Category: Week 11

The eleventh week’s posts


May
2017

Initiative Week 11

categories: Initiative, Semester 1, Week 11

A major news story recently is YouTube changing it’s community advertising standards, due to companies not wanting their products advertised on videos that were, essentially, hate speech.  That’s understandable.  However, YouTube took this to an extreme level.
First, YouTube released a new ‘restricted’ mode, in which content that was deemed ‘unethical’ or ‘immoral’ was hidden completely.  This caused controversy when LGBT YouTubers had content hidden that included words in the title such as ‘Gay’, ‘Lesbian’, ‘Bisexual’, and ‘Trans’, even when other videos on their channels were not restricted discussed sex and violence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_ICU7GADXk

YouTube has since responded to these complaints, stating that their automated system may have accidentally blocked some content that was unintended to be blocked, however there are still some strange videos being restricted, such as a Tegan and Sara music video with nothing sexual or about sexuality featured, while songs that are explicitly about sex are still being blocked.

Recently, these changes have started to affect not only which videos are seen, but which YouTuber’s make money.  Many YouTuber’s create content for their living, and rely on the funds that are made from advertising revenue.  By slashing these funds, many YouTuber’s are having to create fundraising pages on websites such as Patreon, and are having to cut back on the content they are producing.  This happened with one of my favourite wrestling promotions (I know), WhatCulture Pro Wrestling, or WCPW.
WhatCulture was originally a pop culture website (specializing in ‘listicles’), and gained a majority of their fans when they started posting content about wrestling.  They began their own wrestling promotion in May 2016, and have gained a major following, featuring well known wrestlers such as American Olympian Kurt Angle, Cody Rhodes, Alberto del Rio (now Alberto el Patron), Eric Bischoff, Rey Mysterio, and Matt Hardy.  They have also debuted unknown wrestlers, who have since become part of the main roster of the most well known wrestling promotion, WWE.
However, under the new YouTube advertising system, wrestling as a whole is now classified as violence and the advertising funds going towards wrestling videos have been severely cut, to the point where WCPW has had to cancel their weekly YouTube shows.

This creates a major issue, not only for the company who are now losing money, but also for the employees of WCPW.  Wrestlers of smaller promotions work on a show-by-show basis, meaning that when shows get cut, they get less money.  And because there is only so much wrestling that can be put into one show, there will always be wrestlers who miss out, and the company is more likely to go for the higher selling names.  That means that, while wrestlers like Joe Hendry and Martin Kirby may still be able to make ends meet, lesser known, or lesser established, wrestlers in the promotion will have to find other jobs if they want to continue working for WCPW, or move to another, non-online promotion.

The issue with this issue is the use of censorship.  It is understandable (sort of, not so much in the LGBT situation) for parents to want to hide certain content that may be confusing or dangerous to children, so that they have the ability to explain to them what they are watching.  However, this censorship is having serious affects on content creators who rely on advertising revenue.  This rise in censorship was started based on a rise in hate speech on YouTube, but the wrong people are being taken down.  Even when researching this topic, I saw videos titled ‘The Left Gets A Taste Of It’s Own Medicine: LGBT Videos Taken Down’.  There are now hate speech videos that are encouraging YouTube censorship.  That is the opposite of what they were supposed to do!

Advertisers have a lot of power when it comes to censorship.  But there have always been issues with censorship itself.  We used to see censorship used to hide the voices of women, of POCs, and of the LGBT community, and while we are still apparently seeing this today, a majority of censorship is used to remove the voices of those who are preaching hatred, such as videos supporting Nazism.  In a world that is now user-driven, is it fair to try to censor anyone, even if certain voices are causing violence and hatred?
I think yes, but I can see why it’s controversial and difficult to maintain.


May
2017

Tutorial Week 11

categories: Semester 1, Tutorials, Week 11

This week we took our recorders to the street to begin learning about editing sound.  Our group decided to combine with another group, because they were missing a group member, to make one awesome super group!  Our topic was the attention young people pay to their media devices.
I found editing this audio to be really quite fun.  We had a lot of content, because we understood that everyone would want to go in different directions when editing, but we made sure that all of the audio related to the story that we wanted to tell.
I decided to take a comedic approach, mostly because of the music I found.  I also find it difficult to hear my recorded voice so making it more comedic made sense in my mind.  The story of ‘Young People and their Media Devices, Grrr’ is so played out at this point that it’s difficult to take it seriously, especially when you are one of the young people.  I was quite surprised with how quickly I was able to edit it together.  I assumed it would take a long time, but it only took about 30 minutes.  While it’s slightly disjointed, I think that that works in it’s favor, helping to play up the comedy aspects while still telling two stories of mobile devices causing issues within society.  I may be seeing this through rose-tinted glasses, though, because I found it so much fun to make.
And I used to hate audio editing.  It’s amazing how much changes in a year.


May
2017

Lecture Week 11

categories: Lectures, Semester 1, Week 11

Unfortunately, I was absent from this weeks lecture.  According to the lecture notes, it was about the decline of broadcast television and the rapid rise of online streaming services (focusing on Netflix).
One of the main points in the lecture notes, which was echoed in this weeks reading, is that Netflix and other streaming services have been gaining popularity because of the on-demand nature of the services.  The lack of in your face advertising combined with the ability to choose what you watch and when is very appealing, especially in today’s world where we are able to get information at any given moment.
Unfortunately, this does lead to less ‘ethical’ means of advertisement, such as advertising to students in primary school (is the Scholastic Book Fair a form of advertisement?  Or merely a way to convince more children to read?  Shouldn’t books be free?  There are so many issues to unpack in this topic).  Even my boy Johnny O has discussed unethical advertising, from pharmaceutical companies to doctors.

It may also lead to silent advertising.  Product placement is a massive example, in which rather than advertising a product in the break of a television show, a television show or movie is paid to include certain shots and mentions of a product.  There is also, as seen in Netflix, ‘recommendations,’ where a streaming service will analyse what you watch, and suggest other shows or films for you to watch next.  The opening screen also advertises upcoming shows, or recently released shows.

I don’t really know how to end this post.  The system is broken?  I feel like that’s a common theme in my blogs…

Is my blog advertising The Fast and The Furious franchise by being named after them?  Am I contributing to the new wave of advertisements by offering free endorsements?

How far off topic did I go this week?

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