Data Donations and Ephemeral Content: Obtaining Instagram-Stories

Ephemeral Content, exemplified by Instagram Stories, refers to content that exists for a certain period of time, presenting challenges in obtaining and studying it. While numerous studies have focused on Instagram's permanent content, such as posts and comments, research on Stories remains limited due to their difficulty in acquisition. Various approaches have been explored to gather Instagram Stories data. One method involves scraping Stories, yet this approach is restricted to a single day, necessitating an extended period or limiting the analysis to individual Stories without a comprehensive view of user behavior[1]. Another approach entails obtaining Stories from YouTube videos where users compile Stories from celebrities into a single video and upload it. However, this method solely allows the study of Stories from prominent figures, excluding insights from regular users[1].

In this study, participants are asked to voluntarily share their Stories. They can access these Stories directly through Instagram due to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which states that users need to be able to request the data a company holds on them[5]. They have the option to export their entire Instagram data into a zip-file, which they then submit through a website. The submitted data is automatically filtered to retain only Stories while removing non-story content. By employing this methodology, the study aims to overcome the challenges of obtaining Instagram Stories and gain valuable insights into user behavior and content creation in the context of ephemeral content on Instagram.

• Creating a website for the submissions
• Pre-Study + evaluation of the website
• Reworking the website
• Study on why & when people would donate their data
• Reasons for Data Donation Questionnaire[4]
• Interview
• Analyzing the collected data

Keine

[1] Bainotti, L., Caliandro, A., & Gandini, A. (2021). From archive cultures to ephemeral content, and back: Studying Instagram Stories with digital methods. New Media & Society, 23(12), 3656-3676.

[2] Lin, J. S. E. (2022). Exploring uses and gratifications and psychological outcomes of engagement with Instagram Stories. Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 6, 100198.

[3] Manovich, L. (2020). Cultural analytics. Mit Press.

[4] Skatova, A., & Goulding, J. (2019). Psychology of personal data donation. PloS one, 14(11), e0224240.

[5] Complete guide to GDPR compliance. Available online at https://gdpr.eu/