Unit 35 - LO1

2. Snapchat
Snapchat is an application, used on apple and android devices, which allows users to send and receive
temporary photos to each other. The idea of photos being able to disappear was originally inspired from
one of the founders friends who regretted sending a photo to a girl. Although Snapchat is a free app, they
can make their money from GeoFilters. When Snapchat first launched in July 2011, it was called Picaboo
however this name had to be changed a few months later when the company received a cease- and desist
letter from a photobook company who already had the name ‘Picaboo’. Snapchat was made originally by
Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown who were a trio studding at Stanford University. It was
made for Evans Product Design class.
As shown below, the layout of Snapchat is quite simple and easy to understand. This is the most updated
form of Snapchat, version 10.40.0.37. Over the years not only has it become easier to use but it has evolved
a lot more from when it first came out in 2011.

3. Content
Within snapchat, you send photos to your friends for a limit of up to
10 seconds. In early months of 2017, you were then able to send
snaps for an infinite time, this includes the videos being played on a
loop. In 2015 an update came out where you were able to obtain a
‘streak’ with your friends. This requires you and your friends to
send a photo or video within 24 hours, it can go on consecutively. In
2016, snapchat introduced ‘spectacles’ these were sunglasses
which have a small camera in the corner of the frame. It is linked to
your snapchat and so anything you record from the glasses will
come up on your snapchat too. They are mainly used for people to
film themselves cycling, swimming and other activates that are hard
to film with a phone. The spectacles range in price from £149.99 -
£199.99. This is a very expensive additional price just to get a few
good videos.
In June 2017, another new feature was created by Snapchat, called
Snap Maps. If you allow Snapchat to use your location and also
have the Snap Maps turned on, this allows your friends to see
where in the world you are and when you were last on Snapchat. It
only updates when you open the app.
Snapchat is always updating the app with big and small changes.
This is to make it easier for users to not only use the app but to
navigate themselves around it.
Snapchat's colours are yellow, the connotations of yellow are that it
produces a warming effect, arouses cheerfulness and stimulates
mental activity.

4. Target Audience
By using the website https://www.omnicoreagency.com/snapchat-
statistics/ I have been able to gather Snapchat's demographics. When
looking at Omnicores statistics it is very obvious that the vast majority of
people who use Snapchat are women, roughly 70%. This could be because
it is mainly females who like to take pictures, when filters were introduced
to Snapchat some became very popular, for instance the dog filter, as it
could make users appear more attractive.
Omnicore states that 71% of users are under 34 years old and 45% of
Snapchat users are aged between 18 and 24. This proves that Snapchat is
mainly used by the younger generation. This could be because of the simple
layout and the small features such as streaks and filters. Another
contributing factor to this could also be that celebrities use Snapchat, this
could influence the younger generation to download the social media
application. It is also free to sign up, this could attract a wide range of users.
The socio-economic needs would be in group D or E because stereotypically
the users are casual workers or students. It benefits these people that the
app is free because they do not earn much money and so they cannot
afford to pay lots of money for an app.
Snapchat uses demographics of their audience to learn about their users.
They learn things such as their ages, gender and things they like. This then
helps the third parties who advertise on Snapchat to create more specific
adverts. The adverts do not constantly pop up, they appear in-between
stories, mainly the stories created by third parties. The third parties include
Comedy Central, Daily Mail, The Sun and others. All of these third parties
come under the ‘Discover Page’.

5. Source of Revenue
Although snapchat is a free app, they do make money. This is
achieved by the lenses they use, the Geo-filters, the
spectacles they sell and finally the discover pages.
Geo-filters can be purchased from £5.99 – £399.99. Typically
people tend to purchase them for birthdays, weddings and
other special events. The price depends on the number of
days you require the filter for, how big you want the area of
the geo-filter to be. After the purchase is complete the geo-
filter needs to be checked by snapchat to ensure it is
appropriate. This can take just 1 business day.
Companies can advertise on snapchat, they price this at
around $10,000 (£7,668.05) per month. There is two types of
advertising that snapchat offer for companies. One type is
placement, these appear on the users snapchat whilst going
through their friends stories, live stories or through the
discover pages. The other type is a lot more interactive and
also more expensive. It is a swipe up add where the user
swipes up to view the content or the website associated.
Pressplay

6. Legal and Ethical Issues
There is always a risk that everyone knows about with Snapchat,
and that is screenshotting of other users images. These images can
then easily be shared with others. Some of the images that are
typically screenshotted are embarrassing, explicit or mean
comments about another user. If a user sends any explicit images
and they get screenshotted, the user who now has them can get
prosecuted if they send them around as it is illegal to send on any
explicit images without consent from the original sender. It is also
illegal to be in possession of these images if the original sender has
not given full permission for you to have them.
The Data Protection Act is how the government, businesses or
organizations control the use of your data and personal
information. Anyone who uses data is responsible and has to follow
very strict rules called ‘Data Protection Principles’. This ensures that
any information used is lawfully and fairly accurate, kept secure
and safe. If anyone within the business, organization or
government does not comply with these rules then they could face
very large fines.
Another way of copywriting an image is to Watermark it. This stops
anyone else, apart from the creator, from trying to claim it as their
own. Watermarks need to be created in a specific way to stop
anyone from going onto a software and trying to change it.

7. Legal and Ethical Issues
Snap Maps was created by Snapchat so that you could see where
your friends were. It also informs you of when they were last on
Snapchat, this feature can be turned off by enabling ‘Ghost Mode’.
This is where your location is hidden on the map to the other users.
You can chose to have it permanently turned off or for a small
duration of time, it is also possible to select what friends can see
you on the map. When this feature first came out, parents and
police became very skeptical of it as they feared it could lead to
stalking, abduction or other serious crimes.

8. Twitter
Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams. It was launched
in July 2006. The site gained worldwide popularity rapidly. In 2012 more than 100 million users were
collectively posting 340 million tweets in a day. Twitter is an American online social and news
networking service. Users can post and interact with small messages known as "tweets". Tweets were
originally restricted to 140 characters however on November 7, 2017 this 140 limit was doubled (to 280
characters) for all languages except Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. Unregistered users can still use the site
however they can only read the tweets. You have to be a registered user to get involved and post tweets.
People tend to use twitter to post memes, small quotes, funny statements and you can also use twitter to
complain to companies such as Asos, they tend to reply faster than on emails.
This is the layout of twitter with its most recent update. Version 7.31.1

9. Content
For content to appear on your timeline, you must follow other
profiles. They can then compose a tweet and when it is tweeted it ill
come up on your timeline. You can then choose to like it or retweet
it. If you decide to retweet it it will appear onto your own personal
feed where your other followers can also see. You are able to
navigate around with the navigation bar. The icons twitter uses are
quite self explanatory and just makes the whole process of using
twitter simple.
Twitters colours are blue and white. The connotations of blue are
that it symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence,
faith and truth. This is very very relatable to twitter as people do
tend to post the truth about things, their wisdom about subjects and
it can also give you some confidence if you gain a lot of followers
from what you post.
Navigation bar:
Loading page

10. Target Audience
As of the first quarter of 2018, Twitter has 336 million monthly active
users. 46% of these users check the app at least once a day. In most
countries it is mainly men who use twitter, but this is only by a few
percent for example in the UK, 59% of users are male and 41% are
female. In the UK the majority of users are under the age of 34. 43% of
30-49 year olds use twitter to receive news.
The socio-economic needs would be within category D or E. This is
because stereotypically, the users are casual workers, semi workers and
unskilled workers. This group of people are the main attraction for a
free social network like twitter as this group don’t tend to earn loads of
money. Twitter is free to sign up and use so therefore this would attract
this group.
Using the Katz theory, it would be diversion and going onto social
media allows you to relax and escape from reality. This including
personal problems, relationships and any other struggles.

11. Source of Revenue
Twitter earns 86% of its revenue from advertising. Twitter also
uses promoted trends, promoted tweets and promoted
accounts. Promoted tweets are sold to marketers the promoted
tweets then appear in users' Twitter feeds depending on what
accounts they have been interested in. Advertisers pay for
promoted accounts, Twitter then places these accounts in the
users' "Who to Follow" list. Promoted trends appear in the
search area, it is an area where people have used hashtags, all
the tweets and pictures with this hashtag appear here.

12. Legal and Ethical Issues
Twitter like most social medias, have a strict policy. You
have to be 13 years of age to be able to create an
account with twitter. This will be because of the
content that can appear on twitter. Twitter cannot
control everything that is posted however users may
report tweets and accounts if they consider them as
inappropriate and going against the guidelines and
rules of twitter.
On Twitter, you can put your location on when you
‘tweet’ and if another user was to click on the location
it shows them a map of where you were when you
posted that tweet. This feature could be considered
dangerous as it can lead to stalking and other crimes
similar.

13. Instagram
Instagram is a form of social media where it is possible to share videos and photos. It was created by Kevin
Systrom and Mike Krieger and was originally called ‘Burbn’. The word Instagram is a portmanteau of instant
camera and telegram. The app was released in October 2010 only onto IOS, it came to android users a year
and six months later (April 2012). Instagram rapidly gained popularity, with 1 million registered users in two
months, 10 million in a year, and as of September 2017 800 million users. In April 2012, Facebook bought the
Instagram for approximately $1 billion in a mixture of cash and stock.
The app icon was inspired by
polaroid cameras. The icon on the
far right is the current app icon.

14. Content
Direct messages:
here you can
send personal
messages to
friends
IGTV – where users can
watch up y hour long
videos and subscribe to
other users
Stories – other users
stories are displayed
here
Toolbar: this lets the user know
what page they are on by
having it as a darker colour.
There is: Home, Search, Post,
Activity, Profile.
Explore page: this is where
featured posts appear for the
user. It takes in the accounts
you follow/have you liking and
then shows pictures and videos
that you might like.
Subtopic posts: posts are
categorized into topics so
you can pick what you look
at.
Search bar: this is where you can
look up other users, hash tags and
locations.
Feed/home page:
this is where you can
see posts from the
users that you follow.

15. Content
This is where you can
choose and upload
your image onto
Instagram. You can
add on filters, tag
people in the photo
and also change the
size.
This is where you can
like the photo/see
how many likes you
have got. You can also
comment. It is also
possible to send the
post as a direct
message to someone

16. Target Audience
Instagram is aimed at everyone. However 59% of people aged 18-29 use
Instagram a lot more compared to those over the age of 49. Instagram does tend
to target more of the younger generation as shown by the content within the
app.
According to recent research and statistics, more males use Instagram compared
to females. In both the 18-24 and 25-34 age category, 17% of users are male
whereas 15% are female. This is surprising as most people tend to think that
more females use it as they tend to take more selfies.
Instagram would fall into the social classes C1, C2, D and E. This is because it is
mainly used by students and young adults meaning that they will not be earning
lots of money. As Instagram is a free app it is very ideal for these social classes.
Instagram is a worldwide used social media. The United States uses Instgram the
most with 120million registered users, the next is India with 67million. The UK
only has 23million users.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/248769/age-distribution-of-worldwide-instagram-users/

17. Source of Revenue
Although Instagram is a free app, it makes
money by companies advertising on there.
They can also sell their products as the website
can be linked to the photo, clicking the ‘Shop
Now’ it will take the user to the companies
website. The adverts appear on the users feed
as they as scrolling through. Instagram bases
these adverts on what previous posts you have
liked and also your age range.

18. Legal and Ethical Issues
Instagram have a lot of rules in place, this is to keep
them as well as the users protected. Instagram
make it very clear that they do not tolerate any sort
of abuse towards other users. Instagram state that
to use Instgram you must be over the age of 13, this
is important because of the content that can appear
on there. As there are over 23 million registered
users in the UK alone, it is quite difficult for
Instagram to manage every single post that is made.
However to help them out you are able to report
accounts and posts. Instagram then take a look at
your report and decide the outcome of the account.
The normal response is for the account to be
deleted.
Users can add their location onto posts or on their
Instagram stories, if their location services is turned
on on their mobiles. This has brought up a few
concerns about stalking as when the location is
clicked on, a map appears with the users exact
location that they have inserted. This makes it very
easy for other users to find out where you are.

19. Social media platforms – Pros and Cons
Advantages Disadvantages
Snapchat • Quickly connect with friends anywhere in the
world.
• Fun, exciting filters.
• A quick way to share memories and fun days out.
• Seeing your friends reaction in a photo rather
than guessing how they feel.
• Photos can be easily screen-shotted and shared
• There is no real way of commenting and liking posts
(on peoples stories) unlike Instagram and Twitter.
This means that there is no way of telling how people
are reacting to your posts.
• Stalking can occur with Snap Maps.
Instagram • Good privacy settings – you can chose who
follows you and sees your content.
• Varity of filters to edit your photos with.
• Can share funny posts with your friends by
directing messaging them.
• Posts stay up for as long as you would like them
to, not just up to 24hours (Snapchat).
• Stalking can occur if the location is added to the post.
• Trolling, catfishing and bullying.
• If you are not actively posting, users can lost interest
and then not interact with you.
Twitter • You are able to post things quickly.
• Connect easily with celebrates, companies etc.
• Easy layout.
• Easy to get bullied.
• Fake accounts can easily be made.

20. Social Effects – Noam Chomsky
Social media “erodes normal social behavior”
Noam Chomsky said to quote and it refers to how
social media interferes with day to day social life and
that having a friend on Snapchat or Twitter does mean
that you have those friends in real life. Only speaking
to people on social media can lead to people becoming
socially awkward and therefore finding it hard to have
real life conversations with people.
Being behind a screen on social media can improve
peoples confidence, and this can then lead to bullying
and harsh comments towards other users.

21. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-45394052?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cg56zlyw0rnt/snapchat&link_location=live-reporting-story
Case study supporting Noam Chomsky Theory
This is a paedophile who groomed girls he met on Snapchat and
blackmailed them into sharing indecent images with him. He has now
been jailed for eight years.
Shane Wakefield, 25, used fake internet profiles to befriend eight young
girls, he was convicted of 17 charges of online child sex abuse. He would
ask the girls for indecent pictures and videos in return for gifts, such as
iTunes vouchers.
He was traced by police after a victim reported him to Snapchat. The
young girl, who lived in Scotland, was threatened by Shane Wakefield,
who told her he would publish indecent images online unless she agreed
to cooperate with his demands.
He was arrested in September 2015, and an investigation discovered he
was using social media platforms such as Snapchat to contact girls across
the UK and abroad.
Some of the girls were driven to self-harm and begged him to leave
them alone.
Wakefield was found guilty of 17 grooming charges and was placed on
the Sex Offenders Register.

22. Case study supporting Noam Chomsky Theory
Ashley Billasano, 18, took her own life in November
2011. 6 hours before committing suicide, she took to
twitter and tweeted 144 tweets, to which no one
responded to. Ashley wanted to be heard and no one
was listening. In the 144 tweets, Ashley detailed years
of sexual abuse from family members and other
adults. She also tweeted about how she had been
forced into prostitution. Apparently, she tried to seek
justice for what happened to her but struggled with
the legal system. Ashley Escamilla, who was Ashley
Billasano’s classmate and also friend, said that, “She
said police and CPS acted like it was nothing. She said
it was like they did not want to believe her. So, to go
on living when someone hurt her, and no one ever did
anything about it – wouldn’t that drive you insane? To
feel ignored by people who were supposed to help
you. That was crazy.”
https://www.adweek.com/digital/teen-tweets-before-comitting-suicide-the-importance-of-cyber-helping/

23. Case study supporting Noam Chomsky Theory
http://www.fox5dc.com/news/282519894-video
A DC police officer, Dennis Foagly, had their
Instagram taken down due to insensitive
content that had been reported. The account is
no longer able to be found but these are some
screenshots of a few of his racists posts. For a
DC police officer to have been posting this
content is unacceptable, not only are they a
role model to younger generations but this
could also reflect badly onto other DC officers
who could then be called racist by civilians and
also other counties. Denis Foagly had tens of
thousands of Instagram Followers who
proceeded to like these racists posts. Members
of the public were not impressed with these
posts and stated that he should be fired. If
children see a DC officer posting these images
and saying these racist comments they might
think that it is okay to do.

24. Primary Research
Primary research involves me finding out statistics for
myself. I have created a ‘Google Forms Survey’ in order
to collect this information. This information will also
help me when I am producing my own social media
application

25. Survey Feedback
Out of the 9 people who took
my survey, 8 were 16-19 and
only 1 was in the age of 24-30.
This shows that the younger
generation tend to use social
media a lot more often then
more older people. This could
be because younger people
have more time to spare.

26. Survey Feedback
When I asked how old they
were, it was good to see a
mixture of both males and
females. However there was 1
more female than male. This
proves other statistics which
say that more females use
social media then males.

27. Survey Feedback
This result was the most
interesting, it proves that out of
the 9 people asked, 8 use it
everyday, only 1 was very rarely.
This just proves how much social
media and technology is
becoming more and more a day
to day life. This supports Noam
Chomsky’s theory.

28. Survey Feedback
Here it is evident that Snapchat is the
most popular social media application,
with 7 of the 9 people saying it was their
favourite. Instagram took 2nd position
with Twitter being 3rd and there were no
votes for Facebook. I think Snapchat is
the most popular as it is easier to talk to
your friends this way and share your
memories and moments whereas with
Instagram you are sharing with all your
followers, unless in a DM however it is
nicer to see peoples reactions in pictures
rather than just text.
You can see that when I asked why the
answers are mainly along the lines of
that it is easy to use and that it has lots
of features that you are able to use.

29. Survey Feedback
When asked what they think the
negatives/dangers to social
media were, a lot of the answers
were similar/the same. These
answers included bulling and
social pressures. I think it is
important that these dangers
are recognised and also acted
upon. For example, there are
age restrictions on all the apps
for a reason, they are there to
protect young children. It is also
possible to report bullying and
such like to the specific social
media.

30. Survey Feedback
Staying in contact and having
communication with your
friends was the biggest positive.
I think this is very important as
if you have friends who go to
live abroad, then it is important
to keep the contact with them
and it is even easier when they
are just the other side of the
internet. I think people enjoy
being able to talk to people who
live half way across the world.