The potential for fame: A study of the uses-and-gratifications of social networking systems

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The potential for fame: A study of the uses-and-gratifications of social networking systems Jeremiah Chapman Elon University

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Abstract Looking at the study of uses-and-gratifications and the presence of celebrity in Western culture, this research analyzes how user-generated sites Facebook, Tumblr and YouTube not only allow individuals to further connect with current relationships but also allow individuals to employ their talents, potentialities and passions in order to reach their fame potential: building the presence of many followers, loyal subscribers and interactive virtual audience members. Many examples exist of those who appear to have found fame through their presence on user-generated sites. What this research specifically looks at is how members of the general community of Generation-Y users are also influenced by the desire to reach their fame potential, shown by their presence on Facebook, Tumblr and YouTube: “re-bloggingâ€? (posting already created content on oneâ€&#x;s own profile or site), developing virtual personas or creating their own original content.

Furthermore, this research seeks to define if these users are fulfilled by the fame they achieve on the social media sites. In order to best look at this desire for fame and the consequences of that desire, the methods used include research and commentary on the subject in academic journals, online/print articles and other literature.

Keywords: uses-and-gratifications, Facebook, social media, blogging, fame, celebrity, YouTube, Tumbr, viral

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Introduction Among the wealth of information available on communications theory, researchers are now turning to view the impact of social media as another form of mass communication. From online word of mouth ( Sun, Youn, Wu, & Kuntaraporn, 2006) to computer-mediatedcommunication (Li, 2005), researchers have coined various terms to begin defining the global and regional constructs of society created by social media. Most web savvy teenagers and young adults are not strangers to the diverse social media presence today. Ranging from the more popular Facebook, YouTube and Twitter communities to the growing Tumblr, Vimeo and Posterous communities, individuals have a whole new world available to begin sharing ideas, media and art. Manovich (2009) provides a minimal definition of social media: “Social media platforms give users unlimited space for storage and plenty of tools to organize, promote and broadcast their thoughts, opinions, behavior, and media” (p. 324) One of the greatest benefits of social media versus a generic personal website is the opportunity to connect with as many individuals as seemingly possible. Popularity is no longer restricted to a social community of 50-100 people reflective of face-to-face communication, but instead millions of people can possibly know the name of a previously unknown individual.

With the examples of Justin Bieber, Rebecca Black and Tila Tiquila, users of these social media sites are familiar with the financial and social profit of being present online. Nov and Y (2010) state, “According to research in social psychology, behavior is affected by presence – actual, imagined or implied – of others” (p. 129).

Researchers are already analyzing the uses-and-gratifications of social media, which can simply be stated as the assumption that people use media to satisfy their “underlying needs or interests”

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(Haridakis, 2009, p. 318). Previously used to look at the mass communication realms of television and print, the sheer size of social media today allows it to be seen in the same light.

By looking at the impact of social media on the lives of its Generation Y users through the uses-and-gratifications lens, it is possible to understand how perceived benefits of social media are affecting the Western world‟s youth presently and if its impact will inform the understanding of community as this generation progresses into adulthood. Specifically, this study seeks to gain insight into one realm of community which can be described as celebrity, popularity or fame. Although some researchers have viewed these terms on their more detailed characteristics as not being merely interchangeable (Hellmueller & Aeschbacher, 2010), the broad view of this study in relation to the impact of social media allows for a less restrictive discussion, following Seifert‟s (2010) statement of stars and prominent people being “social constructs, which are highly complex phenomena, influenced by various factors defining them” (Hellmueller & Aeschbacher, 2010, p. 7). Choi and Berger(2009) provide a good overview, arguing that “global Internet has dramatically magnified the global quest for fame and celebrity” (p. 194).

This study seeks to provide a foundational look at the topic of fame in relation to Generation-Y‟s uses-and-gratifications of social media, therefore, the primary method used is cross-analyzing multiple academic resources to provide an in-depth look at the possibility of a „fame-influence.‟ Two research questions were used to inform this literature review: RQ1: Is Generation Y‟s use of social media influenced by the potential for fame through these sites?

RQ2: Are users fulfilled with perceived social media popularity?

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In order to analyze these questions using outside scholarly observations, the literature review is organized into five topical areas. First is an observation of the history of fame and celebrity in the Western world society and culture. Second is a concise but descriptive definition of social media. This is followed by a look into uses-and-gratifications theory in relation to the topic.

Fourth, this study then analyzes the research in relation to Generation-Y‟s understanding of the preceding three topics. Last, this research attempts to address the possibility of and attitudes toward fulfillment through a user‟s popularity in a social media community.

Literature Review Looking first at celebrity and the media, Hellmueller and Aeschbacher (2010) provides a sufficient foundation for celebrity and fame in western society. Originally attributed to the athletes in the ancient Olympic Games, celebrity not only had its institutional roots in the region but also its linguistic roots in Latin, initially as celeber, meaning “crowded, frequent, or populous” (p. 6). Due to the rise of technology, celebrity transferred from the aristocratic symbol of family name, to the celebrity of accomplishments, which Benjamin Franklin helped clarify in America by publicizing the self-made man, contrasting Jean-Jacques Rousseau‟s concept of fame in Europe for “naturalness and inner qualities” (p. 6). This gives a historic basis to the idea that celebrity is not valued similarly in even related Western cultures, but is separated by certain ideals. Developing through the rise of earlier technology to the present interactive media age, celebrity transitioned into something maintained by the news media, with more and more press dedicated to the personal lives of popular people (Hellmueller & Aeschbacher, 2010).

It is during this evolution stage that Boorstin (1972) defines celebrity as a “human pseudo-even” that can be manufactured due to visibility and distribution, focusing on well-knowness.

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Therefore, celebrity is now a democracy, available to the masses through gaining and maintaining media spotlight, which broadcasts this spotlight beyond the region of initial fame.

The best summary of celebrity in our culture is still held by Shakespeare, who Boorstin (1972) points out for his famous statement in Twelfth Night that some had greatness thrust upon them, some achieve greatness, and some are born great. Celebrity has been academically divided into these areas, defined as ascribed celebrity, that of being born into a family name; achieved celebrity, fame that is acquired based on effort and talent (Hellmueller & Aeschbacher, 2010); and the third Shakespeare seemingly leaves to the presence of confusion, as in how certain perceived untalented or undeserving individuals develop lasting popularity.

The newest addition to the technological media age is that of social media. This platform provides the perfect avenue through which to gain and maintain media spotlight because of its diverse and broad networking system. Defined by Ledbetter (2011) as social network sites, social media first allows users to load content onto web-based servers in the construct of public profile within the design and communicative limitations of the system. Users can then define a number of other users they already have or prefer to have community with. Last, they view these connections and communicate with them through various posting possibilities. Ledbetter (2011) expands on this definition with the additional characteristic of social media as a social supernet: a network larger than can be maintained through another communication media. Some may restrict social media to the more obvious servers like Facebook and Twitter. However, due to the communicative nature of blogs, they are also viewed as social media. There are three forms of blogs as defined by Li (2005), which include filter blogs, personal journals and k-logs. A filter blog is composed by users who are exposed to a large quantity of media that they take in, evaluate, and later choose to post based on an individual piece of media contentâ€&#x;s perceived

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value. A personal journal is similar to a diary or journal based on “self-centered” content that can be “trivial and private.” The popular Tumblr server is a recent haven for these diary-like blogs, along with the “note” application on the Facebook profile. A k-log is a knowledge based blog that focuses on an external topic and is theme-based (pg. 8-9). Many fashion blogs could be defined under this category.

Not only does a social networking site allow users to actively create content, but it also allows them to evaluate and distribute it as well. Members of the online community can now click the „like‟-button or repost content, showing their friends the pictures, status‟, videos or links they favor or want to publicize and talk about. The presence of this „like‟-button or similar „recommend‟ options can be found everywhere from a personal blog to online news articles. A unique characteristic of distribution for social media is the growing presence of tagging: using keywords to organize and attribute recent trends to user-generated content, seen most popularly with Twitter status‟ and Tumblr and Flickr posts. In 2007, between 0.5 percent and 1.5 percent of users of the most popular social media sites at the time contributed their own content. The community members then consumed and distributed this content (Manovich, 2009). The successful distribution of the 0.5 to 1.5 percent users‟ content can be attributed to “e-fluentials”, the opinion leaders who spread information online through word of mouth communication (Sun et al., 2006), also previously defined as the writers of filter blogs and k-logs.

Uses-and-gratifications theory comes into play when individuals use social media for their sense of self in society and/or enhancing their social circles. Although there is a variety in the users‟ “quality, content and ambition” (Li, 2005, p. 1), Adams (1965) argues that the expectation of rewards users of social media view should be proportional to the input. Due to the constructs of social media, the rewards in this realm are characterized by popularity symbolized

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by numbers: number of views, number of loyal subscribers, number of „likes‟, number of other users who have „reblogged‟ the posted content, the number of friends, and the number of comments (Zywica and Danowski , 2008). Social media designer Adrian Chan provides a cultural overview of why this characteristic is important, as quoted by Manovich (2009):

All cultures practice the exchange of tokens that bear and carry meanings, communicate interest and count as personal and social transactions…[Token gestures] cue, signal, indicate users‟ interests in one another…accompanied by ambiguity of intent and motive (the token‟s meaning may be codified while the user‟s motive for using it may not). This can double up the meaning of interaction and communication, allowing the recipients of tokens to respond to the token or the user behind its use. (pg. 327)

By recognizing these specific rewards, social media use is “purposive and planned,” requiring users to organize their thoughts in a way that successfully produces content. This suggests that users have a “higher cognitive consciousness” of the expected benefits of the creating certain types of content. (Li, 2005, pg. 4). Simply put, users are able to know what a successful post would look like in terms of tone, creativity, content and design and purposefully manipulate their posts in order to receive the previously mentioned tokens of social media interaction. Nov and Y (2010) recognized this expectation in their analysis of tagging Flickr photos, finding that the most important motivation users had for tagging photos was for public members of the online community to more easily view their work, while the least important motivation was for family and friends to view their photos. The uses-and-gratifications of social media use is not purely restricted to posted content but also to what that content says about the profile and what the

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profile says about the user. Among those socially active members of an online social media community, Ledbetter (2011) states that people are “motivated to engage in strategic self presentation and identity management and to avoid making undesired impressions on others” (pg. 45). Because of the public nature of social media, this motivation is not restricted to opinions of a user shared by their friends in the offline community, but also that of strangers or recent acquaintances. On some social media platforms, users are able to leave anonymous comments, while some need to be invited into the interaction, such as a „friend request‟ on Facebook. Once that initial gateway is breached, most users can contribute to the identity of another user through their own creation of content attributed to said user. Ledbetter (2011) defines this by a level of warrant: the extent of how immune content is to manipulation from the target of that information. Therefore, it can be assumed that users note what makes the successful members of the online community successful, or what gives a celebrity their namepower, both in their creative work, their opinions, opinions of them by other users and their personal characteristics. As Manovich (2009) states social media content either “follows the templates and conventions set up by the professional entertainment industry or directly reuses professionally produced content…” (pg. 322). Since the similar criteria of popularity symbolized by numbers applies to all members of an online community, it applies to the already successful members of the celebrity community, such as Twitter and Facebook members Lady Gaga and Ashton Kutcher (Hellmueller & Aeschbacher, 2010). Therefore, users can compare and contrast their use of the mass communication form with those who are successful. Most important is the recent connection of traditional mass communication forms and social media, with news media acquiring information from sites like Twitter and YouTube, which now causes the rise of

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„ordinary‟ people in the media (Hellmueller & Aeschbacher, 2010) the most recent example of which being the popularized teen sensation Rebecca Black.

Analyzing the historical context of celebrity, the characteristics of social media and the general uses-and-gratifications of social media, researchers have recognized the growing yearning for and expectancy of fame by normal, everyday Generation-Y users in these online communities. A study conducted in the UK stated the research showed that one in six teenagers “envisions becoming famous one day and that 11% of the respondents were „waiting to be discovered.‟ When asked what benefits fame entails, 9% of the teens questioned found it „an easy way to make money without skills and qualifications‟” (Hellmueller & Aeschbacher, 2010, p. 13). Hellmueller & Aeschbacher (2010) expands on this, suggesting that teenagers desire to become celebrities and that this status is actually possible and plausible. This confident approach to social media fame by Generation-Y users can be analyzed by looking at four important categories. The first category is the idea of control.

Having been analyzed in a broader social context, the locus of control (Hoffmon, Novak & Schlosser, 2003) provides a good basic understanding of Generation-Y‟s confidence of acquiring fame in a social media environment. Separated into internal LOC and external LOC, individuals are defined by their expectations of life. In this context, Generation-Y users of social media who have internal LOC expect that there a predictable outcomes to their actions, where Generation-Y users who have external LOC expect that fate, luck or something else is powerful enough to create the outcomes of their actions. Hellmueller & Aeschbacher (2010) maintains this approach of such external LOC, Generation-Y users by stating that users prefer to stop being the target of externally created and manipulated messages and instead view themselves as protagonists of their own narratives, allowing them to incorporate themselves into the

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multifaceted and complicated media environment. Haridakis and Hanson (2009) suggests that users who feel more of a sense of control over events in their lives are more apt to find interesting or relevant media to distribute it in their social circles, therefore making themselves the „e-influencers‟ of online word-of-mouth communications. Therefore, these users are goaldirected and self-initiated, using the Internet to “gather information to empower themselves in the physical world” (Hoffman et al., 2003, pr. 42). The idea of control Generation-Y users have over their social media experience allow them to assume responsibility for their popularity and fame, giving them goals for which to spend time and effort creating content that successfully thrusts them into social media stardom.

The second category which influences a confident approach to social media fame and popularity is Generation-Y‟s understanding of uses-and-gratifications of social media in maintaining and developing relationships in their online-integrated world. Looking at the approach to online relationships, Ledbetter (2011) states that social-anxiety exists within the desire of users to create a positive impression of themselves online. This attribute is not restricted for the socially skilled person. Zywica and Danowski (2008) points out that the motivating factors for using the internet include self-enhancement, self-protection and selfesteem. Researchers do not agree on which factors socially skilled individuals value versus those non-socially skilled individuals. Joinson (2003) claims that self-protection is more important for those with low self-esteem regarding their social interactions as it allows them to minimize their weaknesses online. However, Zywica and Danowski and Danowski (2008) finds that these low self-esteem users look to the internet communities to improve their image, where high self-esteem users would rather protect their image. This research points to the fact that Generation-Y users not only sense the potential to gain popularity and fame online no matter

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their previous social state, but they also sense the pressure to maintain this popularity, possibly mimicking the tactics of successful users, or even professional users, as suggested by Manovich (2010). Sun et al. (2006) expands on this knowledge by showing that online communication allows the more social face-to-face communicators to maintain their relationships, but it also gives those considered introverted an arena to demonstrate less inhibitions and more public selfawareness. Coupled with the idea of control, Generation-Y‟s approach to online relationships shows that they value the fame possible by social media because it gives any type of personality control over their own potential popularity.

After recognizing their control over their potential fame and seeing how well social media can improve their social circles, Generation-Y users can then put into action everything they evaluate about successful personalities online for their own online accounts. According to Zywica and Danowski (2008) Generation-Y users see the possible affect their online personas have on their popularity. Without a shield of anonymity, users must evaluate how much content, what type of content, and in what way to post the content that best suits their desired popularity feedback. The nature of social media means that impressions are more extreme online because of a reduction in extended communication and emotions. Social media users set up their profiles to manipulate “appearance, personality, or behaviors to project greater attractiveness” (pg. 5-7).

This ingratiation means that users are their own press agents and public relations representatives.

They choose how to respond to press conflict (fellow users‟ comments) in a way that best represents their image to the rest of the social media community. Furthermore, they choose which photographic images of themselves represent their best possible identity. This mentality can be expanded to any attribute of a social media profile. For example, the songs Justin Bieber chose to cover in his initial YouTube videos may have had an effect on how quickly he was

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received by the YouTube community. The premium online persona can be evaluated beyond just physical attractiveness. As a survey of kindergartners suggests, community members attribute popularity with higher leadership skills, humor, academic achievement, extroversion and teacher‟s favor (Zywica & Danowski , 2008). By developing this further, Generation-Y users may evaluate social media persona‟s on the same level, replacing academic achievement with topical expertise or accreditation as a contributor to a webzine and replacing teacher‟s favor with traditional media favor.

Looking once again at the exchange of tokens in social media, Generation-Y users can easily recognize when they achieve a type of initial online fame. This popularity is defined in numerical form as views, comments, the length of a „wall,‟ subscribers, friends and „likes‟ (Zywica & Danowski , 2008). Because this information is available to every public user of the community, the numbers themselves may mean more or less when compared to the extremes present in the community. For example, 1,000 views of a personal video on YouTube may create initial excitement. However, when compared to the 20 million views possible of other user‟s personal videos, the number appears relatively smaller.

Generation-Y users understand the amount of control they have in the social media realm, how they are able to gain and maintain relationships, in what way to represent themselves in a way that is beneficial and what defines popularity. Therefore, they are quick to find fault or favor with anyone pursuing fame in these communities, as the head of YouTube UK states “…if you‟re good enough, YouTube‟s users will make you famous” (Hellmueller & Aeschbacher, 2010, pg. 19).

The second research question in this study inquires if users recognizing and pursing their fame potential are fulfilled with perceived social media popularity. Briefly, Zywica and

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Danowski (2008) states that there is a “heightened self-esteem from praise” (pg. 8), proposing that fulfillment is contingent upon the involvement of an audience to “embrace them and perceive them as Celebrity,” (Hellmueller & Aeschbacher, 2010, pg. 21) either by dedicating time or exchanging the previously mentioned tokens available in social media. Totty (2007) acknowledges that there is already extreme difficulty in attempting to achieve the social media limelight, with the presence of millions of other videos, talented people and traditional media content. Furthermore, in order to obtain the fulfillment of the limelight which is extended over a longer time period, these social users need to wait to be acknowledged by the traditional media (Hellmueller & Aeschbacher, 2010). Researchers have defined a plethora of needs that social media users seek to meet, however, the main fulfillment can be suggested as the apparent socialization with others (Li, 2005, 14). Therefore, when this basic socialization is not reached, Li (2005) suggests that many users quickly abandon their tactics or accounts altogether. He states, “Of the 3,634 blogs surveyed by Perseus, it is surprising to find that nearly two-thirds of the sample has not been updated in two months, which can lead to presumption that those blogs have been either temporarily or permanently abandoned” (pg. 24). Therefore, it can be argued that despite the sporadic popularization of certain posts or content, users are not fulfilled unless the relationship with a mass amount of people is sustained through time. Looking again at Generation-Y users, these individuals may have a constant hunger for this sustainability and put into play the four categories looked at previously in whatever way necessary for their online identities, whether real or contrived.

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Discussion and Conclusion

The challenges of this study are not limited to the many different cultural influencers depending on the location of users. Even within a specific country, the regions and their cultures may affect how Generation-Y users of social media perceive and achieve online fame. Like Benjamin Franklin and Jean-Jacques Rousseau‟s definition of celebrity pointed out previously, cultures do not share the same understanding of fame. Furthermore, significant research of this demographic for the topic should be made in order to produce information that can be generalized to a portion of the subjects. Nonetheless, the research used in this study provides significant evidence that the perception of fame among Generation-Y users of social media is present and the potential popularity of users among their social media community affects how they relate to their relationships. This study also found that researchers agree the nature of social media attributes itself to this perception of fame, as the main tokens of popularity are in numerical form, with the immediate gratification of a user‟s presence online through posts being the tokens of comments, likes and viewers, which can be similar to that of institutionalized rating systems such as Nielsen. Further psychological research on the user‟s manipulation of these environments for receiving their greatest potential number of tokens will help members of this new social media culture in Western societies gain greater self-awareness and improve their understanding of efficient time-usage in relation to the maintenance of their online presence. Once the knowledge of the presence of this fame potential is quantifiably based, researchers can then ask the question: is it hurting social media users‟ understanding of true and beneficial relationships? A serious cycle of deterioration of celebrity in Western culture is consistently viewed and present in the media, how much so is the possible perceived pressure of fame present on those who pursue it

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daily through blogs, Twitter accounts and Facebook personas? Therefore, the main goal of this research was to find academic sources that challenge each reader to analyze their own presence in these social media realms and if it aids or hurts their actual existence in todayâ€&#x;s cultural environment.

THE POTENTIAL FOR FAME 17 References

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