Here you will find my final documentary.

Now, I had a little bit of trouble with this, as when I came to upload my final version of it, my laptop died on me and so I could not access any of my work and I did not make any back-up copies at all – BIG MISTAKE.

Therefore, I had literally one day, well less, but the time I had before midnight tonight to create this video. So this is what I created. I had no content this morning, no bare bones editing done, I had to start from scratch.

The focus of my documentary was on the idea of YouTube becoming a fascination; the idea that people are so fascinated with the site that they choose to participate and get involved. I have featured user opinions throughout the documentary because rather than just having all theory, I wanted the ideas and opinions of actual users to be heard and so this is why I chose to do it this way.

Also, you will note that there is no narration on my documentary, and this is because I find narration off-putting as a viewer; also, it gets done far too often, everybody uses narration and I wanted to convey my message in a different way. This is why I chose to use quotes coupled with videos because the audience could identify who was saying what rather than it being just a voice over the top of some irrelevant moving image – the voice, most probably would have been me.

Bibliography

Videos

BIGBROTHERUKFAN. (2007). Big Brother UK Opening Titles – All Series’ (Merged). [Online video]. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWQhKx0xkWk&feature=PlayList&p=BC6A88337FD252A1&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=15. [Accessed on: 7/04/10].

CHELSEIBABY17. (2008). “Swing” By Savage Feat. Soulja Boy(ChelSei & KenDra Dancing). [Online video]. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwEzEqRthK4. [Accessed on: 7/04/10].

KZHINES. (2009). Anonymity Project: The PostSecret Effect. [Online video]. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWt5oswXarE. [Accessed on 7/04/10].

NELSONNATHANIELJR. (2008). Nelson dancing to Single. [Online video]. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2Vccik-wkM&feature=related. [Accessed on: 7/04/10].

ZELDAXLOVE64. (2009). Me Singing “One Time” by Justin Bieber. [Online video].  Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsO8EvME8q4. [Accessed on: 7/04/10].

99GUITARGIRL99. (2007). Hey There Delilah (cover) – Plain White T’s. [Online video]. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfzW7w5D8uY&feature=PlayList&p=CA8DE48F191DE519&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=1. [Accessed on: 7/04/10].

99GUITARGIRL99. (2008). Rihanna – Umbrella (cover). [Online video]. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1qwwmAoHws. [Acessed on: 7/04/10].

Music

Pianio Music – Jon Ernst

Secondary Research

JOHN C. DVORAK. (2006). Missing the point about YouTube. MarketWatch. Weblog. 10th Aug. Available from: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/most-people-are-missing-the-point-about-youtube. [Accessed on: 18/11/09].

JOHN HARTLEY. Youtube, Digital Literacy and the Growth of Knowledge. [Online]. Available from: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/media@lse/Conference/Conference_Papers_Keep_them_here/media@lseHartleyconferencepaper2008.pdf. [Accessed on 07/11/09].

JOHN HARTLEY. Youtube, Digital Literacy and the Growth of Knowledge. [Online]. Available from: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/media@lse/Conference/Conference_Papers_Keep_them_here/media@lseHartleyconferencepaper2008.pdf. [Accessed on 07/11/09].

Finally, my first YouTube video documentary draft has been added to YouTube.

You’ll notice that for the first minute or so there is no sound, this will be replaced with audio from Chad Hurley, and I may also neaten the vides up so that it looks tidier, but not too sure about that yet.

I will add more videos to the introduction part of the video too.

With the views of theorists and their ideas, I will either get videos of them, or use their audio or quotations, and mix this with videos that are relevant to what is being said.

I also like the idea of a split screen idea to contrast users’ points with each other, as well as compare them.

Second draft is coming along well and I will be uploading this on Wednesday, just have a few more things to sort out for it.

- I’d like to convey my research findings to people

- I’d like to create a documentary that informs people about the growing popularity of YouTube as a site of participatory media and to convey what actual YouTube users think of the sites success and reasons why they use YouTube in the way they do

How will I achieve what I want to?

- By interacting with users through YouTube, I am able to ask them questions about their content on YouTube and what their reasons are for participating through YouTube

- By adapting users feedback in an interesting way, be it through screen capture or through video responses they send me*

* (asking users to send me video responses to my questions provides an interesting way to convey my intended message, rather than just seeing a message on a screen)

- By using extracts from other YouTube videos it will enable me to convey what I mean through words as well as visual  effects as I can edit them as I wish to engage the audience

How will I set my video documentary out?

Introduction – this is where I will set out what I have tried to find out and what the documentary is going to be about

• Background – YouTube videos all layered together
• Audio – voice-over to introduce the documentary

Content will be responses to what I want to find out, mainly video responses form YouTube users about their own experiences and their own reasons for using YouTube.

Getting them to send their video responses so that I can use them in my own video enables a better use of audio-visual tools for the audience.

I will have user responses contrasted against theorists points of view on YouTube as a site of participatory culture and why people are using the site.

One particular article I have read, by Jose van Dijck, points out that while the idea of creating previously privatized media online may seem new, it is not. The article states that as ‘ordinary people’, we have always been involved in creating our own media, as home television or amatuer movies, but because of the accessible forms of networking available, sharing and uploading this content is really the thing in which people are getting excited about. It states that there is a form of ‘talk-back’ going on, which is nicely compared with the way in which a studio may work, but now because people are more involved with the participatory side of media, it is as if they are their own production company creating their own content.

JOSE VAN DIJCK. Users like you? Theorizing agency in user-generated content. Article [Online]. [Accessed on: 20/12/09].

I also read an article on Web 2.0 which was interesting in terms of content about what it is and how it is used. The article states that Web 2.0 delivers a platform for users to consume and remix data, as well as providing their own data in a form that allows remixing to others. In the case of YouTube, this ‘data’ would be video obviously. But this article nicely backs up the previous one about users having said platform available now.

BRYANT, L. (2009). What Is Web 2.0? Headshift. Weblog [Online]. 29th September. Available from: http://www.headshift.com/blog/2005/09/what-is-web-20.php [Accessed on 03/11/2009].

Even though these two articles raise some interesting points, they do not pinpoint exactly why people may be using YouTube as much as they are. An article by John Hartley which I read does give some idea why. It states that YouTube videos may be seen as stories, as he discusses social media is a form of self-expression and storytelling within a community, a comunity which he states is species wide.

The last point does provide an interesting point to think about. YouTube can be seen merely as a stage for people to perform; they create their own content and upload it to share it with others, encouraging feedback and video responses from other users, but, again, why?

Hartley suggests that  “However, few of the videos are ‘stories’ as traditionally understood; and the best of those that are, for instance lonleygirl15, pretend to be something else in order to conform to the conventions of dialogic social networks.”.

JOHN HARTLEY. Youtube, Digital Literacy and the Growth of Knowledge. [Online]. Available from: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/media@lse/Conference/Conference_Papers_Keep_them_here/media@lseHartleyconferencepaper2008.pdf. [Accessed on 07/11/09].

While I have been carrying out my research, I have managed to watch other videos that are similar to my own research project. One of these is Gingerale’s video under the ksudigg09 tab on facebook. It is available here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUkzFl1zUsE&feature=PlayList&p=60659E52B7B18BD7&index=2. The focus of the video is about identity and how people may be creating identities based on what other people on YouTube think, and this leads on to the point raised that there could be a sense of flattery going on. It is interesting because the point is one in which everybody can relate too, in all parts of life, people like attention and like to be flatter, so it would only make sense that people are using YouTube for exactly the same reason, being part of a community where this type of flattery and publicity goes on.

“Social networking tools creating a stage on which anybody can perform.” This is the idea of performativity and that is that people are merely putting on a show for people through YouTube and other social networking sites. The slideshow goes on to state that ‘the cult of celebrity’ is now ‘the cult of personality’. So, perhaps people are now more obsessed with unknown users on YouTube and focus on watching their content on YouTube rather than obsessing over celebrities in magazines, because YouTube is so popular, and there are many people part of that community that log on to YouTube so that they are able to respond to users they like.

I have read numerous amounts of articles on YouTube as a form of self-expression and such, and I have to say that most come to a similar conclusion. Take, for instance, Jose van Dijcks article ‘Users like you? Theorizing agency in user-generated content’.

“Over the past 15 years, viewers have increasingly acted as participants in game shows, quizzes, talk shows and make-over programmes. Particularly the surge of reality television has boosted the participation of ‘ordinary people’ in broadcast productions (Teurlings, 2001). In addition, the popularity of personal and communal media (home movies, home videos, community television) has profoundly affected television culture, particularly since the 1980s. What is different in the digital era is that users have better access to networked media, enabling them to ‘talk back’ in the same multimodal language that frames cultural products formerly made exclusively in studios. This is partly due to the availability of cheap and easy-to-use digital technologies, which certainly should stimulate audiovisual production of audiovisual production, but a more important driver is the many internet channels, particularly UGC sites, that allow for do-it-yourself distribution.”

Here he is pointing put that as consumers we have always took an active interest in media, and so the newness of YouTube is not quite so new, but in fact it as a traditional idea which now has the platform for users to upload their own material to be shared by many different users across the world.

This is definitely one of the reasons why people are uploading their material to YouTube, and, in fact, why they are taking their own time to do so, however it cannot be the only reason, there will be personal reasons that range in responses from the users I contact through YouTube and this is what I am mainly interested in finding out, the personal reasons from user to user.

I am not discounting the work I have read you see, I am merely reaching out for more evidence which backs my particulary hypothesis up. The work I have read is extremely interesting stuff and keeps me thinking about YouTube ans its popularity among users around the world, and in the next few weeks there will be more blogs to show you what other work I have been reading as well as my Literature reviews which will tie up all of my background reading.

Over the past 15 years, viewers have increasingly acted as participants in game shows, quizzes, talk shows and make-over programmes. Particularly the surge of reality television has boosted the participation of ‘ordinary people’ in broadcast productions (Teurlings, 2001). In addition, the popularity of personal and communal media (home movies, home videos, community television) has profoundly affected television culture, particularly since the 1980s. What is different in the digital era is that users have better access to networked media, enabling them to ‘talk back’ in the same multimodal language that frames cultural products formerly made exclusively in studios. This is partly due to the availability of cheap and easy-to-use digital technologies, which certainly should stimulate audiovisual production of audiovisual production, but a more important driver is the many internet channels, particularly UGC sites, that allow for do-it-yourself distribution.

Again, another article that backs up the idea that people have always been participants in media, it is just in the past the media and technology was not as freely available as it is nowadays, and with the popularity of YouTube, along with its ease of access and function, people are now creating content more than ever because they have a platform to do so. But surely, it can’t just be because YouTube is so easy to use as to why people are sharing their originally privatized bedroom cultures and reenactments with the world can it? There surely has to be other reasons …

Here it is, even though it took longer than I expected, but it is my second draft of my YouTube video trailer.

I used my most recent trailer using Adobe Premier Pro. What I wanted to convey through this trailer is to provoke ideas and thoughts about why people upload to YouTube; which is why I chose to feature two different videos which fall into different catagories.

The music video may fall into something called ‘self – expression’; and the other video may fall into the ‘reenactment’ culture catagory. This is what I find so interesting – there are so many videos out there and all uploaded for different reasons, and so by focusing on reenactment culture, bedroom culture and mediation I aim to find out why users who upload content which falls into these catagories actually do upload their content, as I have discussed in a previous blog, there could be a number of reasons for this ….

Could it be because it is fun to take part in such activities and to be able to share this ‘fun’ with other users?

Maybe it is because some users aspire to be professionals in their chosen topic?

Perhaps it is because people just want to conform to the norms of society and may feel left out if they do not involve themselves?

Maybe it is because media has taught us so the only way we know how to interact is through media?

Perhaps it is because people  now have complete control over whatever identity they wish to portray on YouTube

Whatever the reasons are, I want to find them out and this is the aim of my research project.

I want to discover the different reasons for creating this type of video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsvN-Sb9434

compared to this type http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgmR9D6jpQQ

and then compare reasons given. Maybe they are both the same reasons, or maybe they are completely different!

This type of media interaction starts at a very young age, therefore that would clearly back up my point of being taught by media so interact through media! There are many children’s shows which centre around participation, socialising children into a more participatory culture.

Is it, like some research suggests, just for fun?

Is it because people have always wanted to do this but now the technology enables them to do it?

Is it because people aspire to be professionals in their chosen field of interest?

Or is it because we are taught through media and so the only way we know how to interact is through media; it is how we have been socialised?

So many questions, and I wish to be able to answer each one once I have carried out my research. I will do this by reading articles, books and blogs on my topic and also by carrying out my own research. I will do online surveys to YouTube users who fall into the catagories of ‘Reenactment’ or ‘Bedroom TV’. I will also try and get a focus group together to draw conclusions about the reasons why people choose to reenact material or why they decide to record themselves dancing in front of their cameras in their bedroom.

There are some very interesting points about why people upload themselves to YouTube; changing from something that was thought to be private to something where we now show everybody, dancing in our bedrooms used to be a private activity but now because of YouTube, it has now become a more public thing to do; perhaps because of the pressure of people to conform to the idealogies of YouTube users.