the report
my media niche
Creating art can make a lot of people feel vulnerable even within our ever changing digital world where almost everything is accessible. Therefore I wanted my media niche to create a safe place to inspire people to create art. With the use of an instagram account dedicated to all things creative. Providing a source of inspiration and a starting point of how the art process begins.
Media ecology emphasizes the environment in which communication and technologies operate and spread information. This relates to, in my case, Instagram. A platform that I used. Instagram is a great platform as it offers many different features which were useful in my ethnographic research. Analytical insights, audience breakdowns available in graphs and charts, content reach and many sharing options such as stories, posts, highlights and reels. This was furthemore useful in my autoethnography research to explore my personal understanding in the overall experience. Instagram is a very well known platform home to millions of people, which allowed a larger scope for my media niche and persona to be developed simultaneously expanding my understanding under art tutorials and why they can be highly inspirational and useful for people starting out in the creative world.
ethnographic research
Observation as a research method that I undertook involves the observer being a member of the setting in which they are collecting data ((Bryant , ) .By frequently entering my media niche as an audience member and observing from a different perspective than being the continent creator, the more information I was able to absorb and gather from the interactions. Ethical considerations were key in developing field notes and epiphanies and by “mapping methods and social maps have been used by researchers as a means to document and analyze social networks and interactions as well as by those whom they study to gain an understanding of participant perspectives” (Powell, 2010).
Partaking as an audience member provided a basis of information for me to expand on my research findings, in grasping an understanding of thick description. The term ‘thick description’ was made famous by anthropologist Clifford Geertz who wrote through thick description as a way of capturing his brand of ethnography in the 1970s. Thick description has become a way of qualitative research, going beyond surface appearances to include the context, detail, emotion, and webs of social relationships. It presents the significance of an observation, event or behaviour. Thick description includes voices, feelings, actions and meanings (Ponterotto, 2006).
Moreover, reflecting on my findings helped me critically reflect on my continent and what works and grasp the attention of my content. Being able to learn from my observations and then apply it to my own digital artefact was an extremely powerful experience in adapting my methods. Therefore helping me come to more conclusions about why art tutorials can be inspirational and helpful to the audience.
epiphanies
Analysing my epiphanies. The first one I encountered was asking myself the question, why am I attracted to certain pages. Looking and reflecting on my emotions using the 3 dimensions that I broke it down with in a previous blog: (https://kyrasblog.design.blog/2021/10/11/analysing-my-observations/ ) – subject matter, visual composition and emotion enabled a personal evaluation on what makes me attracted to that page. This epiphany led me into a research methodology of reflexivity. “Reflexivity involves the process of an ongoing mutual shaping between the researcher and the research” (Attia & Edge, 2017) This is depicted through my breakdown of my emotions or feelings to help me ‘shape’ a conclusion. Reflecting on this epiphany through reflexivity has helped me understand why feeling and emotion are central to reflexive processes, colouring the perception of self, others and social world. Reflexivity as an adaptive and emergent methodology reduces the likelihood of the researcher’s bias. Because I am consciously stepping back from action in order to theorise what is taking place.
Furthermore another epiphany that struck me was what type of persona attracts me? From this question I asked myself when conducting observation of other accounts made me look a little deeper into what personas are composed of. Leading me to the 5 dimensions of public persona. I took interest in the first dimension comprising ‘ ‘publicness’ – “from a small public of close and intimate friends to a massive global public audience” (Moore, Lee & Barbour, 2017) which is enabled by the act of sharing. What you share and how you share it begins to make up the persona of one’s online presence. In regards to the personas that I am attracted to through observation, which are relatable and transparent more than those who kept their persona to strictly business. In further research following the dimension of publicness and mediatisation or “an expression of self” through transparency and relatability is the optimal public exposure and persona which I in turn shifted my concerns to within my own digital artefact as I wanted to adopt this feature and portray that persona because of my attractions towards it.
One of the most important things I realised within this journey was consistency is fundamental to the audience. observed and understood through my own work and others that content consistency establishes credibility within your niche simultaneously building trust within your viewers or audience’s mind, strengthening your page’s reputation. A theory called ‘Uses and gratifications theory‘ which is a way of measuring within the social media world. The theory is based on ‘that individuals seek out media that fulfil their needs and leads to ultimate gratification’ (Lariscy, Tinkham, & Sweetser, 2011). Researching this theory I found that it is directly related to my epiphany of content creation consistency. I needed to create content to meet my audiences needs and their wants to see art creation. Which is what creates the like, share and follow interaction loop. My content is what creates the fulfilment in ‘gratification and joy’ within the audience.
References
Attia M & Edge J, “Be(com)ing a reflexive researcher: A developmental approach to research methodology”, Open review of educational research, vol.4 , no.1.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23265507.2017.1300068
Bryant, M na, “Conducting observational research”, Swinburne Business School.
Moore, C, Lee K & Barbour, K 2017, “Five Dimensions of Online Persona”, Persona Studies, vol. 3, no.1
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317558972_Five_Dimensions_of_Online_Persona
Moore, C 2021, “ Autoethnography and your Digital Artifact” webvideo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPWBDZQ2mpE
Whiting, A. and Williams, D 2013, “Why people use social media: a uses and gratifications approach”, Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, vol.16, no. 4, pp.362–369. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/QMR-06-2013-0041/full/html
Powell, K 2021, “Making Sense of Place: Mapping as a Multisensory Research Method”.
Ponterotto, J 2006, “Brief note on the origins, evolution and meaning of the qualitative research concept ‘thick description’”, The Qualitative Report, vol. 3, no. 11, pp. 538-54.
Kyras blog 