A brand-centric framework for ephemeral media: Conceptual approach to Instagram stories

Abstract

Social media is one of the most widely investigated areas for consumer research and time-constrained, disappearing media content (namely ephemeral media) is one of the recent trends in the field with the popularity of Snapchat and Instagram stories. Previous studies mostly investigated individual/consumer side of ephemeral media with empirical approaches and there has been no detailed conceptual framework for the ephemeral media concept. This study aims to contribute social media literature by developing a comprehensive framework for ephemeral media concept with three sections namely typology, conceptual structure and theoretical background. Three groups of attributes (meta, visual and interaction) are included in typology part, while antecedents, consequences and control variables are included in conceptual structure part. Last part, theoretical background section investigates theories which can be used for ephemeral media researches. The study utilises a grounded theory approach for developing the conceptual framework and has interpretive nature for future research directions.