Article published In: Storytelling in the Digital Age: New challenges
Edited by Anna De Fina and Sabina M. Perrino
[Narrative Inquiry 27:2] 2017
► pp. 311–333
Sharing the moment as small stories
The interplay between practices & affordances in the social media-curation of lives
Published online: 19 October 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.27.2.06geo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.27.2.06geo
Abstract
Sharing the moment live, a built-in logic of many social networking sites, is, I claim, an invitation for creating plots, which has led to systematic practices. I single out taking a narrative stance on Facebook as such a practice and show the interplay between key-norms and evolving media affordances for pre-selection of story ingredients, localization, visualization of the experience, and audience selection. These contribute to showing the moment as opposed to telling it, with selected friends serving as knowing co-narrators and with story-linking allowing for allusive, transmedia links. I review these practices in the context of increased story facilities that notably bring together several social media apps. I argue that although this curation promises a move beyond the moment, it ultimately serves to consolidate sharing-lives-in-the-moment. I reflect on the implications of this for the direction of travel in relation to stories on many social media platforms.
Article outline
- Introduction
- Small stories for a narrative analysis of sharing the moment
- Data and methods: Sharing the moment on social media
- Facebook data: Status updates & selfies
- Paratexts
- Analysis: Taking a narrative stance as a systematic practice for sharing the moment
- Evolving affordances for taking a narrative stance
- Pre-selection for story “ingredients”
- Visual narrative stancetaking
- Shared selfies, knowing friends and co-narration
- Taking a narrative stance and story-linking
- Discussion: Taking a narrative stance in the context of designing ‘Stories’
- Concluding reflections: The normativity of sharing lives-in-the-moment
- Notes
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