SMSociety14

I will be at the poster session for the Social Media & Society International Conference (September 27-28, Toronto)

Title: Sharing online videos for deeper interaction among friends

ABSTRACT

Background: The phenomenon of sharing content on social network sites has been widely explored in communication and Internet studies. Many authors recognize the importance of social connections between individuals, but they do not explain why and how users share content (Haridakis & Hanson, 2009; Jenkins, Ford, Green, & Green, 2012). Moreover, since these social connections are made visible by social media platforms, specific topics have been studied by such as: impression management and self-presentation (boyd & Ellison, 2007), issues of disclosing personal information, building and maintaining network (Caers et al., 2013).

Objective: However, maintaining one’s network, especially friendship, can be done in a less visible manner on social network sites. This paper analyses how sharing online videos is used to build and maintain friendship bonds between young adults.

Videos are an unavoidable Internet phenomenon (Purcell, 2010). Videos move from one site to another, from computer to phone, they are spread through word of mouth, and broadcast on television. Distributing a link to a video clip is often called sharing, users are enthusiastic about sharing audiovisual content (Cesar et al., 2008) ,and the numbers of shares ─ of online adults who watch videos on video-sharing sites ─ has nearly doubled since 2006 (Madden, 2009). Since sharing is at the heart of social media sites, there is a strong link between watching online videos and interpersonal communication (Oumard, Mirza, Kroy, & Chorianopoulos, 2008).

Methods: The data used in this paper are from semi-structured and open interviews. I proceed by conducting three interviews per participant, allowing the construction of a dialogue. During the first interview, I asked participants to simply describe their everyday experiences related to online videos. A second interview allowed me to elaborate on some details. The last meeting was directly inspired by the notion of reflective practices (Finlay, 2002), as researcher and participant discussed the initial interpretations and the research process.

Results: Far from being simply a vehicle for self-presentation, participants only share publically videos that will be of interest to everybody. Most of the time, they share online video to specific friends according to specific events or contexts. This paper illustrates how users express emotion, how sharing a video is a form of paying attention to others, how information, feelings or personal experiences can be shared through a YouTube link. It goes on to argue that video serves as a complementary channel of communication ─ sometimes the only one, sometimes as a reinforcement for a conversation ─ blurring even more the already fading boundary between online and offline interaction.

Conclusions: The paper concludes by suggesting that current research needs to go beyond examining what is visible on social network sites in order to understand how sharing communicates something about relationships between people.

References: 

Bondad-Brown, B., Rice, R., & Pearce, K. E. (2011). A Uses and Gratifications and Social Media Approach to Understanding Online Video Use and Content Recommendations. Paper presented at the ICA, Boston.

boyd, d., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 13(1), 210-230.

Caers, R., Feyter, T. D., Couck, M. D., Stough, T., Vigna, C., & Bois, C. D. (2013). Facebook: A literature review. New Media & Society, 15(6), 982-1002.

Cesar, P., Bulterman, D. C. A., Geerts, D., Jansen, J., Knoche, H., & Seager, W. (2008). Enhancing social sharing of videos: fragment, annotate, enrich, and share Proceedings of the 16th ACM international conference on Multimedia (pp. 11–20). New York, NY, USA: ACM.

Haridakis, P., & Hanson, G. (2009). Social Interaction and Co-Viewing With YouTube: Blending Mass Communication Reception and Social Connection. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 53(2), 317-335.

Jenkins, H., Ford, S., Green, J., & Green, J. B. (2012). Spreadable media: Creating value and meaning in a networked culture: NYU Press.

Madden, M., Project, P. I., & American, L. (2009). The audience for online video-sharing sites shoots up. Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Oumard, M., Mirza, D., Kroy, J., & Chorianopoulos, K. (2008). A cultural probes study on video sharing and social communication on the internet Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Digital Interactive Media in Entertainment and Arts (pp. 142–148 ). New York, NY, USA: ACM.

Purcell, K. (2010). The state of online video: Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Partager pour s’exprimer

Le jeudi 20 mars 2014 j’ai présenté au colloque interuniversitaire de l’AEMDC (l’Association des étudiants (es) à la maîtrise et au doctorat en communication de l’UQAM) J’étais dans le panel sur la présentation de soi.

Voici un résumé de ma présentation sur le partage de vidéo comme moyen d’expression: Depuis l’apparition du Web 2.0, beaucoup d’attention a été portée sur les notions telles que la présentation de soi, la surveillance et le voyeurisme, mais je suggère que d’autres aspects seraient profitables à explorer comme celle du partage. Cette communication invite à s’intéresser aux pratiques communicationnelles des internautes à travers le partage de vidéo en ligne. En effet, en 2013, 78 % des internautes regardent ou téléchargent des vidéos en ligne (Purcell, 2013). En 2011, 500 tweets publiés par minute contenaient un lien YouTube, et plus de 150 ans vidéo YouTube ont été visionnés sur Facebook chaque jour (Li, Wang, Liu, & Xu, 2012).

Le partage de lien YouTube sur Twitter et Facebook

Qu’est-ce qui motive les internautes à autant partager des vidéos en ligne ?

Concernant les réseaux sociaux numériques, beaucoup de gens partagent des vidéos pour vanter leur accomplissement de découverte ou recommander un contenu (Bondad-Brown, Rice, & Pearce, 2012). Cette communication montrera que d’autres motivations existent. Nous verrons comment le partage de vidéos s’imbrique dans une danse complexe entre contenus, individus et contextes à travers des exemples d’internautes exprimant émotion, idée, et argument. Plus précisément, nous explorons comment le partage de vidéo est plus qu’une présentation de soi ou une recommandation, mais une forme d’ouverture aux autres.

• Les internautes partagent des vidéos en ligne pour exprimer

Leurs goûts
Leur valeurs
Leurs émotions

• Les internautes veulent partager l’émotion ressentie par le visionnement de la vidéo :

 Je pense qu’’il attendait la même réaction, un genre de ah ! » (Nathalie, 3e entrevue).

• Les internautes utlisent les vidéos en ligne pour s’exprimer au-delà des mots

On a eu une discussion avec des mots beaucoup plus simple, mais j’ai saisi qu’il avait compris ce que je voulais dire, parce qu’on avait la même façon de s’expliquer les choses. Oui, c’est poétique. C’est très beau.  (Sandrine, 3e entrevue)

Quelques motivations à partager

 

 

Different types of uses of copyrighted works in shared online videos.

Aufderheide and Jaszi (2008) compiled a list of 8 types of uses of copyrighted works in online videos.

 1)Parody and satire, 2) negative or critical commentary, 3) positive commentary, 4) quoting to trigger discussion, 5) illustration or example, 6) incidental use, 7) personal reportage or diaries, 8) Archiving of vulnerable or revealing materials, 9)pastiche or collage

In my PhD proposal, I said I could use this list to start my analysis on how and why people share online videos. I did not use it to start, but now looking back at the data from the interviews, several types are much the same.

Here are some examples from the interviews (since they were in French, I will translate the best quotes) : Online videos are shared on Facebook to comment on a political situation. Viewing video together with friend triggers discussion on new topics. Instead of trying to explain something complicated, one can simply show a video in order to illustrate a point. Creating and sharing online video have similarities, since they are both part of today culture.

“Online video making is part of a much larger process in which the people formerly known as audiences of mass media or consumers of popular culture are asserting themselves as participants in culture-making”.(Aufderheide, 2008, p.5). Sharing content on social network site is also part of culture-making.

 

 

Aufderheide, P., & Jaszi, P. (2008). Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video (p. 1-20): Center for Social Media.