Online screen production completely transforms the way we think about media and how the audience engages with media artifacts and platforms. The internet has allowed the creation of endless content by giving a traditionally passive audience the ability to create and share with millions of others. Consequently, there is great variety in the qualities and subjects of online screen media.
Online production can closely reflect the qualities of older mediums of production- a web series may follow a linear story, have episodes, and feature relatable or engaging characters just like a television series would. The difference between a television-like web series and a real television series is in the way it is consumed, engaged with and discussed. The distribution of web series (on platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo) allows for a lot more viewer interaction and an easy place for audiences to discuss the series if they wish. However, most web series also have a major difference from television, in that there is no restriction on their length. There is certainly discussion around what length is appropriate for a web series, but at the end of the day, like all qualities of the web series, the length is totally unregulated.
This is a great, and I believe essential, essence of online screen production. It can be anything you want it to be. If you have the resources to write it, film it, craft it, code it, develop it, publish it, then you can. And the world will see it because the world can access it. It is unregulated and endlessly accessible.
I believe the unregulated quality of the internet has multiple consequences. With the accessibility of consuming and sharing, power is given to everyone with an internet connection. Old ways of one to many flows of communication are being dismantled, as Manuel Castells explains in this Technology Review article. Sociopolitical change is becoming easier as people share their stories and voices on the internet, and find others who are fighting the same cause. The recent #MeToo and Times Up movements would have been genuinely impossible without the internet. But with the power of social media, these movements were able to move into a public and international arena that engaged millions of individuals, not just those who are well known enough to have a platform for themselves.
However, while the unconstrained internet empowers people for the better, it also means that the massive, tangled web of the internet is constantly being expanded. A huge variety of content, and caliber of content, is being added every day. For this reason, I consider the internet to be an abyss that is growing with each passing day. It is an almost incomprehensible mass of content as people feel no limits to what they can publish. In this way, the accessible/unconstrained qualities mean it is increasingly difficult to actually get your content noticed and appreciated amongst the millions of terabytes of average (sometimes terrible, sometimes great) content.
It also means that the future of the internet is unknown. Who knows what new platforms and technology will exist in ten, twenty, fifty years time? I think a lot of the formal qualities of online screen media that we discussed in week one derive from the excitement of endless possibilities. Naturally, as new technology is available, people find new ways to use it and new things to make with it. So are born 360 videos, VR, an endless array of apps, new ways to engage with others, and new ways to share your work with others. I for one cannot wait to see the way traditional past times of storytelling and communicating are changed and evolve with the fluidity of the internet. We’re in for an exciting ride.