Abstract

The idea of self-extension in a digital space helped contextualize what a digital legacy has the potential to be. This project, was created to put a name to this fresh concept, offer people advice and insight into its short and long-term management while compiling and providing recommendations for how to take your digital legacy and turn it into the photobook/scrapbooks of previous, pre-internet generations of American history. This project's aim is to persuade the millennial generation to accept the benefits of a consciously assembled digital footprint to motivate their pursuit of digital legacy preservation.

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Project Background and Research

Since Facebook’s record-shattering initial public offering in 2012 (Bultman, 2012) the digital space has grown at unprecedented rates. Several social media platforms have been born (Duggan, Greenwood, & Perrin, 2016), improved (Andersson & Arnvaller, 2017) or simply disappeared (Pew, 2017) and with each improvement (or lack thereof), the digital life of the average person has dramatically changed. Tools such as Klout, Kred and Hubspot's Marketing grader (King, 2014) have provided personal and business insight to the size and reach of a digital footprint, but they only give you that snapshot of the present. Although these snapshots satisfy a wide range of business use, they aren't nearly as useful for billions of others whose online presence will never reap financial gain (Pew, 2017).

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Everything put on the internet from Facebook statuses, to Instagram pictures to new gifs on Tumblr changes the reality of every person. This happens because we have more opportunity than ever before to let the world know our inner thoughts, darkest secrets, and micro-level happenings in our lives (Efrati, 2016; Griffith, 2016; Keith & Steinberg, 2017). The understanding of the totality of one's online persona led to ground breaking work on the topic of digital legacy. One of the early observations of digital legacy came at Paul-Choudhury’s (2011) behest, with the concern over how personal post information is stored over time. His concern evolved into in-depth analysis of digital legacy concerning how digital usage became a part of oneself (Belk, 2014; Weaver & Gahegan, 2007), how this legacy was developed (Schultz, 2014; Sheth & Solomon, 2014, Steinberg, 2016), how people could retain until death (Belk, 2013; Chu, 2015, Hengstler, 2011) and how to deal with the legacy post-mortem (Paul-Choudhury, 2011; Varnado, 2014).

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In his work on the extended-self, Belk (1988) argues that individuals make possessions a part of themselves through a lifelong, four-stage process. Initially, we learn how the object understands the space we are in, while differentiating the “self” from its inhabited space. Second, we learn of the three-way interaction between ourselves, the object, and the space. In this phase, the object is differentiated from the space. Third, we take full stock of the object and our other possessions. This step occupies the most time and invites one to gather or improve their objects as they see fit. Finally, we reach a stage where the past reigns supreme, accumulation ends and we take a thorough stock of our objects as death approaches.

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Belk's extension of extended-self in a digital age (2014) reinforced ideas of environmental distinction, identity management and preparation for death. The idea of self-extension in a digital space helped contextualize the potential of digital legacy. Over time, this potential evolved into the Digital Legacy Project. This project, spearheaded by four Master's Students at the College for Journalism and Communication at the University of Florida was created to put a name to this fresh concept, offer people advice and insight into its short and long-term management while compiling and providing recommendations for how to take your digital legacy and turn it into the photobook/scrapbooks of previous, pre-internet generations. This project's aim is to persuade the millennial generation to accept the benefits of a consciously assembled digital footprint to motivate their pursuit of digital legacy preservation.

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The project has three core tenets that are explored through storytelling and social media based marketing efforts. The first pillar is Create. This combines Belk’s (1988) first two tenets as the time we take stock of the role social media and digital content plays as we establish our early digital legacy. This includes creating accounts, posting content, and creating our own digital footprint that the rest of the world can see.  The second pillar is Maintain. This encapsulates Belk’s third tenet. This is the period where we continue to build and cultivate our digital legacy. Much of the projects storytelling content contains recommendations, cautionary tales and relevant information related to the maintenance of our digital legacy over time. Finally, the third pillar is Preserve. Emulating Belk’s final tenet, this is the time where accumulation of digital legacy content is no longer a priority. Instead, temporal attention shifts backwards to reflects on lived experience. At this point, preserving that legacy becomes of paramount importance. The entirety of the Digital Legacy Project takes note to explain, develop and present these pillars to all who observe and consume the content created for these three pillars.

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Goals/Desired Outcomes of the project

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The exploratory nature of the Digital Legacy Project creates a significant lack of measurable goals, a core tenet of the SMART goal methodology (Conzemium & O'Neil, 2009). However, Prather (2005) notes that using SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic/Relevant, Tangible/Time-Bound) goals fails when the purpose of that goal is to guide innovative methods for study or public enrichment. The Digital Legacy project meets the tenets of public enrichment work because restricting its goals to those who meet SMART criteria can limit the effectiveness of the overall campaign, both in aspects of storytelling and strategic communication. For that reason, goals for this project are split into those that satisfy SMART criteria, along with those that do not. The overall goals will include the intention and suggested forms or measurement while SMART goals will have appropriate key performance indicators (KPIs) meant to evaluate the progress of the goal.

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SMART Goals

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1. Generate interest in preserving digital legacy.

   1. Outcome: Downloads of Build Your Own Digital Legacy Kit

   2. KPI’s: lead generated, e-mail click rate, social media link rate, web traffic to preserve page, website sources.

2. Generate conversation over creation of digital legacy.

   1. Outcome: Encourage community forum through insightful and relevant social media posts.

   2. KPI’s: Engagement, engagement rate, link performance, influencer network

3. Have more people aware of the terms & conditions of the sites they inhabit digitally.

   1. Outcome: Increase traffic on “Privacy Page” where terms & conditions article is housed.

   2. Website sources, visits to “Privacy Page”, social media engagement, increase in long-term engagement with Term & Conditions material.

4. Build a relationship with relevant influencers.

   1. Expand the Digital Legacy Project’s digital network to included relevant influencers such as Dead Social, The Digital Legacy Association and Net Nanny

   2. Reach and impressions, business partnerships, growth of overall sector, hashtag performance, call-to-action traffic (Cross-platform)

 

Non-SMART Goals

1. Cultivate a personal investment in digital legacy.

2. Establish a digital community.

3. Create Digital Legacy Brand Ambassadors.

4. Inspire more conscious maintenance of digital legacy.

5. Impact the academic fields of sociology and psychology.

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Influencers and Stakeholders

Influencers

1. Dead Social

Blog that focuses on digital legacy as it is defined across this project. Key contributor to the Build Your Own Legacy kit. Partnership could simplify their website and vastly expand our reach. A #1 influencer for topic match and mutual gain.

1. Lifestream Blog

Discusses Digital Legacy as one the key areas of life for everyone. Already accumulated a significant following and could amplify our message to improve reach.

1. Digital Dust

2. Digital Legacy Association

To date, the only academic source for digital legacy scholarship. Aligning with this UK based organization can offer support into academic study of the topics presented.

1. Reputation Defender

2. Net Nanny

Sharenting specifically benefits from this blog’s expertise on digital parenting. Alignment here, plus the project’s work with Stacey Steinberg, positions the Digital Legacy Project as a trailblazer in sharenting awareness.

1. Meeco

2. Death Goes Digital

8-10 are estate planning blogs that aim to help older people prepare their assets for death. Although the do not pertain to our target audience directly, securing relationships with these influencers could have long-term benefits across smaller relevant audiences.

1. The Digital Beyond

2. Safe Beyond

 

Stakeholders

1. Young millennials

2. Generation Z

3. Generation Y

4. Parents

5. Family planners

6. Estate planners

7. Academic fields of Psychology and Sociology

8. Social Media Platforms

9. Digital business

10. Higher Education

 

Target Audience and rationale for its selection

The iPhone was first launched in 2007. At the time, the early half of the millennial generation (1982-1989) were entering college, graduating, and beginning their careers in an economy that offered the promise of doing better than the previous generation if you did things the right way. Get good grades, go to college, get a job and "there would be gainful employment waiting in [your] early or mid-20s" (CNN, 2007). This time of promise spilled over as the younger millennials (1990-1997) were approaching high school graduation, promotion to varsity sports teams and the youngest going through the ups and down puberty. This younger group was promised the same as their generational predecessors and were only beginning their pursuit of "doing things the right way". The promise of technological advancement that came with the iPhone, the worldwide reach of Myspace and newcomer Facebook created a bright outlook for America's up and coming generation (Peckham, 2017).

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Then the rug was pulled out from under them. After years of subprime mortgage lending led to the "burst" of the U.S. housing bubble, the Lehman brother's bankruptcy filing in September 2008 plunged the United States into its deepest recession in nearly a century (Collins, 2015). Nearly a decade and trillions of dollars from the U.S. government later, the millennial generation has been significantly affected by this infamous period of U.S. history. The older generation had their promise of gainful employment rescinded, many while they were still in or recently graduated from college. The timing of the Great Recession could not have been worse for this group. However, the impacts on the younger half have created as stark a generational divide as the one present between early (WWII) and late (Civil Rights unrest) baby boomers (Hosie, 2017).

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While the older half more closely resembles Generation X, the younger half has been forced to be "more practical" as the financial crisis was a reality they were prepared for as they came of age (Lapidos, 2015). Nowhere is this generational divide starker than the way this half interacts with the digital world opened to them during this tumultuous period. Since the initial release of the iPhone, the iPhone is on its 11th generation, Facebook receives near 2 billion visitors A MONTH and nearly 90% of Americans use the internet (up from just 50% in 2000) (Duggan, Greenwood & Perrin, 2016).

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When focusing on the younger generation, we see they are very active not just on the internet but on social media. In the digital legacy project survey, we surveyed 521 millennials (18-35). However, with nearly 80% of respondents being younger millennials (27 and under) the findings are particularly useful for understanding this demographic. Looking at social media usage, there is a near universal usage of Facebook (99.62%). Of those who do use, 95% log on to the network every day and 93% are using their real name. Other networks this group has a strong presence on are Instagram (82.5%), Snapchat (78.1%), Pinterest (64.5%), Twitter (63%) and LinkedIn (60%). The variety of social networking platforms suggests young millennials are having a variety of needs met by various online social platforms. However, this extends beyond simple usage of social media. 71% of this group uses their social media for self-representation, 80% say their social media use is at least a somewhat accurate representation of themselves and nearly half create content (e.g. photos, videos, audio) specifically for social media use. Not only is the group very present, they put themselves out there in a way unparalleled by any of their generational predecessors.

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These reasons make young millennials an ideal target audience for the digital legacy project. Their observed group practicality and assumed normativity of the digital space likely creates a scenario in which they are susceptible to intense scrutiny of judgment in the digital space. This group is likely already attuned to that scrutiny as two-thirds state they separate their personal professional online presence for reasons ranging from separation of personal/work life to fear of consequences with their current (or future) employer. Additionally, 86% will censor content about themselves and another 60% have resigned social media scandals “something that is inevitable.” It is our hope with this strategic communication plan that young millennials will set the example for the rest of the world that preserving one's digital legacy (something 40% already want to do and another 32% have yet to develop an opinion about.) Reaching young millennials is ideal because over time, our next core audience (Generation Z) will come into this age range and benefit from a wealth of curated knowledge on how to best handle this legacy, in the present and future. And because 70% of young millennials take a role in teaching their families the ins and outs of social media, they can effectively reach their parents and grandparents to create a generation to generation digital legacy that will benefit the next generation and many beyond.

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The rationale for the overall social media plan

The social media plan for this target audience aims to tap into the displayed feelings of practicality, innovation and vanity observed in this target audience. (Keeling, 2003). Ultimately, the goal of the strategic communication plan is to drive the target audience in the direction of the “Build Your Own Digital Legacy” kit, housed on the “Create. Maintain. Preserve.” page of our website www.digitallegacyproject.org. Achieving this goal required instilling a sense of urgency for the audience that preservation is a task not best left to the future. However, the Digital Legacy Project survey suggests overcoming the lack of urgency will be difficult due to the following findings:

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• 42% of respondents disagree with “Preserving my digital legacy is important to me.”

• 71% of respondents disagree, or have no opinion, with “Preserving my digital legacy would be easy.

• 61.5% are not “actively working to preserve their digital legacy.”

• Only 38% agree that “I want to preserve my digital legacy for future generations.”

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To overcome the apparent aversion to digital legacy preservation, the social media plan will utilize methods guided by the theory of reasoned action. The theory posits moving persuasion subjects out of the latitude of rejection into latitudes of acceptance of non-commitment can be achieved by supplanting existing feelings of an action with influences that benefit the subject on individual and societal levels (Hale, Householder & Greene, 2002). Presenting benefits to the group may not be enough as Friestad & Wright (1994) noted more consumers have been attuned to the persuasive efforts of marketers, including the theory of reasoned action (Madden, Ellen & Ajzen, 1992).

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However, two lenses help the Digital Legacy Project navigate the roadblocks inherent in the theory. Initially, Keeling (2003) noted one of the key markers of the millennial generation is their vanity. The social media plan intends to harness the vanity to position young millennials as trailblazers in the preservation of digital legacy. Positioning the group as the leaders of a soon-to-be mainstream movement satisfies societal gratification necessary for TRA to guide the plan to success. This vanity can be further harnessed as digital legacy preservation leaves the confines of the young millennial generation. Of our survey respondents, 70% claim to have a role in teaching their families how to use social media. Transferring this role to family-wide digital legacy preservation will position young millennials as the executors of their own family’s digital preservation, an aspect of individual level gratification.

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Although the TRA’s utilization will attempt to mitigate the initial pushback to the social media strategy, the social media plan will also incorporate elements of humor meant to personalize and humanize the overall objective. Lytlle (2001) notes strategies such as cartoons (not employed by this strategy,) wise-cracks and self-effacing humor distract from counter-arguments and heighten a subject’s willingness to be persuaded from non-personal sources. This strategy aligns with the inoculation approaches proffered by Szybillo & Heslin (1973) which suggested heading off possibly negative views with images, tones and content deemed by the audience to be “unattackable.” Using content including memes, humorous quotes and data from their peers collected by the Digital Legacy Project survey is meant to provide insight into the benefits of each of the three pillars of the project. The text and hashtag selections in the social media plan are intended to shift each message towards encouragement of preservation using personalization and sharp wit and/or snark intended to engage with this audience and the immediate generation following.

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Details of all research conducted

Framing the storytelling within the Digital Legacy project was developed with Belk’s (1988, 2014) extension-of-self framework and its expansion into the digital world. The stages of human development nicely translated into the pillars Create, Maintain, Preserve. As the pillars were set, the focus then shifted to how to compartmentalize the concept into easily packaged topics that would be of interest to our target audience. Our research along with the results from the Digital Legacy Project survey led to the formation of five storytelling topics.

 

Career

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In the Digital Legacy Project survey, respondents indicated at a two-to-one rate that they separated their personal and professional personae with more than half claiming some level of concern with a potential employer seeing their personal social media accounts. Their efforts and concerns are more than warranted as three-fifths of employers use social media to vet potential applicants and monitor current employees (McDonnell, 2016). The importance of a carefully created digital footprint gave the Digital Legacy Project an ideal starting point in looking at the career impacts of digital legacy.

           

Creating the story for career was arguably the simplest task of the overall project. Initially, we spoke with Nadine Reynolds, the Associate Director for Career and Professional Development at the University of Florida Career Resource Center, to gather insights into how students can ensure their digital presence does not work against them. We moved on to an interview with self-made Instagram personality Alison Schaper on the benefits of personal branding. McDonnell (2016), Poppick (2014) and Roth et. al (2016) offered insight into the specifics of social media’s use among executives, hiring personnel and managers. The final key piece for career was a demonstration of how digital information can be used against you with the case of former Democratic candidate for Georgia’s Sixth District, John Ossoff (CLFSuperPac, 2017).

           

Career impact was a core topic explored through storytelling. However, this topic was not geared towards preservation at it fit firmly under the Create and Maintain pillars of the project. Therefore, aside from a small number of quote graphics, this topic is not represented in the strategic communications plan.

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Image

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The topic of image was key in the storytelling aspect of the project, and our target audience takes how they are perceived on social media very seriously. More than 70% claim their digital persona represents who they are and 86% claim to have complete control over that image. Image storytelling aimed to plant the seed of doubt and encourage the target audience to take a comprehensive stock of what image they are portraying, as opposed to what they think they are portraying.

           

This topic prominently featured Allison Schaper discussing how she built and cultivated her own image. Additionally, video blogger Kharrisa Smith spoke about how constructive a strong self-image allows her to continue her work. Other research included an analysis of the now-infamous Bow Wow Challenge (France, 2017) and cultivating a dishonest image (papdopoulos et al, 2016.)

           

This topic will be a secondary focus for the strategic communication plan. Although image does not immediately implicate a need to preserve digital legacy, it can motivate the target audience to take the steps to see what their full digital legacy looks like today. Doing so will allow them to decide for themselves if the information available aligns with the persona they want to display on social media and take steps towards amending their personal image. Posts about image will be linked to the Build Your Own Digital Legacy kit to perpetuate image recognition and restoration.

 

Privacy

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The hope of the Privacy section was to give the target audience more insight into how privacy impacts the creation and maintenance of their digital legacy. This was especially important since 92% of respondent did not read terms and conditions of the social media sites they signed up for and 84% did not factor them into their use of social media. This created a need to better educate young millennials of what privacy they have when it comes to using social media.

           

The biggest area of research for this section was an in-depth analysis of the terms and conditions for the big three social media networks: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (Pew, 2017). These were used to develop a crash course of important material as well as link to relevant information within each social network a user could use to take the maximum control of their privacy. Additional areas of inquiry included external analysis of privacy and trust among social media users (Duggan, Greenwood & Perrin, 2016) and tips on protecting your privacy outside of social media on the internet (Fertik, 2010).

           

The privacy section is meant to be informative with a secondary goal of encouraging users to engage more actively with their privacy. It does not have a role in the strategic communication plan.

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Sharenting

           

A new area of academic study, sharenting became a topic of focus because of young millennials reaching the age where they are likely (and even expected) to begin having children. This generation was the last generation that grew up outside of the shadow of the internet, yet it’s usage is nearly ubiquitous throughout the generation. According to 77 parents surveyed, 86% share information about their children at least once a week, and 46% of all respondents believe children should be permitted full access to their digital legacy.

           

To gain a better understanding of the topic, we spoke with the leading scholar on the topic, Stacey Steinberg, UF Legal Professor and Associate Director for the Center of Children and Families, who broke down what Sharenting was, whether it was acceptable and best practices for parents (old and new) who was to celebrate their child digitally. Beyond Steinberg, Venitis (2017) offered more in-depth parenting advice in a digital age.

           

This topic is fresh is academia, as Steinberg’s work on sharenting “Sharenting: Children's Privacy in the Age of Social Media” was only published in the Emory Law journal in the 2016. Because to the green nature of the topic, it is not integrated into the strategic communications plan.

 

Censorship

           

The final topic covered by the storytelling portion of the project was censorship. This is a logical next-step from “Image” because this explores what options people have when they want to censor their digital legacy. From our survey, 86% of respondents will remove association from themselves on a photo they do not want to be associated with and 78% of respondents regularly censor information about themselves on Facebook. However, somewhat paradoxically, less than 30% of users of Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr censor content about them at all. This topic hopes to present a variety of “worst-case scenarios” to jump-start the audience’s willingness to examine the totality of their digital legacy.

           

This section looked at two of these worst-case scenarios. Initially was a podcast-style interview with Courtney Mims (pseudonym of Abigail), a news intern at ABC Sports in Charleston, South Carolina. After a friendly photoshoot resulted in less than flattering images, she struggled to have the images wiped off the internet so they would not affect her career. Additionally, we profiled Smith Meyers, the University of Florida Student Body president whose drunken shenanigans were caught on camera and now easily accessible on YouTube. Other research focused on social media user behavior regarding censorship (Duggan, Greenwood & Perrin, 2016).

           

Like image, censorship is worked into the strategic communication plan as a mean to generate downloads of the kit and embolden young millennials to find out what the internet knows about them. Although a lack of Right to be Forgotten laws inhibits a subject’s ability to scrub their reputation clean in the United States (Roth, 2017), providing stories about people in the target demographic should mitigate the “It can’t happen to me” phenomena likely present among a multitude of internet users.

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Create. Maintain. Preserve.

           

The final page of the website acts as the landing page for the strategic communication plan. The highlight of this page is the primary call to action, the “Build Your Own Digital Legacy” kit. The kit contains resources on obtaining your data from Facebook, Twitter & Instagram; recommendations for password protection; and information on working digital assets into your last will and testament. This page defines each of our three pillars to give the audience their most complete information regarding the campaign. Additionally, visitors will find content across a variety of topics to stimulate additional interest in each pillar.

           

On the page, the users will find two podcasts. One on how reporters use their work to broadly affect digital legacy and another on how living with digital legacy as a young millennial is an ever-changing process. Beauty vlogger Kharissa Smith offers her personal take on what it means to preserve a digital legacy and an audio package from Cathy Marshall, an adjunct Professor at Texas A&M University discussing how digital legacy will become history. The copy from social media is intended to push viewers towards this landing page as well as stimulate engagement and conversation on the social media platforms themselves.

 

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* The PDF version contains Appendix 1 (Survey Questionnaire) and Appendix 2 (Summary of Survey Results). 

** A full works reference list can be found here.