Preface
Preface
YouTube: The Ebb and Flow of the Sea of Video
Rebecca Bozin
Mitchell Pirera
Preface:
This Mixed Media Essay exploring the ways in which YouTube has influence both the production and viewing of video content has been presented as series of blog posts. In doing so we hope to reveal our abilities as Network literate content producers whilst focusing the actual content of the piece upon YouTube its and the discourse which surrounds the platform’s presentation of the video. Presented as individual blog posts this essay will explore a different subject, in doing so we allow the reader to traverse the essay at will. This allows the reader consume particular posts in isolation or as a part of a larger work. The feed nature of a blog in which time order dictates post’s position eludes to only one of many combinations the piece can be read in. The decision to present our essay is influenced both by the content of our writing and also the platform itself. Discussing YouTube in relation to hypertext is something that fits within the Media Factory platform on wordpress allowing peers to read and interact with hopefully discussing ideas they find relevant to their own research. The blogging platform allows for us to add categories and tags to the post, so that the post can exist as an identified group but aren’t isolated on an external web server and can be easily located. We have grouped all posts under the category of “YouTube: The Ebb and Flow of the Sea of Video” and then each post has individually tagged to reflect the content of the post. This tagging allows for people outside of the RMIT to find our assignment and for readers to discover other pieces of writing exploring the same subject.
Focusing upon the platform of YouTube we are going to explore the ways in which video content consumption has been altered due the networked nature of its presentation. Film has always being an art form dictated by the director shaped by the hands of an auteur. Within modern platforms the notion of the “creator” has paradoxically been diminished and made central to consumption. Diminished in the fact we now consume video amongst a stream of information, as consumer picking and choosing the content we watching, changing freely between content. Within this freedom to change between videos provides the consumer with an ultimately unique experience and understanding of a producer or group of works, creating their own montage sequence, interspersed with ads. A video collage in which the intentions of the videos creator no longer provide a guide for the consumer, who consumers what they like, how they like. The platform of YouTube on the other empowers the creator alongside the viewer with a clear online identity. This identity however carefully structured with its library of content becomes yet another aspect in audience understanding of the content. As a producer and more recently a produser our creation and then archiving of our own video content has become in some aspects more simplistic to distribute but more complex in its presentation within a networked environment.
Footnote:
No longer is the neutral state of being static. Progression and change is now the constant of not only the society we live in but also the technology and content we create. These changes are a reflection of a consumption habits and the trends in manufacturing. No longer are products built to last and corporations capitalise on people’s need for their latest product. Whether, as humans, our need for change as facilitated this or whether technology has caused this shift it is an issue of great complexities. What’s clear though is that it is near impossible to remain static. Without fail a new version of iTunes will be required every few months, with only the slightest improvements and changes, something as small as bug fixes, but it’ll be a required download regardless.
Problem solving is now a process of progression and software no longer has to operate perfectly. Issues can now be resolved at a later date, through updates. How does this then reflect the way in which we publish content? Far from the days of new editions we are able to update the works that we have authored with the click of a bottom. No longer do we as producers of content have to be so guarded about our published content, as it is far easier to revise and adapt.
Film in its essence can be described as the creation of meaning through the juxtaposition of images. Within its film context the director and editor dictated the way in which the montage evoked the idea of an event or theme. As Eisenstein one of the Soviet founding fathers of montage described it as ‘tendentious selection and juxtaposition free from narrowly fictional tasks, molding the audience in accordance with its goal.’ The power of this juxtaposition is revealed within the Kuleshov effect in which the reading of a particular character’s face is dependent upon the point of view shot it is placed next to. The reaction shot of the character remains the same yet the meaning of the particular image is fluid. Below is the master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock and his demonstration of the effect.
Expanding this effect then to the traditional cinema it is clear to see that knowledge is accumulated as audiences are presented with shots. Whether this knowledge is thematic with images being associational or knowledge of a constructed place, is dependent upon the director’s intentions for the sequence. On further expansion to digital platforms, for instance Youtube, the creator no longer has total control of the edits or cuts the viewer will experience. At any moment the consumer is able to shift to another video, clicking on an external link or suggested video, creating their own cut. ‘Meaning is not inherent in any one shot but is created by the juxtaposition of shots (Shields 2011)’ so then it could said a new meaning is created in this consumer decision to cut between videos.
Say for instance, you were to shift away from a horror clip to a nostalgic video of a children’s programs the child’s program could take upon a disturbing tone that is only due to what it resides next to. In this instance the idea of dualism is used to create an uneasy feeling, juxtaposition the obviously evil with content traditionally seen as light-hearted and familiar. On the other hand, many of us do not in fact use YouTube as means to shift between our fetish of horror and guilty pleasure of early episodes of Playschool. We use Youtube in variety of ways; a common way of traversing the database is to consume videos of the same genre, with much the same content explored. In this sense YouTube not only takes upon the form of a montage sequence evoking endless un-intentional meanings it also takes upon the form of a collage. In which elements consisting of some form come together in a why not originally intended to form something either consistent in aesthetics or content.
Instead of the changing of videos being a series of cuts in which the audience is forced to make connections, they are viewing them as having tenuous thematic links. ‘Only in the aggregate do these produce a tangential effect similar to and often stronger than the effect of the fact itself (Eisenstein, 1924).’ It is not montage in the sense of understanding a particular sequence it is rather understanding of a particular artist, theme or topic.
Footnote:
Intention has never meant anything; a reader/consumer will always bring their own ideas and views to a reading of a text or information. Now, in the digital age, not only does the reading of text exist within constant flux but also the presentation. Information presented online, is inherently networked. Information, articles, videos exist within a sea of information.
In an overtly simplistic and menial example, our intentions can be misconstrued on social media sites such as Facebook. When posting, sharing or commenting whatever we say is read in relation to the comments and etiquette of the platform. Sharing a particularly political article our intentions of discussion are undercut by profane comments. In this instance it appears we have purely posted to incite anger or disrespect.
In the delivery of information, we may decide to link (or in the case of blogging, embed) a RSS feed, which continually updates with posts relating to the content of our particular post. By linking to the feed, we eliminate the need for us to write and post unnecessary information and for the reader to have to search elsewhere for a greater understanding. This is particularly salient for us, as content producers, who have to realise that as people, we never view or read anything in isolation and that our discussion of ideas can be freed of description
YouTube comprises approximately 10% of all internet usage, with uploading videos, managing, sharing and watching them eradicating all difficulty with their easy to use, integrated platform. More importantly, it started a realm of interconnectivity and eliminating the barrier between different videos which kept them as standalone units of content. Now, in our new generation of online video sharing, we’re seeing the ways of interconnecting each video through a recommendation system, relevant video responses and a multitude of playlists to tie in all videos into one handy spot. Videos are now able to be uploaded flawlessly, converted from a multitude of formats and to be tagged by relevant keywords. Not only are they easy to upload and view, in true produser fashion, they’re easy to share, with the ability to email links to them or embed them on a web page or blog. For example:
Any user can comment on and rate videos which will, consequently, make a video go viral and have the whole world talking about it. Communities and groups are now enabled from the social networking that exists in YouTube, as “videos are no longer independent from each other, and neither are users” (Cheng, Dale, Liu. 2007). Because of the montage that the progression of YouTube has now allowed for, there is so much more meaning created when two or more videos are placed together. Users being allowed to comment, rate and make video responses also plays on the fact that in our modern society we are all becoming produsers, and that videos will never exist in isolation and that from the comments, ratings and responses, we are now creating a whole new meaning through this two-way interactivity.
The YouTube recommendation system works in amazing ways to not only suggest videos to users, but to also gather data and knowledge about the types of videos and content that users are interested in, as to create more targeted content for them. Playlists / montages can also be created from the knowledge of what people enjoy watching and find relevant to their interests. It’s been counted that recommendations account for around 60% of all the video clicks from the home page.
When discussing the ways in which hypermedia and hypertext writing has extended beyond the confines of purely writing text we can begin by looking at the writing of Ted Nelson, the man who coined both terms. In his discussion of Project Xandu system (an alternative to the World Wide Web) Nelson discusses the freedom the consumer has to navigate between documents and pieces of text to gain a greater understanding. Although his ideas a discussed in relation to his system which rivals that of the internet we interact with today, many of the ideas are transferable. Existing within a networked exists are collection of information is no longer a linear reading of a particular text. We know assimilate smaller pieces of information from a variety of sources of a variety of formats that coexist with video, images and music. Instead of gleaning our understanding from a single document before moving our attention to another we are more likely to shift between ‘series of text chunks connected by links which offer the reader different pathways (Nelson, 1992),’ ensuring our knowledge encapsulates countless viewpoints.
In this discussion it is important to note that although information is now presented in smaller packages of information linking to other packages which explore similar information, these packages exists within a stream of information. In relating ideas of hypertext to the YouTube platform it is clear that the accumulation of information is essential in it’s design and use. Within the platform of YouTube every video in itself is a packet of information, conversely each user is themselves another source of information. This information is then embedded in the stream of information that is YouTube. Like the ideas explored within Nelson’s writing the viewer is empowered and free to follow their interest whilst the producers themselves are also free to present their content in a way which ‘better reflect the structure of what [they} are writing about; and readers, choosing a pathway, may follow their interests or current line of thought in a way heretofore considered impossible (Nelson, 1992).’ The consumer is able to navigate content by following the suggested videos, consume videos within a predetermined playlists or by accessing the work of a particular user. Here they are able to tailor their experience to their needs typically consuming videos and content within a stream that is constructed both by the platform’s interface but also their own discretion. For the producer, they are able to shape their work by dividing content into an episodic nature, released periodically revealing the information over time. Alternatively the information presented within a YouTube video could be introductory with the body of work existing on an external platform. The networked nature of YouTube places both the consumer and producer in a heightened position of importance, the viewer has in themselves become an editor of their own narrative of information where they dictate the way in which they traverse this stream. The creator then also has a freedom in the ways in which they present the work within this stream, finding the ideal way in which content should presented as a reflection of the content that it contains.
In our futures as aspiring video content producers, it’s important that we have the skills and knowledge in realising that we will not stand alone as only producers. We have the power to realise that we are not purely media makers, we have the technology, skills and resources right at our very fingertips to take initiative to innovate and to come up with new, diverse ideas and content. We are produsers above all, and “under an industrial model of content production, such boundaries were clear-cut, as we have already seen: only industrial producers and, to a more limited extent, distributors were directly involved in production processes while audiences were cast simply in the role of consumers” (Bruns, 2008). Unlike in modern society now, where the users and producers are meshed into one. This is shown in, not only our creating media and content, but also in using previously created media to influence the products of our labours.
The changing ways of video consumption will allow us to provide and experience media in extremely diverse ways; in ways that are much more proactive and innovative than what we may have experienced in the past. No longer do the days exist where a business would approach us, as media and video content producers, and we will make them an advertisement video. Instead, now, we suggest a plethora of options of ways to advertise for their business.
Footnote:
It’s often wondered if just anyone can be a produser, and that’s completely correct. Anyone who has access to technology has the capability of not only being the sender but also the receiver. There have been new media technologies developed which allow for better access, connectivity and interactivity. This allows for a large range of people to share their knowledge to be evaluated by others, and therefore creates a ‘collective intelligence’ which anyone can contribute to (Flew 2008). Today, social media allows you to share your photos, thoughts, life, videos and music all on different platforms, with everyone with a phone or computer having access to it.
Although this new media allows us to have a great power, there are some that do not contribute to the strict definition of being a produser. Not everyone has a blog, not everyone posts ranting comments on public forums or edits Wikpedia pages if or when they find incorrect information. This said, it can be argued that updating something as small and seemingly insignificant as a Facebook status, liking a Facebook page or sharing YouTube videos allows us to contribute to this ‘collective intelligence’. While many and lots of people don’t want to be seen, they can very easily want to be heard.
Although grounded in the rich history of film, YouTube provides media produsers with the possibilities of creating videos that exist within a stream of information. The form of each video can be fluid and diverse in its construction, reflecting content within the confines of YouTube interface. Within this platform the consumer is also empowered to become an integral aspect in the way in which they understand content embedded within a stream of information.
Citations
Bruns, A 2008, Blogs, Wikipedia, Second life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage, Peter Lang, New York.
Cheng, X., Dale, C., Liu, J 2007. Understanding the Characteristics of Internet Short Video Sharing: YouTube as a Case Study, Simon Fraser University, Canada, pp. 1-9.
Eisenstein, S 1924, ‘Montage of Film Attractions’ in Leyda, J & Voynow Z (eds) 1982, Eisenstein at Work, Pantheon Books, New York.
Nelson, TH 1992, Literary Machines 91.1: The Report On, and Of, Project Xanadu Concerning Word Processing, Electronic Publishing, Hypertext, Thinkertoys, Tomorrow’s Intellectual Revolution, And Certain Other Topics Including Knowledge, Education and Freedom, Mindful Press, US.
Shields, D 2011, Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, Vintage, New York.
Turnbull, S 2010, ‘Imagining the Audience’, in Cunningham, S & Turnbull, B eds, The Media & Communications in Australia, 3rd edn, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, pp. 65-78.
Bibliography
Burgess, J., Green, J 2009, YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture, Polity Press, UK.
Flew, T 2008. New Media: an introduction, 3rd Ed. South Melbourne, Victoria: Oxford University Press.
Miles, A 2007, Network Literacy: The New Path to Knowledge, Screen Education Autumn. 45, pp. 24-30
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