, have progressively adopted narrative properties in their strategies (p.
599). There are multiple ways that organizations can create narratives using SNSs, by
calling for user-generated content, or by developing multiplatform campaigns. In
“Managing Brands in the Social Media Environment,” Gensler, Völckner, Li-Thompkins,
and Wiertz (2013) draw attention to the rich opportunities for brand storytelling provided
by the real-time interaction that social media enables (p. 242). But, they explain, brand

managers, who traditionally used one-to-many marketing communications to pass their
brand stories onto consumers (p. 242), have “lost their pivotal role as authors of their
brands’ stories” (p. 243). As a result, Gensler et. al. stress that brand managers must learn
how to harness the power of consumer-generated content and brand storytelling by
monitoring the stories being told by consumers, and by actively influencing consumer-generated
brand stories and their impact on brand performance (p. 244). The rise of social
media, “dramatically challenges the way firms manage their brands”; with a high level of
interactivity and a multitude of channels, brand stories are both difficult to coordinate and
yet crucial to control (p. 253).
Critique
After learning of the recent change made to Snapchat it was hard to understand
why a company that has grown rapidly over a two-year period, and which has been
known and appreciated for one thing (ephemeral messaging), suddenly changed its
product to have non-ephemeral capabilities. Darrell Etherington has cleverly speculated
that by adding an equivalent to Facebook’s timeline, the app can turn social activity into
revenue. It is fair to assume that for an SNS to be successful and monetizable, it must be
capable of hosting advertiser content. If Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn did not have
sponsored ads or content, it is hard to imagine how they could generate revenue.
However, despite changes to the platform that will allow advertisers to create more
developed campaigns and brand narratives, Snapchat’s platform is still not connective
enough to start generating revenue.
The features of narrative that were identified in the literature review – such as
temporal frameworks, characters, and locations – can all be developed using Snapchat
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Stories. Arguably, Snapchat provides a strong platform for narrative development,
because photo and video are so well integrated (they are the main medium). The
Snapchat platform shows the time that content is posted; videos and photos reveal
locations; users can lay text and drawings over their content; and there is always a clear
author producing content. The struggle, in understanding the revenue model – and recent
$2 billion valuation (Bilton, 2013) – of Snapchat, is twofold: (a) connectivity between
users is limited (there is no capability for liking, sharing, or reposting) and therefore data
is limited; and (b) like most SNSs, Snapchat is free to join, and accounts are free to
create. Users pay for nothing, and neither do companies – anyone can join, use the
service, and create brand stories for free.
Some other flaws in the connective and narrative capabilities of Snapchat include
the following: (a) the very purpose of Snapchat, instant and ephemeral messaging means
that it is, and likely will remain mobile-only, limiting its users; (b) there is no main page
or news feed for sponsored content to exist and consequently be shared; and (c) there is
no hashtag or similar function to allow for content to be automatically aggregated into a
co-created narrative. This final point is possibly the most important for advertisers
thinking of using Snapchat – because users cannot contribute to a company’s content,
advertisers that create campaigns using the app would be greatly missing out on this
hugely important engagement method. Unless Snapchat solves these problems so that
connectivity can be fostered, the app’s only narrative capability for a brand is to create
one-way stories that communicate to the user, rather than allowing the user to participate.
Conclusion
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By reviewing the discourse surrounding narrative and SNSs, this paper has shown
that site owners and users are increasingly recognizing the impact of, and relationship
between narrative and connectivity. Websites like Facebook and LinkedIn include a
variety of features that help users develop, share, and co-create narratives. The possibility
for narrative development is arguably larger and more complex on a site that offers more
connective features. While Snapchat has expanded its services to include Stories, which
allows for more narrative development than it did previously, it is hard to imagine how
the app will effectively monetize. As this paper has demonstrated, structures that help
users produce narrative content can make SNSs more connective and more profitable,
however giving a platform one narrative feature does not necessarily make an SNS more
connective or more profitable. Increasing both narrativity and connectivity is complex,
and Snapchat will have to improve both in order to begin building revenue.

References
Alexander, B. (2011). The new digital storytelling: Creating narratives with new media.
Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
Bilton, R. (2013, Dec 5). Who needs Facebook? Snapchat is raising another $55M, with a
$2B valuation. VentureBeat. Retrieved from:
http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/05/who-needs-facebook-snapchat-is-raising-another-
55m-with-a-2b-valuation/
Etherington, D. (2013, Oct 3). Snapchat gets its own timeline with Snapchat Stories, 24-
hour photo & video tales. TechCrunch. Retrieved from:
http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/03/snapchat-gets-its-own-timeline-with-snapchat-stories-
24-hour-photo-video-tales/
Farman, J. (2013). Mobile story: Narrative practices with locative technologies.
Florence, KY: Routledge.
Gensler, S., Völckner, F., Liu-Thompkins, Y., & Wiertz, C. (2013). Managing brands in
the social media environment. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 27, 242-256. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2013.09.004
Page, R. (2010). Re-examining narrativity: Small stories in status updates. Text & Talk,
30(4), 423-444. doi: 10.15l5/TEXT.2010.021
Page, R. (2013). Seriality and storytelling in social media. Storyworlds: A Journal of
Narrative Studies, 5, 31-54. doi: 0.1353/stw.2013.0007
Scolari, C.A., (2009). Transmedia storytelling: Implicit consumers, narrative worlds, and
branding in contemporary media production. International Journal of
Communication, 3, 586-606. Retrieved from:
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http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/477/336
Singh, S. & Sonnenburg, S. (2012). Brand performances in social media. Journal of
Interactive Marketing, 26, 189-197. doi: 10.1016/j.intmar.2012.04.001
van Dijck, J. (2013). ‘You have one identity’: performing the self on Facebook and
LinkedIn. Media, Culture & Society, 35(2), 199-215. doi:
10.1177/0163443712468605
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Walker Rettberg, J. (2009). ‘Freshly generated for you, and Barack Obama’: How social
media represent your life. European Journal of Communication, 24(4), 451-466.
doi: 10.1177/0267323109345715

Now Showing on a Smartphone Near You: Snapchat Goes Narrative with Stories

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Now Showing on a Smartphone Near You: Snapchat Goes Narrative with Stories