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The working narrative: analysis of linguistic structures and styles in life storytelling on social media

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dc.contributor.authorHumphrey, Michael, author
dc.contributor.authorPlaisance, Patrick, advisor
dc.contributor.authorLong, Marillee, committee member
dc.contributor.authorAnderson, Ashley, committee member
dc.contributor.authorSloane, Sarah, committee member
dc.contributor.authorMason, Kate, committee member
dc.date.accessioned2018-01-17T16:45:30Z
dc.date.available2018-01-17T16:45:30Z
dc.date.issued2017
dc.description.abstractThe stories we tell ourselves, and others, define us. What does that mean when we enter digital life and populate social media networks? In this dissertation, I examine the linguistic structures and styles of content created by people who are specifically prompted to tell a story from their lives. The study focuses on two distinct types of storytelling social media platforms: Cowbird is an self-mediatizing, open site that primes users with life story cues and prompts them to "Tell a story," while Humans of New York is a filtered, gated-mediatized platform run by one curator who posts pictures and short life narratives on Facebook, Tumblr, his own blog and several other social platforms. I sought to find distinct and/or common narrative structural and stylistic characteristics of the content. Using a combination of Quantitative Content Analysis and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (Pennebaker et al., 2007; Pennebaker et al., 2015), this project includes three related studies that begin with basic questions about narrative structures and concludes with two factor analyses of latent linguistic variables. On Cowbird, the latent variables internal vs. external focus created two styles of storytelling, regardless of the structure of the stories. Humans of New York, on the other hand, had its own style that complicated the role of singular first-person in the narratives. I suggest the overarching phenomenon in this data is what I've termed a working narrative, which is in flux, performative and filtering information in accordance with present goals, either to be encoded to long-term memory or forgotten. This suggests a model, the Digital Self Memory System, that combines insights from Autobiographical Memory (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000) and the Infosphere (Floridi, 2014). I conclude with a discussion about the philosophical implications of the working narrative in light of current and future technological affordances.
dc.format.mediumborn digital
dc.format.mediumdoctoral dissertations
dc.identifierHumphrey_colostate_0053A_14439.pdf
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10217/185630
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherColorado State University. Libraries
dc.relation.ispartof2000-2019
dc.rightsCopyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.
dc.titleThe working narrative: analysis of linguistic structures and styles in life storytelling on social media
dc.typeText
dcterms.rights.dplaThis Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights (https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/). You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
thesis.degree.disciplineJournalism and Media Communication
thesis.degree.grantorColorado State University
thesis.degree.levelDoctoral
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

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