Author Archives: lucywadelton

Vlogging As An Artform

One of the things we talked about in the lectorial on Monday was the idea that media is aware that ‘every consumer is a potential creator’. This got me thinking, especially when it was exampled by the concept of ‘vlogs’ – whose very success is relied upon by it’s home video, amateur style of production. Which is interesting, in contrast to the nature of Hollywood and blockbuster films. Of course the revenue produced by vlogs are not on par to that of multimillion dollar budget movies, but the internet sensation that is ‘vlogging’ and Youtube over all is gaining popularity and momentum yearly.

Back in the day, vlogging was just a hobby – as was Youtube as a whole. I should probably explain for whoever has been living under a rock (or maybe just happen to be over the age of 45 and has no idea how to even use Youtube – looking at you mum) what Vlogging actually is. Video + Blogging = Vlogging. Or in other words, a video diary!

Unlike the old days, now people involved can actually get paid for making the unprofessional content. I was never big into Youtube, but I have to say that I really fell in love with the ‘vlog’ genre. I watch a lot of Tanya Burr – especially Christmas Daily Vlogs – in part because I love her as a person, and because I love being immersed in places and with people who I’ve never met. That’s the selling point for vlogging – you can experience a day in the life of someone who has a very different home, family, world even to you. I’m big on travel, so seeing travel vlogs are probably my favourite. I’m going to put one below as an example. I even have a few Vlogs up on my own channel from schoolies and just assorted excursions with friends over the past year. I find the experience of watching the videos and making them yourself just as enjoyable. But perhaps that’s just because I’m a media student and kind of supposed to enjoy filming and editing. I’m not sure. I’ll link one of my own underneath too!

Medium Theory!

According to Murphie and Potts, “Medium theory is a special type of media study that focuses on such characteristics of each medium and on how each medium (or each type of media) physically, socially, psychologically distinct from other media.” (2002). There are 3 metaphors for this – media as conduit (textual analysis), media as languages (affordances) and media as environments (medium analysis).

An interesting way of explaining it was also described as hot and cold media – hot being information fed right to your brain say via a book, and cold media being something like TV – background noise, people choose to tune in and out to it. I thought this explanation was interesting and fed into media communication theories a little – with ‘hot’ being like the Bullet theory (in which media has a direct and instant influence on audience’s opinions) and ‘cold’ like the Users and Gratification theory (in which media does not influence an individual, and people consume media for their own entertainment and needs).

How Are You Going?

So I didn’t go into Media workshop this morning – nor did the rest of my group. As luck would have it, we’re all suffering varying levels of sickness. I was very sick yesterday and needed to day to recuperate and catch up on work that I’ve been unable to do pretty much the past 2 weeks. Thanks Body for that! Not!

Anyway, I’ve pretty much been assigned to do the editing for the Video Essay. It’s pretty stressful and kind of hard without everyone there to approve of everything. But at the same time, the work would get done so slowly if we all had to edit together at once. My team has been really helpful – providing me with all the found footage that I need to actually compile together into a 5-minute piece. They’ve even given me a little draft storyboard to help me get along without them.

I guess the struggle for me is trying to get past the first hurdle – I’ve put together about 30 seconds worth, but everything else is just a bunch of edited down footage with no place to go. I’m trying though, I really am.

I’m hoping that after I make some blog posts and therefore have caught up a bit in Media and Cinema, I’ll get some editing done later. It’s not that I don’t like editing – in fact, what we’re doing is really interesting to me personally. But it’s hard on my own, when I’ve been really sick, too. We’re all working well as a team though, I think, considering all the things pitting against us lately. Oh and ! I’ve also finished the my part of the annotated bibliography, so there’s that. Stay tuned for more!

Media Influence

It’s actually really crazy how much media relates to body image. I’ve been researching it a lot for the project, obviously, and have found some pretty daunting statistics and videos about it. For example, did you know only 4 percent of the female population fit the ideal body weight and appearance most often portrayed in mass media. On top of that, only 2 percent of women consider themselves ‘beautiful’ while a majority of young girls between 10-13 consider themselves ‘overweight’. There’s endless material on film and in scholar articles about the correlation and I’ll actually link some so you can see for yourself.

http://stylecaster.com/beauty/surprising-statistics-beauty-industry/

Grizzly Man, Grizzly Death.

The way the documentary ‘Grizzly Man’ (Werner Herzog, 2005) is edited and narrated all aid to create a really interesting almost philosophical narrative out of footage that can be, at times, quite funny. We actually talked a bit about the humour of Timothy Treadwell and how it was used within the documentary. Lots of people, myself included, found it sort of hard to crack a smile until we’d gotten used to the kind of black humour of it all. Because yes – we’re allowed to smile! Some of the things he said were really, quite funny. My personal favourite was Treadwell’s endearing names (for example Mr. Freckles) for giant wild bears and the domesticity of his situation, despite everything.

Herzog uses many conventions of the documentary filmmaking to tell Treadwell’s story – such as voice over narration, ‘real’ footage, natural sound and lighting, and so on. Voice over and real footage are crucial elements of Grizzly Man and edited together, they manipulate the audience to take a certain stance on the character of Timothy Treadwell. For example, Herzog frequently shows footage of Timothy talking about death – his own, specifically – leading up to his tragic fate. This foreshadowing is imminent from the very beginning of the documentary – we know he is going to die, and this is only a reminder. This is especially evident during footage shown from just 5 hours before he was attacked, where Treadwell talks of dying for what he loves and his final resting place can be pictured in the background of the particular shot – Herzog wastes no opportunity by pointing this very fact out to the audience.

As the documentary unfolds, Treadwell is depicted to become slowly more unstable. Herzog manages to leak Treadwell’s unravelling sanity as the story plays on until we no longer see him as just a quirky, unusual but well meaning man (though I still feel this way despite the swearing rant scene).

Aside from the mostly naturalistic footage of Treadwell himself, much of the interviews with close friends and family feel… for want of a better word – fake. As we talked about in class, many of the acquaintances of his were ‘media savy’ with the pilot even being an actor, reinacting some of the events of when they found Treadwell and his girlfriend dead. The most unnerving being the Coroner – who is the one to tell the audience about the death in uncomfortable detail.

Vernon, the narrator, has a strong presence the entire documentary and even in many cases goes on a sort of… ramble, about the meaning of life. The best example of this is during the very ending where he talks of the ‘cold unfeeling’ eyes of the bears who were, in the end, Treadwell’s demise.

Instagram Update: Yay or Nay?

It was right after Thursday’s workshop when myself and some friends were having lunch and realised Instagram had updated their app – in a big way. We got to comparing the old interface and app icon with the new one (which looks like this by the way):

Screen Shot 2016-05-15 at 12.44.49 PM

The whole thing really struck me as good thing to post about, because like me and my friends from Workshop, the whole internet seemed to combust at the update. We definitely didn’t like the update – mostly the icon is what threw me. Instagram has never updated their application icon before – not in the 5 years since the app first launched. So as you can imagine, this was a deal breaker for many that the theme layout update just doesn’t compare to. With the internet being the way it is it became a kind of meme on several platforms. It reminded me a lot of the interaction of Audiences with a media product, especially social media, which we’ve discussed in Lectorials before. The controversy surrounding this has even gone to the extent of there being ‘hacks’ to get the old interface back!

This article at Forbes was quick to address that Instagram is simply trying to get with the times – and that the old icon has looked out of place with the regular IPhone updates for a long time now.

Media Characteristics

In the lectorial yesterday we got to talking about different media platforms – or institutions – like Facebook, ABC and things like community media. So what characterises these mediums into institutional? Facebook’s main values are to connect people. It’s personalised and focuses on communication with friends and family, sharing, community and the entire thing is very inclusive. Someone even pointed out the fact that even it’s emails use inclusive and informal language with sentences like ‘we’ve missed you’.

ABC on the other hand, is much more formal. They’re neutral politically and culturally – and although they’re funded by the government they tend not to favour one political side over the other.

I don’t know much about community media – but from what I know it talks mostly about non-for-profit radio and magazines. It’s less hierarchal than normal radio and doesn’t have an agenda. It tends to capture a wider range of voices and is less driven by commercial interests. It’s also somewhat of a training ground for newcomers.

Amber and I decided to do a little work before lunch today in Melbourne Central, of all places, but it’s early so there’s not many people around. I got to thinking about ‘noticing Media’ which I’ve been doing a lot whenever I’m in the city. I keep seeing that hand-painted billboard spot that now has a Star Wars DVD advertisement but had Batman Versus Superman just shy of 2 weeks ago. I think it’s interesting to note how much effort is put into advertisement and media in city ‘hot spots’ – that is to say, where I sit right now overlooks a far less busy street and there’s no where near as much posters or ads in the street than say, Swanson. I can see one radio billboard at the side of the tram stop but that’s about it. Compared to Swanson – which is complete with video advertising on giant plasma screens – this is nothing. It made me think about ads on TV in ‘prime time’ viewing and certain websites who get paid more to advertise things in the sidebars because it’ll attract more people.

Collectivist

I made some notes about Media institutions from the lecture. They are ‘enduring’, have regulated and structured activities, develop working practices, the employees and people associated are expected to share values and the public is aware of the status. The word Brian used to describe these ‘shared values’ was that media institutions are collectivists – that is to say, each individual must reflect the values of the group as a whole. When I was thinking of examples of this, I got to remembering a few times in which people have publically been racist or homophobic and ‘doxed’ to the point of being fired from their job.

This happened quite frequently as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement – from at least what I’d been seeing on social media and news outlets (though news tended to favour white perspectives). I saw a few incredibly racist people being tracked down via the web for comments on their Twitters and Facebook’s that resulted in companies cut affiliations with them as they do not reflect the values of the firm. I think that’s a perfect example of ‘collectivist’ media institutions – or at least, the good side. The other example I can think of is when singers or bands cancel shows/performances in regions as a result of the place’s not LGBT+ friendly laws or regulations as a sort of protest.

Marriage as an institution

In the lecture yesterday Brian pulled up a photograph of a man and a woman, clearly on their wedding day and posed the question of Marriage as an institution. We then had a discussion with our peers about what marriage means to us, or what it generically symbolises. I thought this was an interesting idea, because the way media portrays the concept of marriage and the way it is reduced to things like a white dress and a black suit is often quite fair from the actual ‘sanctity’ of it. But I digress.

By talking about what marriage symbolises, especially with the rest of the class, helped get a sense of peoples’ perspectives. I think most people were pretty cynical, myself included and my friend even said “50 percent of marriages end in divorce” which sort of summed up the mood.

I wrote a few dot points down about what I was saying and what others were too. The most obvious is that it symbolises a union, a legal contract and monogamy. It has generations worth of rituals – like hen’s night and the rings and depending on the religion of the two individuals in question, a church. I think mostly though, it represents a very outdated social expectation and as someone said we are socialized to aspire to marriage as the ultimate relationship achievement. Whereas for many, marriage is just a legal contract and doesn’t consider things like gender and sexuality – rather it reinforces a gender conforming ideal of wife and husband. Don’t even get me started on the fact that Australia, among 174 other countries haven’t even legalized gay marriage yet.