Card Stories on YouTube: A New Frame for Online Self-Disclosure

This paper deals with the phenomenon of so-called (note) card stories on YouTube. Card stories can be described as self-disclosing videos or confessions, using a new frame for telling one’s own story audio-visually to the public by combining ‘old’ (hand-written messages) and ‘new’ media (video, computer mediated communication). In 2012/13, a qualitative and exploratory study with a sample of 25 card story videos on YouTube was conducted. The content and visual analysis revealed (1) that these videos are bound to a very specific frame of presentation, (2) that they deal with specific topics, and (3) that the presenter does not remain (visually) anonymous. These findings question previous research results that stressed a strong correlation between online self-disclosure and (visual) anonymity; further, the findings show that this special frame of textual confessions via video supports deep self-disclosures.