The Role of Meaning-Making in Social Media Repertories 

In this article, a study was conducted to understand how the youth living in Argentina deal with rapidly multiplying social media platforms. The four conceptual frameworks: media repertories, niche theory, polymedia and media ideologies served as the baseline for this study and helped to explain how a different set of meaning attributed to a certain social media platform shape up the user practices. From the interviews, three major themes came across. First explained how these people use and give sense to a given platform in reference to others.

The second was their understanding of different usage which was shaped up by the certain meaning they have given to that platform. These set of meanings is partially formed by what they have observed their fellow doing. The third technology is independent of the use and set of meaning assigned to it.

These themes further raised two questions. First, what were the dominant set of meaning assigned to different platforms by Argentinian youth? Second, how the set of meaning attributed towards a certain platform affected one particular platform as compared to another platform (in its normal assessment).

Analysis showed that social media usage by the Argentinian youth was partly managed by the different set of meanings attributed towards each platform.

This study used a mixed-method approach using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Two data sources used were: face-to-face survey based on news, technology, and entertainment conducted in Buenos Aires (N=700 and the gender distribution was half-male and half-female) in October 2016 by using a probabilistic sample design.

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Moreover, 50 semi-structured interviews of 34 minutes from the participant age group (18 to 29 years old and gender distribution was 23 male and 27 female) were conducted in Argentina from March 2017 to July 2017. Grounded theory approach was used to analyze the transcribed verbatim and the inductive method was used to generate themes. This all help to validate and comprehend the analysis of social media repertories.

This study shows that Argentinian youth is managing the multiple social media platforms by giving them a set of meaning usually constructed on the base of how people use and relate one social media platform as compare to others. This changed the entire fashion of these people using social media e.g. WhatsApp a more private and controlled space to connect with friends and family, Facebook for wide sharing of knowledge, Instagram to share visuals in a more polished way, Twitter for comments and news and Snapchat for casual sharing of your everyday visuals with close friends. This study also pointed out few most popular social media platforms among youth.

In addition to these findings there are few more factors which can alter or shape up the youth behavior towards meaning-making, using and preferring one social-media platform in contrast to others. Such as First, the technical aspect: may be people preferred using a platform because it’s simple, they find it more convenient to use and it is serving them in a holistic manner. Second, easy access: maybe a platform is preferred because it’s free or may be cheaper as in on some data package. Third, and the most important their personal choice or bias; the user may be is independent of others opinions and choice in giving meaning to a certain platform in order to define its usage. This study lacking these factors which can give a whole new perspective to meaning-making and use of social media platforms.