I’m sorry it took me so long to get this up. I Was planning on having it done on Friday, but have had an extremely busy week/weekend. I decided to write about Aaron’s piece because I thought it was interesting and completely agreed with it. The videos that we watched in class last week helped me to understand his article much better. The 2008 election was such a huge deal at the time. I personally was not very concerned with it at the time because I was young and had different things going on, but I do remember how the media played a huge role in the election. I recall people making Obama seem as if he was some type of terrorist. It seemed as if there were two extremes in the election; either you hated Obama or you hated McCain.
“it is important to note that the vernacular videographers are engaging in crafty editing practices in their arguments. In many cases, they have selected those individuals who perform the most extreme actions (Sunstein, 2007) and portray them as evidence for the whole. As a type of argument of guilt by association, the videographers present montages of the supporters, telling viewers to vote because of the horrors found at McCain rallies.” (Hess 113) This was an excellent way to sum up how the videographers were portraying Mccain/Palin supporters. These videographers were brilliant! Had I not known any better, I would have thought that supporters of McCain/Palin were very uneducated and biased. They seemed to find the most judgemental people who simply hated Obama because of his race. They didn’t really know that much about him, all they really knew was that they did not like black or muslim people.
Another concept that Hess discussed was the “mash up” technique, “Which combines existing footage
together to create a new video. In this case, a selection of YouTubers combined elements of
both news, institutional, and vernacular sources to make new videos. At the most basic level,
some YouTubers, such as Chris NYC (2008), Cmdrgmh (2008), and VoiceofAmericans2008
(2008), merely reposted local or national news regarding the issue of the McCain mobs. In
other cases, however, YouTubers used more elaborate editing to make connections between
vernacular videos and national news (camerontr, 2008). Kaffemoka (2008) mashes part of
McCain's speech at a presidential debate with bloggerinterrupted's (2008a, 2008b) Strongsville,
OH, videos and a collection of pictures, likely taken from a simple Google image
Search.” (Hess 115) This type of technique that the videographers used established a strong sense of credibility. I think that when people see real clips of the News, they assume that what they are viewing is accurate. If the News channels deem it worthy of being on television, then we should as well. I found this strategy that the videographers used to be very interesting as well as effective. I spent a little time searching YouTube to try and find videographers who used this same strategy in a different situation, but I was not successful in doing so. Has anyone else come across videos that have used this mash up technique, and what did you think of it? Did it strengthen the credibility of the author, in your opinion?
~Brittany Huggins
I agree the use of montages are really a great way to influence people. First because they are fast paced and they keep their audiences interested. Especially in today's culture a video has to be nonstop amusement or we simply click on a new link. I think ultimately this has a negative effect on the person watching the video. The person views a mashup of videos that could be entirely taken out of context, but due to the credible sources that the material comes from (photos, news channels, speeches) the message of the video rings true to the viewer. The viewer is overwhelmed with either positive or negative messages about an idea or a person and even though this was only for five minutes or so the concentration of messages leave them influenced. The most effected by these montages are those who are unwilling to think critically or research these messages to find out their validity.
ReplyDeleteOn the note of the news mash-ups, I went and watched a few of them and it made be think "wow, I really have too much trust in media that is shot in a local news format. I watched a few videos that were about outrageous stories that I thought were true until I caught on to some editing flaws that revealed them to be mash-ups of different news stories. I think now I'll be a little more skeptical.
The idea of the montage or mash-up follows how our brains have changed over time. I happen to be discussing the use of montages in another class. If we look at how films/movies used to be made, there were long single shots and the audience was responsible for developing meaning. Today, I think we default to floods of images that are interconnected that tell us what to think. If all of the images are arranged in a way that the meaning is obvious, we do not have to work as hard I believe this has become an expectation of society.
ReplyDeleteThis article discussed above and the concept of vernacular spectacle ties in nicely with the Burgess article concerning "Everyday Creativity as Civic Engagement" and Deuze's three configurations or modes of engagement; participation, remediation, and bricolage. Also, Burgess's concept of a shifting distinction between online and offline "community" relates directly to the creative output produced by the YouTube anti-McCain videographers. First, these videos meet all the criterea of participation, where the videographers engage their audience in "meaning-making". Second, they expect the audience to absorb their heavily manipulated footage of the McCain campaign rallies, but also encourage viewers to "modify" the message as they see fit. Finally, the YouTubers fully expect the viewer to form their own opinion, thus enabling the process of bricolage to occur. Here the audience instinctively reassembles the information to create their own version of events (Burgess, 2006,p.4). The YouTubers also blur the definition of community by playing with the concepts of electronic democracy and the vernacular spectacle. The spectacle, as manipulated by the creators, is so downright ugly that, looking back, I wonder how many people watched the YouTube videos and decided to vote for Obama. Not for distinctly defined political reasons, but because they did not percieve themselves as bigots and racists?
ReplyDeleteIn this article I like how you used the idea of credibility and how politicians create credibility, even if it is false, to influence the masses. The easiest way for this credibility to be created is to use editing to create “mash-ups” of both the masses and the established media showing a reality that they want portrayed and by creating this reality politicians are showing their true intentions. It makes you wonder what is real and if “homemade” videos are even real or just another portrayal of what the director wants you to see?
ReplyDelete