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Part of
Storytelling in the Digital World
Edited by Anna De Fina and Sabina M. Perrino
[Benjamins Current Topics 104] 2019
► pp. 105–127

Sharing the moment as small stories

The interplay between practices & affordances in the social media-curation of lives

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.

Keywords: narrative stancetaking, story-linking, Facebook statuses, selfies, algorithms, showing the moment, knowing participation, Snapchat Stories
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
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 18 June 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.104.06geo
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