Getting Involved with Graffiti
Taking a look at audience interaction with Melbourne graffiti artist Lushsux.
SNAPCHAT AS A NEWS PLATFORM – REFLECTION
Before beginning to plan or film anything for my news story, an apparent issue or at least something to consider in regards to Snapchat, was style. Watching the Snapchat stories of news outlets such as The New York Times or Huffpost, both quite active on Snapchat, the overarching style is overtly informal. Making use of Snapchat filters and emojis liberally, the news outlets work to appeal to the audience most likely to be utilising Snapchat – young adults in the 18-24 age bracket (Business Insider Intelligence, 2015).
For this reason I chose to focus on Melbourne graffiti artist Lushsux. He is a figure that has recently emerged into the public eye, meaning that he is still of some relevance as a news story, and he has resonated with a younger audience, an audience that largely uses Snapchat on a daily basis (Tech Insider, 2016).
My story is focused on the interaction of audiences with the work of Lushsux through social media, an angle that I found appropriate to explore via Snapchat, a medium which he makes use of frequently. Through Snapchat and Instagram the artist encourages followers to send mirror selfies for him to later immortalise as murals. He also encourages his fans to spread his work on social media.
There are some more practical issues with using Snapchat as a news platform, not excluding the startlingly inefficient battery levels of the iPhone. Following the original layout of the app, snaps (including those from news sources) disappear after 24 hours, so stories put on Snapchat must be put together quickly so as to ensure viewers are able to view it as a cohesive product from start to finish. This was relatively easy to manage for the Lushsux story, with the majority of the murals located in close proximity in the CBD.
Through this process I have found that Snapchat can be effective as a news conveyance platform, given the story is of the right kind. For example, in most cases it would not be appropriate to use Snapchat to report on a criminal case due to the informal nature of the platform. This being said, Snapchat could also be an effective way of engaging younger generations with news, as is being demonstrated by the Discover function.
In terms of personal ability, overall, for the purpose of this story I think my use of Snapchat was effective. I believe the idea behind the story came across clearly, however with a few factors that I not previously considered, such as style and timeliness, I discovered Snapchat is a more difficult medium than I personally originally gave it credit for.
REFERENCES:
Nieman Lab. 2016. Snapchat reportedly has more daily users than Twitter. What does that mean for news? » Nieman Journalism Lab. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/06/snapchat-reportedly-has-more-daily-users-than-twitter-what-does-that-mean-for-news/. [Accessed 10 August 2016].
Nieman Lab. 2016. Snapchat wants to slip a little news into teens’ social smartphone time » Nieman Journalism Lab. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/09/snapchat-wants-to-slip-a-little-news-into-teens-social-smartphone-time/?relatedstory. [Accessed 10 August 2016].
Business Insider Australia. 2016. SOCIAL NETWORK DEMOGRAPHICS: Here’s who’s on Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and other top social networks now | Business Insider. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/update-a-breakdown-of-the-demographics-for-each-of-the-different-social-networks-2015-6. [Accessed 10 August 2016].
Tech Insider. 2016. Teens primarily use Snapchat and Twitter to get the news – Tech Insider. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.techinsider.io/how-do-teens-get-news-2016-6. [Accessed 10 August 2016].
