Instagramers: prosumers en la era global. Adolescentes, humor y competencia mediática en los prosumidores emergentes

Zusammenfassung

This doctoral thesis dealt with Ecuadorian humorous Instagramers as emerging prosumers in an environment marked by an adolescent and/or youth audience, as well as digital figures that require a mastery of media skills, a key aspect for optimal technological development and consumption of media resources for direct and screen- mediated communication. This research was focused on the ten main Instagram profiles at the Ecuadorian level, managed by young people and that include humor as a tool for interaction with their followers, to determine the interaction that takes place from their profiles, the impact generated by their contents and the level of media skills that these influencers show within the material they present. It is taken into account that the technological transformations establish a new space where the visual and multimedia aspect plays a fundamental role. The objective of this study was to analyze the interaction produced by the main Ecuadorian Instagramers in the field of humor in order to establish the set of factors that influence their success or the media potential they demonstrate through their accounts within the Instagram platform. To achieve this, a mixed methodology was used; quantitative, through an observation card with specific variables regarding the activity of the Instagramers in terms of followers, followed accounts, number of publications, number of likes, comments, use of mentions and hashtags; qualitative, through an observation card in relation to the six dimensions of media skills evidenced by each of the Instagramers analyzed. In addition, a semi structured interview was conducted with three experts in the field of study, to obtain different perspectives on the activity carried out by the influence profiles and their future within the digital sphere. The results show a strong relationship between the number of followers that each Instagramer has and the interaction that is executed in their profile by the audience, that is, the higher the rate of audience, the better the results in terms of feedback registered by each of the publications, even if they have some time between postings. At the level of media skills, something similar happens, those young humorous Instagramers who better position themselves within the platform, are those who demonstrate a level of media skills (in its six dimensions) optimal when creating and producing audiovisual content for their followers. It was concluded that the Instagramer phenomenon within Ecuador manages to summon a massive audience, mainly the profiles that approach or exceed half a million followers. The interaction processes respond to a solidity within a digital platform such as Instagram and also becomes an influential factor when determining the degree of media skills exposed by the profiles analyzed.