Epiphanies are characterized as notable or pivotal moments that are remembered and show how a person interprets and responds to an experience (Ellis et al. 2011). When I discover my voice and my motivation, things become clear to me in an “Aha! time known as epiphany.
I found out that the evolution of social media is used in my niche after thoroughly researching and analyzing the study abroad niche in Australia. The term “social media evolution” describes how social media has changed over time, including how users move from one platform to another and how the platform itself has changed over time. time. I will primarily examine how Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and TikTok have evolved over time from amateurish, authentic and diary-like to more professional, heavily commercialized and lacking in authenticity (Pedroni 2022). In addition, I am thinking of extending my ethnographic investigation to Instagram. When I gathered and analyzed data from my niche, I discovered the links between TikTok and Instagram. To get a better understanding of TikTok, I usually post public videos on my ICT Tac. The aforementioned theory can help me examine how TikTok and Instagram allow a variety of people with different expertise and motivations to come together and share their opinions on study abroad and whether this translates into a positive experience. or negative, and their motivations for Australia. culture and help in their decision making when choosing a university or a place in Australia to live, study and work.
Also, throughout the process of creating, iterating, and constantly improving a digital artifact, there will be trials and tribulations that I will face that will lead to the development of key epiphanies.
- The niche is driven by a variety of factors.
As people share their experiences and information to help others with fewer resources so they can prepare for their studies and have greater motivation for their trip to Australia, I first thought the purpose main part of being part of the niche was inspiration and self-encouragement. But after doing some secondary research, seeing the terrain, and thinking about my goals, I realized I had overlooked several important things. One thing to keep in mind is that different types of gratification respond to different types of desires, such as integration needs (self-presentation, identity building, and status-seeking) and cognitive needs (seeking knowledge and self-improvement) (Sepp, Liljander & Gummerus 2011; Karimi et al 2014; Bucknell Bossen & Kottasz 2020). People join my TikTok niche, according to the data I’ve collected, not only for valid reasons, but also for entertainment and onboarding purposes.
2. I’m more inspired to create niche content on TikTok and Instagram.
I think it’s mostly because of my own reasons for choosing DA, which may help me understand why other people might make different decisions. To clarify, I first supplemented my DA on TikTok by making videos to express my experiences in Australia, specifically the Australian culture I had been exposed to. Someone who prefers showing up and seeking status may prefer to create material on TikTok and find the effort invested useful and entertaining (Sepp, Liljander & Gummerus 2011; Scherr & Wang 2021). I frequently share my daily thoughts and activities on Instagram. But now I found that my Instagram followers, friends and strangers, encouraged me to post more frequently. I make a digital artifact for the study of ethnography, but discovering people who share my interests, improving myself, and engaging in forums are all part of creating and engaging with this niche (Bucknell Bossen & Kottasz 2020; Sepp, Liljander & Gummerus 2011) I discovered that I am more inspired and motivated. These are the types of satisfaction I can get from both TikTok and my private Instagram account. I’m going to create a public Instagram account for my DA, I believe. The next task for an experienced ethnographer, whether digital media or not, is to communicate those experiences, or the ways of knowing and associating with them, to wider academic audiences… research actors… or wider audiences, according to Pink et al. (2016).
3. With a mix of specialists and amateurs making videos, TikTok is unbalanced
Before I started my research in this field, I watched videos on TikTok from specialists and professionals in the fields of study abroad in Australia and Australian culture as well as ordinary people seeking to share their life experiences and study there. Since I started researching my niche, I noticed a lot of people viewing my page for you or searching for hashtags with over 10,000 followers. The majority of these people present themselves as professionals or experts in some way in their videos or profile. I don’t know if there aren’t as many non-professional contributors as I expected or if the TikTok algorithm is blocking me from seeing this content and favoring posts with higher follower counts. So I think the platform is more democratized and allows small creators to go viral. Some people with fewer subscribers may create videos that become popular because they’re hilarious or meaningful, not because they have a large number of subscribers.
These epiphanies helped guide my decision to continue creating TikTok content and to consider creating content on Instagram, which is purely based on little experience and to continue projecting my personality as a living international student, studying and adapting to Australian culture. This is how I can better assess my own motivations as well as those of others by being more truthful about the content I would like to create and share. On top of that, I will continue to observe what is happening on the more expert side of Australian culture.
Reference list:
Pink, Sarah, Horst, Heather, Postill, John, Hjorth, Larissa, Lewis, Tania, Tacchi, Jo (2016) Researching Experience, in Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practice. Wise: Los Angeles.
Ellis, C, Adams, TE, Bochner, AP 2011, ‘Autoethnography: An Overview’, Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative social research, flight. 12, no. 1, Art. ten.
Pedroni, M 2022, ‘Two decades of fashion and influencer blogging: a critical overview’,fashion theory, flight. before printing, no. before printing, pp. 1–32.
Bucknell Bossen, C & Kottasz, R 2020, “Uses and gratifications sought by tween and teen TikTok consumers”, Young Consumers, vol. 21, no. 4, p. 463–478.
Sepp, M, Liljander, V & Gummerus, J 2011, “The motivations of private bloggers to produce content – a gratifications theory perspective”, Journal of marketing management, vol. 27, no. 13-14, p. 1479-1503.
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