Monthly Archives: April 2017

Week 8 Case Study – online video practice

The aim with this group exercise is to produce a close reading (case study) on a specific example of online video practice. Choose an online video example and analyse the work and the service used for publication.

In relation to thinking ahead – following this case study as an extended way to understand the online video practice you are analysing, you will be asked to make some video works. For instance, if you chose to analyse for your case study an Instagram video, then the expectation is that this research will lead to making videos in the Instagram service.

Case Study framework (cut and paste this framework into your group blog entry):

What is the link to your case study example of online video practice?

Affordance (reading)

What field of study is the affordance reading situated in?

Who originally conceived of the term ‘affordance’, in which field of study?

Describe what ‘affordance’ refers to conceptually in this context?

What is a ‘constraint’ within the context of the affordance reading?

Online video (context)

Why have you chosen this online video work? What influenced your decision?

What is the subject?

What type of material is used? (i.e. archive, found footage, live action, interview…)

What do you think the video was recorded with? (DSLR, smartphone, webcam…etc)

What is the point–of–view? (i.e. the position of the camera, framing, focus, sharpness, light, exposure, colour, motion…) How are these techniques used to communicate a particular perspective or point–of–view?

What type of sound is used? (i.e. music, atmospheric, voice-over, narration…). How is the sound used in regards to the effect created for the viewer?

How important is post-production in the realisation of the work?

In relation to the narrative of the online video – what is the approach stylistically? For instance, is it abstract? Is the work held together with a voice-over/narration track? Does it consist of one shot that is unedited? Is the work nonfiction or fiction? Does the work use a repetitive cut-up technique?

Service (context)

Provide an overview of this service in relation to what it affords authors to do with online video?

Are the videos shared natively on this service or hosted elsewhere? Or is it capable of offering both options?

Describe the playback of videos on the service.

Is there a restriction on duration?

What are the constraints imposed by the service on the publication of video?

Describe the functionality of the service in regards to authoring and distribution? For instance, do the videos have to be authored in another application beforehand? With distribution – is there an option to share internally and externally? Can the users add comments? Can the producers add tags?

Publishing reading

Refer to readings page for access. Also added to the week 5-6 flipped lecture G-doc.

Another very useful reading for the Brief 1 essay (with introduction overview by the editors for quick access). These historical context readings can be used to make connections in the evaluation sections of your essay, from the broad to the specific.

Nelson, Theodor H. “Proposoal for a Universal Publishing System and Archive (from Literary Machines).” The New Media Reader. Ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981. 441–462. Print.

And as a back up to the web article provided earlier (the full article without ads and an introduction overview).

Bush, Vannevar. “As We May Think.” The New Media Reader. Ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1945. 35–48. Print.

Net Smart (additional wk 5-6 reading)

An additional reading and book for considering what you do with online media.

Rheingold, Howard. Net Smart: How to Thrive Online. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012. Print.

Download and read the Net Smart ‘Introduction’ pdf.

Interview with the author – podcast

From the book summary:

Like it or not, knowing how to make use of online tools without being overloaded with too much information is an essential ingredient to personal success in the twenty-first century. But how can we use digital media so that they make us empowered participants rather than passive receivers, grounded, well-rounded people rather than multitasking basket cases? In Net Smart, cyberculture expert Howard Rheingold shows us how to use social media intelligently, humanely, and, above all, mindfully.

Mindful use of digital media means thinking about what we are doing, cultivating an ongoing inner inquiry into how we want to spend our time. Rheingold outlines five fundamental digital literacies, online skills that will help us do this: attention, participation, collaboration, critical consumption of information (or “crap detection”), and network smarts. He explains how attention works, and how we can use our attention to focus on the tiny relevant portion of the incoming tsunami of information. He describes the quality of participation that empowers the best of the bloggers, netizens, tweeters, and other online community participants; he examines how successful online collaborative enterprises contribute new knowledge to the world in new ways; and he teaches us a lesson on networks and network building.

Rheingold points out that there is a bigger social issue at work in digital literacy, one that goes beyond personal empowerment. If we combine our individual efforts wisely, it could produce a more thoughtful society: countless small acts like publishing a Web page or sharing a link could add up to a public good that enriches everybody.