Moral Panics and Internet Paranoia

I must thank my student Leah for inspiring this post.

She's written on her blog about a video clip she found on YouTube , purportedly showing a Saudi Arabian footballer getting kicked in the head during a match and subsequently dying.

Leah, having been told to be wary of anything she reads online, especially when the text is based on unmoderated audience feedback, went off and dug around for the truth. 

Eventually, she discovered that the chap was fine and went on the play more professional football.

The point I wish to make is this: it's good academic practice to double check secondary sources and seek independent verification of claims. That goes for material read in a journal, for example, just as much as it does for material found online. 

The horrific attacks in Mumbai last week saw proponents of Twitter , the online service that allows users to post quick one-liners about what they're doing from mobile phones, PDAs and the like, to claim that this was the event that saw Twitter come of age as a news tool.

The issue is, of course, that what Twitter delivers isn't news. It's information. We need skilled journalists to make sense of all this data, to craft it into something that makes contextual sense to us, as an audience at one step removed from the drama that is unfolding. 

The immediacy of the web, and the ease with which moving and still images can be flashed around the world, gives the impression that we are right in the thick of the action. The reality, of course, couldn't be further from the truth. What we are witnessing at such times are multiple streams of complex material. This all amounts to a jumbled re-presentation of the actuality. A multi-camera angled jamboree of vision and noise, as it were. 

Searching around online for evidence of others feeling the same way as I do, I was impressed by the writing of technology journalist Om Malik. His posting about Twitter makes sound sense, and is worth a read.

Allen Stern , writing for Information Week, makes some more technical points about how the infrastructure of Twitter makes it hard for the software to work as a news filter. 

The Guardian has an interesting article that looks at how bloggers, and photo sharing site Flickr also provided additional information, as the tragedy in Mumbai unfolded.

So, where does this leave us? Newspapers still have a role to play, as the suppliers of intelligent analysis. Radio provides fast and intimate contact with those involved in events, while TV news can continue to help us make sense of what is becoming an increasingly complex, fragmented, yet seemingly inter-connected world. In between all of that, the range of web-based software communication tools will make inroads into the traditional roles of their predecessors, generating new ways of telling stories, shaping information, and challenging our assumptions about how communication between one and the many, or as is increasingly the case, between the many and the many, takes place. Now, what was it McLuhan said about the medium being the message??

Imagining the future of mobile technology

Occasionally I find myself chatting to students or colleagues about where technology is taking us in terms of what we can use to enhance the learning environment.

At present I've bought a couple of small, mobile phone sized, camcorders produced by a company called Flip. They launched their first pocket sized camcorder a year ago, and with a staff of just 90 people now control 90% of the global camcorder market. Simplicity has been the recipe for their success. The camcorder looks like a mobile phone, has a record button, an on/off switch on the side, a nifty USB port that pops up from the top, and contains basic editing software built into the unit. This is downloaded onto a PC or Mac the first time you use it, and allows basic editing. From there it's a breeze to upload onto YouTube, MySpace and so on. The lens is fixed, the video only VGA quality (although an HD version has just been released in the States) and the aim is to use the kit for video snapshots. This is social filming, following on from where Face Book and Twitter have taken us, in terms of text based instant communication.

The Flip camcorders hold up to an hour of material, and I have to say that I am having to physically wrench the ones I bought for evaluation out of my colleagues' hands. Over in Science, they've been used to capture gravity in action, make short presentations on how Statins help reduce cholesterol, and keep records of projects in progress. They've also been used to make sports reports on team matches, while the English department are gearing up to give them a good workout next week.

What's been fascinating is how attractive the kit is to staff who wouldn't normally get involved in technology. The Flip camcorders don't look threatening, are easy to use, and the payback is instantaneous. It doesn't require great filming or editing skills, just a willingness to think imaginatively about how the kit can be deployed. Indeed, given the fact the camcorders come with a TV Out facility, some staff have used them to show experiments in action, with the luxury of having an AVI file stored for future use.

Based on a week's experience, I'm guessing we'll be placing some orders in the not too distant future. 

Meanwhile, a spoof offering made me laugh at the insanity of where miniaturization is taking us. The Pomegranate Phone is a marvelous piece of inventive fun, and worth looking at.  The promo video is below:

The accompanying website is even funnier, and worth a look. You can find it here. 

Of course, where the satirists lead the reality is sure to follow. I'm quite interested in the opportunities presented by the Optoma Pico a ridiculously small projector, designed to accompany a smartphone, PDA, iPod, or laptop. There are definite possibilities for making instant presentations, multimedia installations and the like.  I tend to get my hands on kit, start with a premise about how it can be used in an educational setting, and then see how those around me respond. The end results often aren't what I imagined they might be. But that, naturally, is the beauty of experimenting with the unknown. 

Greetings to the reader in Kuwait!

You may have noticed that down at the bottom right hand side of this page there's a map of the world. It's produced by a great company called ClustrMaps who offer a rather interesting service. 

Every time someone visits my blog their IP address (the numerical version of a web address, which looks something like 104.23.776.54) is noted by ClustrMaps' software, which records where in the world it originated; and keeps a note of that geographical information. This data is updated once a day and plotted on the world map. Using this I can see where my readers are based.

So, it's with some surprise and delight that I've discovered I have a reader in Kuwait (plus one in Taiwan too). This is fantastic, and is a great advert for the global reach of the Web.

I must confess to being very curious about my reader in Kuwait. Do they teach Media Studies there? Would they like to? So, now that I know you're out there, I hope you don't mind me being nosey and asking you to get in touch. It would be marvellous to find out how you found my blog and what parts of it are of interest to you.  

You can mail me directly at svanstraten@mac.com or leave me a comment.

Either way, I hope you're enjoying my postings, and I trust you will continue to do so in the future.

Take care, 

Sacha

Filming for effect

As my various Year 12 Media Studies groups get stuck into planning the opening two minutes of a film that they must plan, shoot and edit, it seemed an opportune moment to reflect on what makes for a powerful cinematic viewing, when time is tight, money non-existent and resources more limited that one might like.

Quite often, the simplest ideas are the ones that bear the greatest fruit. That means thinking carefully about mise-en-scene - lighting, location, costume, framing and so on - and how to maximise what strengths are available. 

I was reminded of this as I read about a film by the first time director Lance Hammer, who's spent several years self-funding, writing, directing and then editing his feature length debut, Ballast.

Although Hammer shot on 35mm film, he did so using hand held cameras, and then edited the movie over two years using a Mac, Final Cut Pro, Color, and DVD Studio Pro. We have all of the hardware and software in school that Lance himself used. So, from that point of view, taking on board how he made the film, and the lessons that he learnt, are relevant.

First though, here's a link to the trailer for Ballast:

There's a great article about how Hammer did it on the Apple website.

You can read it here.

There are many stories and examples of people bucking the Hollywood system and following their own dream. The example of how Ballast got made is the latest in a long line of guerrilla film makers, such as Robert Rodriguez.

His seminal book, Rebel without a Crew, became a must-have guide about how to transform the obstacles of film making into advantages. It's worth a read.

Anyway, all being well, I'll have some work in progress to review and show early in the new year. For now, it's planning, planning, and more planning still, to ensure the ideas that are brought to life are the best ones possible.

Woz it all about?

It's very easy to become overly fixated on studying audiences and their changing leisure/media consumption patterns, without considering the powerful forces shaping the evolving dynamics of audience/institution interactions at a technological level.

What is often overlooked is the role that engineers play in the empowerment process.

So, it is with much pleasure that I came across this rare interview with Steve Wozniak, one of the co-founders of Apple and the engineering genius behind it in the beginning.

His views on hacking iPhones, the importance of engineers as the forces for change in mass communication, and other matters too, make this an engaging watch. I'm linking to the 12 minute version, but there's  a cut-down version too on the BBC. Personally, I think the longer version is worth the extra wait.

Click here to watch the interview.