Project brief #4’s social experiment went in directions I didn’t expect. I think we did well with the diversity and relevance of platforms we engaged with and the theory we explored that led us to make those decisions. Looking at the audience from a producer’s point of view was a take that interested me because the way content is produced and distributed has changed so drastically with the popularisation of social media and the internet. I’m fascinated by the way the audience has, in many ways, become the producer and especially the distributor. Cate Klancey was a great medium to explore this change in audience dynamics. The theory that motivated our decisions was strong and I think that blogging our findings as we went (on https://cateklancey.wordpress.com) was a good way to supplement and add texture to the videos and social media.

 

Unfortunately, because we put Cate Klancey out into the world, we gained very little information to work with. Our lack of data meant that we had to rely on research for most of our information. The nature of our experiment meant that it was unlikely from the beginning that Cate would be ‘accepted’ by audiences, who are notoriously good at detecting anything inorganic. It’s a shame that we didn’t have the opportunity to draw our own conclusions about audience engagement and participation. Tragically, not every video will achieve the awe-inspiriting popularity of ‘Dog screams like a man’.

 

An alternative could have been to reach out to a former reality star and use their “celebrity” base (which Cate obviously didn’t have) to kickstart a campaign. Logistically (and possibly legally), this would have been nearly impossible but would have given us a better chance at actually connecting and interacting with a relevant audience, rather than one comprised of Russian spam-bots and 12 year-olds from South Carolina. The fact that most of Cate’s followers were gained through the #followforfollow hashtag meant that a majority of her following was disengaged, only having followed her to boost their own follower count. We debated buying followers, but that would have weakened their quality even more. The theory follows that potential audiences are impressed by a large follower count and are therefore more likely to follow. As we were examining audiences from a producers point of view, this was an option, but since were motivated to interact with any followers we did gain as part of the experiment we decided against it.

 

Collaboration is something I’ve struggled with in the past. I often find group projects frustrating and was very lucky to work with a team that were receptive and honest communicators. In some ways, it would have been a good learning experience to work in a relatively low-stakes situation with a group that was completely dysfunctional but overall I’m glad that I could learn and solidify some collaborative skills.

 

My belief that communication is key has been strengthened by this assignment. Every group member needs to attend the meetings, respond to texts and emails promptly and voice any problems they’re having with their workload or other members of the group. Fortunately, I don’t believe my group suffered too much from any communication problems and overall what we did worked. A group message service, like WhatsApp (which we used) or Facebook Messenger was essential for keeping in touch and is something I’ll continue to use in the future. Sharing the Google Drive first thing was also good and afforded everyone equal access to see and upload documents, rather than having a ‘gatekeeper’ who was in charge of uploading everything. Finally, a blog that we could all update with our findings as we went was an easy and well-presented way to present a portfolio of our information that we could update as we went along. Open sharing tools like these are fantastic and I’d like to build upon my knowledge them for future collaborations.

 

Creating a contract was very helpful in initially setting our goals and standards. Next time I do a project like this, I’d like to make it even more specific and refer back to it more often. It was difficult to create it with formal tasks and goals when our project was constantly evolving and I felt that there were occasional problems in dividing the work. I’m not sure how to address this problem but knowing that it could be an issue means that I’ll focus on it future projects and develop a solution through experience.