scholarly journals Stories From an (Un)lived Past: Applying Narrative Theory, Vicarious Nostalgia and Brand Authenticity to Urban Outfitters' Instagram Advertising Practices

Author(s):  
Cristina Rizzardo

This study develops a narrative-focused analytic model that assesses how a brand communicates its narrative identity by incorporating vicarious nostalgia as a branding practice. Nostalgia as a branding strategy aims to leverage affect and emotion in consumption practices. This is carried out via engagement with stories of an era primarily unlived by the brand’s targeted consumer base. In the presence of nostalgic associations, this strategy facilitates the impression of brand longevity and, thus, brand authenticity and legitimacy. This major research paper applies these theoretical discourses to a case study of the American lifestyle brand Urban Outfitters’ digital advertising implementations on Instagram. A multimodal approach guided the analysis of narrative communication patterns that occurred throughout the 2014 calendar year on the brand’s Instagram account. The findings indicate that Urban Outfitters uses Instagram’s digital infrastructure to facilitate a cohesive brand narrative that is both temporally and causally structured. This narrative encompasses plotlines, settings, and characters of an idealized era that the brand’s targeted consumer base is unacquainted with yet endeavours to elicit consumer identification with the brand nonetheless. Finally, by using an authentic mode of communication as well as cues that faithfully depict the character and culture of a former era, Urban Outfitters generates the same projections of authenticity that nostalgic brands with longstanding histories have by virtue of age. This project offers suggestions for further research including the adaptation of the study to other social media platforms, as well as expanding it to integrate user response to the social media content.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Rizzardo

This study develops a narrative-focused analytic model that assesses how a brand communicates its narrative identity by incorporating vicarious nostalgia as a branding practice. Nostalgia as a branding strategy aims to leverage affect and emotion in consumption practices. This is carried out via engagement with stories of an era primarily unlived by the brand’s targeted consumer base. In the presence of nostalgic associations, this strategy facilitates the impression of brand longevity and, thus, brand authenticity and legitimacy. This major research paper applies these theoretical discourses to a case study of the American lifestyle brand Urban Outfitters’ digital advertising implementations on Instagram. A multimodal approach guided the analysis of narrative communication patterns that occurred throughout the 2014 calendar year on the brand’s Instagram account. The findings indicate that Urban Outfitters uses Instagram’s digital infrastructure to facilitate a cohesive brand narrative that is both temporally and causally structured. This narrative encompasses plotlines, settings, and characters of an idealized era that the brand’s targeted consumer base is unacquainted with yet endeavours to elicit consumer identification with the brand nonetheless. Finally, by using an authentic mode of communication as well as cues that faithfully depict the character and culture of a former era, Urban Outfitters generates the same projections of authenticity that nostalgic brands with longstanding histories have by virtue of age. This project offers suggestions for further research including the adaptation of the study to other social media platforms, as well as expanding it to integrate user response to the social media content.


Journalism ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 146488491987032 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shixin Ivy Zhang

Inspired by the concepts of Arrested War and actor–network theory, this study has traced and analyzed four main actors in the wars and conflicts in the social media age: social media platform, the mainstream news organizations, online users, and social media content. These four human and nonhuman actors associate, interact, and negotiate with each other in the social media network surrounding specific issues. Based on the case study of Sino-Indian border crisis in 2017, the central argument is that social media is playing an enabling role in contemporary wars and conflicts. Both professional media outlets and web users employ the functionalities of social media platforms to set, counter-set, or expand the public agenda. Social media platform embodies a web of technological and human complexities with different actors, factors, interests, and relations. These actor-networks and the macro social-political context are influential in the mediatization of conflict in the social media era.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin Manley

<p>This study explores the relationship between personality type, academic background, and social media content. Ten participants from each of McMaster University’s seven undergraduate faculties completed a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment to determine their personality type. They submitted 10 personally-written status updates or comments from the social media platforms of Twitter or Facebook. The Content Analysis of Verbatim Explanation (CAVE) method was used to analyze 630 social media content to determine overall positive or negative explanatory style. Of the 630 submitted pieces social media content, 68.4% of them were found to describe positive events. 92.1% of the social media content contained an optimistic explanatory style. These findings suggest that social media is a largely positive medium for university students.</p><p>©Journal of Professional Communication, all rights reserved.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (12) ◽  
pp. 1665-1683 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy J. Golan ◽  
Ilan Manor ◽  
Phillip Arceneaux

Mediated public diplomacy literature examines the engagement of foreign audiences by governments via mediated channels. To date, scholars have examined the competitive contest between global rivals in promoting and contesting one another’s frames as reflected in global news media coverage. Recognizing the meaningful impact of social media platforms, along with the global rise of government-sponsored media organizations, the current study builds on previous mediated public diplomacy scholarship by expanding the scope of the literature beyond the earned media perspective to also include paid, shared, and owned media. The article presents a revised definition of the term mediated public diplomacy along with a case study of government to foreign stakeholder engagement via the social media platform, Twitter.


Author(s):  
Fallon R. Mitchell ◽  
Paula M. van Wyk ◽  
Sara Santarossa

Through user-generated posts on Instagram, Paralympians’ self-presentation may mitigate stereotypes associated with disability, counteracting negative assumptions. Using content analyses and paired t tests, visual content posted by Paralympians was examined for the portrayal of disability stereotypes. Compared with the social media content of able-bodied athletes, which typically focus on personal and lifestyle aspects, the majority of the Paralympians’ visual content depicted them engaged in sport or fitness-related activities. By posting content that depicts physical competence and elite abilities, Paralympians may change the narrative to promote the capabilities of athletes with a disability. Through the portrayal of sport and exercise engagement on social media platforms, these Paralympians are potentially mitigating disability stereotypes with the intent to curate a culture that is more accepting and inclusive.


2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Afidatul Asmar

<p><em>Abstract</em></p><p><em>This paper explain how diversity expression of dakwah in new media. Today, media makes many preachers and mad’u use new media facilities, including internet media where content to Islam is packaged in stories of everyday life and given with funny things. this strategy attracts many interested people on both sides of the preacher and the mad'u themselves. Da'wah is the one of the activities aimed at inviting others in kindness, reminiscent of the end of the day, while new media is a tool used to invite others to better paths. In other developments the question arises regarding human imagination about God and the path of understanding spirituality experiencing setbacks or impoverishment in the digital age. Will the path of God's search for this generation of media cause visitors to the place of worship to recede, the preaching of the Scriptures is not heard, and the spirit of the religious community was down. Is the “new media gedia generation” aware or not “deify” “virtual God”. This research uses a case study on the response of preachers and people related to the expression of diversity in using new media, so that how to interpret the message in the social media content Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube which is a unity of the internet world.</em></p><p><em>Keywords: Religion, new media, dan da’wah</em></p><p><br />Abstrak</p><p>Tulisan ini berupaya menjelaskan bagaimana dakwah dengan ekspresi keberagaman pada media baru saat ini. Dewasa ini media membuat banyak pendakwah maupun mad’u memanfaatkan fasilitas media baru, diantaranya media internet dimana konten-konten ke Islaman yang dikemas dengan santai dalam cerita kehidupan sehari-hari serta dibumbuhi hal-hal lucu. Strategi ini banyak menjaring peminat pada kedua sisi baik pendakwah maupun para mad’u itu sendiri. Dakwah adalah salah satu kegiatan yang bertujuan mengajak orang lain dalam kebaikan, mengingatkan terhadap hari akhir, sedangkan media baru adalah alat yang digunakan untuk mengajak orang lain kejalan yang lebih baik. Pada perkembangan lain muncul pertanyaan terkait imajinasi manusia tentang Tuhan dan jalan pemahaman spritualitas mengalami kemunduran atau pemiskinan di era digital. Apakah jalan pencarian Tuhan generasi media ini akan menyebabkan pengunjung tempat ibadah surut, pemberitaan Kitab Suci tidak didengar, dan spirit komunitas keagamaan tatap muka meredup. Apakah “generasi media baru” ini sadar atau tidak mulai : “menuhankan” “Tuhan-tuhan virtual”. Penelitian ini menggunakan studi kasus terhadap respon pendakwah dan umat terkait ekspresi keberagaman didalam menggunakan media baru, sehingga bagaimana memaknai pesan dakwah yang terkandung didalam konten-konten media sosial Instagram, facebook, twitter maupun youtube yang merupakan satu kesatuan dunia internet.</p><p>Kata kunci: Agama, media baru, dan dakwah.</p>


Author(s):  
Keshav Patel ◽  

Tik Tok, the new wave of social media which has introduced a new sub culture for the present generation and has brought a revolution in the social media for youngsters. Tik Tok has become a new platform for portrayal of talent for youngsters adding new meaning to already existing social media platforms. It is the fastest growing social media which has fascinated and engrossed so many youngsters across the globe and is one of the fastest growing in India. Tik Tok is basically the new alternative version of online sharing, that allows its users its interface for preparing short videos and music pieces. Tik Tok is the new obsession among youngsters which is giving them a platform to express them innovatively and ingeniously. The present paper is based on case study of individuals who used Tik Tok to highlight their talent.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Firdaus Samijadi

Social Media has made its’ way of playing an important role in e-Government implementation strategies. Many governments include social media as a tool to approach and engage its’ citizens, to increase transparency, trust and online participation. Although social media is not yet fully understood by governments on how to effectively utilize social media as a tool to be beneficial to the government and the general public. This research focuses on the Social Media activity of the Government Departments of Suriname. With around 1.9 billion active users, Facebook is one of the largest social media platforms in the world. This study furthers analyzes how active social media accounts are being used by the departments and how online users respond to departmental online activities. In order to achieve the goal of this paper, the 14 social media accounts of Suriname government departments will be taken as a case study. Several accounts indicate that government to citizen engagement show much potential for citizens’ active online participation. While the use of social media in e-Government initiatives is a feasible approach to successful implementation, there are still some improvement governments should take into consideration to increase online participation and fulfilling the needs of their citizens.


2020 ◽  
Vol 338 ◽  
pp. 431-442
Author(s):  
Assem Kalkamanova

This paper focuses on the role of social media in the rise of the protest movements and political mobilization in Kazakhstan. The country has been seeing an increase in the social networks based civil activists since recently. I argue that the emergence of the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan that operates only within the realm of social media platforms promoted political activism and civil protests in the country. Most importantly, I argue that in contrast to the conclusions of the Kazakhstani court’s decision in March 2018, the movement leader’s Facebook blog reveals no violence either towards the government or some specific political elite. Using text mining methods, I analyzed the texts of his Facebook posts from the announcement date in 2017 till the end of 2019: the rhetoric of the position of the Democratic Choice is informational, first, and protest calling, second. Also, the analysis of seven most popular political Youtube bloggers shows that the people’s discontent with injustices and undemocratic polity manifested in the poignant interest towards the creator of this system, Mr. Nazarbayev and his closest circle. The SMM software allowed to find out the areas of Kazakhstani politics that are of most interest to the audience of Kazakhstani political activists.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (31) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carsten Stage

Cancer narratives shared on social media platforms have received increased academic interest over the last decade but often without sufficiently acknowledging the media specific narrative affordances of these platforms. The article will address this problem, by first presenting a ‘small stories’ approach to studying illness narrative on social media and then putting the approach to work in a case study of a Danish cancer patient’s Instagram profile (@jannelivsnyder66). The paper argues, that the storytelling practices on the profile can be analytically approached by focusing on the interplay between three co-constitutive levels of interaction: 1) a level of the desired illness narrative and position that the narrator, influenced by available cultural discourses and interaction with followers, hopes to be able to tell; 2) a level of sharing everyday posts, which can either support or disturb the desired narrative; 3) a level of follower responses, where relations between the desired narrative and singular posts are monitored through processes of liking and commenting. Followers of social media cancer narratives should in light of this not be understood as an audience witnessing an individual telling his/her “own” story, but rather as crucial contributors to the social interaction and co-creation of desired narratives, subject positions, narrative progress and tellability. In conclusion, the article thus stresses that cancer storytelling on social media, despite the strong biological connection of the disease to an individual body, emerges through inherently social processes of reading, liking, commenting, monitoring and co-deciding narrative practices.


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