Browsing by Subject "hobby craft"

Internet and social media have become part of our everyday life over the last few decades. Hobby craft makers have also found their places in various environments of social media. In this research, I aim to uncover in what ways the hobby craft makers employ social media as part of their hobby. Previous research has shown that craft makers employ the internet to find information and ideas, and to follow publications with craft-content. In this research, my aim is to answer the following questions: (i) What social media services do the hobby craft makers use and why? (ii) In what ways can social media be part of craft as a hobby? (iii) What type of users can be identified among the hobby craft makers? The approach is qualitative, and the data was collected by using semi-structural interviews. The research material consisted of ten interviews of hobby craft makers from Southern Finland. The interviewees were selected by purposive sampling. The material was analysed by using inductive content analysis. The results indicate that craftspeople took advantage of Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube and blogs in their hobby. The most popular services were Facebook and Instagram. The popularity of different platforms was based on the qualities of the services. For example, Facebook was popular due to its visuality and possibility to communicate with other users, whereas Pinterest was used as a storage place of new ideas. Social media brought several advantages for the hobby craft makers, for example ideas, instructions and sense of community. The results also showed that the use of social media was individual, in other words, the role and the meaning of social media as part of the hobby was specified by user. Three main types of users are discovered in the data: Occasional participants use social media sporadically and precisely. For such users participating and publishing is infrequent and casual. Social media- followers follow actively different social media platforms and publish new content every now and then. This kind of users regard themselves more as followers of social media than publishers. Content producers, in comparison, regard themselves more as producers than followers. Content producers resort to social media in diverse ways and publish new content with some regularity.