Post Production

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 Hi everyone! For the project this week, the postproduction process got underway. For this, I began by recording a voiceover of my latest draft for my segment on Facebook and their use of algorithms. I took this audio into Adobe Premiere Pro, where I was able to combine it with some relevant stock footage, sourced from Pexel.com and Pixabay.com. With this, I was able to get a view of what the final project might look like. At this stage, I may go back and make some minor changes to my script, making it more suitable for the medium it will result in.

I have also examined the use of motion graphics in both Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects, and how they can be of use when polishing the project in its final stages. I think this will prove to be very handy when it comes to video transitions, citing sources, and the final credit sequence. With these additions to the final video, I think that our group would make better use of the visual aspects of our given medium. Also, while this is probably thinking ahead a small bit, I investigated the Closed Captioning process when uploading videos to YouTube. It seems that we can make use of their automated subtitles, only needing to make small adjustments in punctuation and speech recognition errors.

I was also able to correspond with my project teammates to get a better sense of where we are situated right now. I would like to make the final video feel like a cohesive unit, instead of individual pieces joined together. By establishing proper communication, we can put in effort to make this video fit together nicely. As of now, I also have a draft completed of the introduction and outro piece. However, I think that they could be vastly improved once looking through the scripts for the other segments of the video. I think it would also be preferable to adjust the individual segments to ensure that they can introduce the segments both before and after, giving the video a more natural feel.

I think that should we continue working at this pace, the video should be completed in a reasonable amount of time. Once week twelve rolls around, I believe that in the worst case, we would be working on adjusting very minor details in the postproduction process. Otherwise, I am happy with the progress made throughout this week and hope to have the final piece handed in soon. Thanks for reading!

Finishing Production

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 This week I delved into the postproduction process, as I figured it would be necessary to learn the ins and outs for tying the video together. I have used Adobe Premiere in the past, however this is a great opportunity for me to improve my familiarity with the program. In particular, I was able to familiarise myself with the graphical aspects of video editing. Last week, I gathered some stock footage and images that are in some way relevant to the topics at hand. Of course, I may need to source more throughout the project as it evolves. I’ve found the websites Pixabay and Pexel to be a great help in searching for appropriate stock footage and still images.

This week I was also made aware of current events involving Facebook, which piqued my interest. Frances Haugen, a former Facebook (now Meta Platforms, Inc.) employee recently leaked confidential documents to the Wall Street Journal. Dubbed ‘The Facebook Papers’ (NY Magazine Intelligencer, 2021), this series of reports contains data collected from internally conducted studies on the corporation’s effects on users. This ranges from the perpetuation of misinformation, to inciting conflict/hate speech, and Instagram’s harmful effects on younger users when it comes to social comparison among other issues.

This issue has escalated in passing months, with Haugen testifying in front of the US Congress in an attempt to promote positive change in Meta’s operations. In her testimony, she explained that “the company's leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer, but won't make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people” (Politico, 2021). Her pledge to reform the current social media landscape has continued, with further testimonies to both the EU Parliament (Politico EU, 2021) and UK Parliament (New York Times, 2021). I find this story to be both topical and important to note in relation to Internet Algorithms as a topic, so I would like to follow up with it further in the coming weeks. Should nothing else come of this, there are other examples of Meta’s anti-trust background to pull from.

I felt that I made a respectable level of progress this week, having narrowed down my topic to a specific, contemporary story and having examined the postproduction process with somewhat more nuance. Next week, I will have to communicate with my team so as to retain a steady level of advancement as a group.

 

References:

 NY Magazine Intelligencer (2021) What was leaked in the Facebook Papers [online] Available from <https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/10/what-was-leaked-in-the-facebook-papers.html> [accessed 21 Nov 2021].

Politico (2021) Whistleblower to Senate: Don't Trust Facebook [online] Available from <https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/05/facebook-whistleblower-testifies-congress-515083> [accessed 21 Nov 2021].

Politico EU (2021) 5 Takeaways from Facebook Whistleblower's EU Parliament Testimony [online] Available from <https://www.politico.eu/article/frances-haugen-brussels-european-parliament-eu-facebook-thierry-breton-google/> [accessed 21 Nov 2021].

New York Times (2021) Facebook Whistle-Blower Brings Campaign to Europe After Disclosures [online] Available from <https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/25/business/frances-haugen-facebook.html> [accessed 21 Nov 2021].

Towards Production

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This week, our group became more familiar with our topics and found equal footing. This led to our group settling on the topic of Internet Algorithms and Gatekeeping. I have begun to focus on the topic of ‘fictional influencers’, and how companies can exploit these social platforms for their own gain. Last week, I found an article (Vox, 2021) examining the emerging concept of fictional influencers. This article demonstrates recent examples on TikTok, carried out by Fourfront Media. Their TikTok accounts, posing as average people, are run behind the scenes by writers, actors, and producers.

Fourfront’s most prominent account, @sydneyplus, has over seven hundred and ninety-three thousand followers and several million views across more than seventy videos (SocialBlade, 2021). Sydney, the character, works at a dating app company, and is thrust into personal drama shared with the audience. Fourfront has dozens of characters like this, sharing stories with the audience. As these stories develop, followers are encouraged to interact with these characters online. One of these platforms of interaction is a separate messaging app, used by the audience to “communicate” with their favourite personalities. This app is powered by GPT-3 (Vox, 2021), a Deep Learning tool used to create realistic human responses to messages. They have also experimented with other platforms to facilitate audience interaction, such as Discord, Zoom, and Clubhouse.

Making use of the instant back and forth communication that comes with social media in tandem with fictionalised characters can result in harmful parasocial relationships being formed (Oxford Reference, 2021). This is a recently spreading phenomenon on the internet, made more complex by situations like this, wherein companies exploit social platforms for their own benefit. Of course, this begins to stray somewhat from the original topic at hand, so I may have to look at this topic from another perspective to stay relevant to our chosen topic.

Using the information I found on fictional influencers, I have begun writing an outline for this section of the video, however this may change over time as there may be other avenues to explore with more depth. For example, the user-generated research on YouTube’s Search Engine Optimisation system I wrote about last week in greater detail. In general, I feel that a comfortable level of progress was made this week, and I hope to make good use of Week 7, a review week, for writing more drafts and staying in touch with my project team members.

 

References:

Vox (2021) What's the deal with fictional influencers? [online] Available from <https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22734620/fictional-influencers-fourfront-fake-tiktokers> [accessed 07 Nov 2021].

Socialblade (2021) @sydneyplus - TikTok [online] Available from <https://www.socialblade.com/tiktok/user/sydneyplus> [accessed 07 Nov 2021].

Oxford Reference (2021) Parasocial Interaction [online] Available from <https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100305809> [accessed 07 Nov 2021].

Fast Company (2021) This company is revolutionizing TV through TikTok [online] Available from <https://www.fastcompany.com/90682632/this-company-is-revolutionizing-tv-through-tiktok> [accessed 07 Nov 2021].

Starting Out

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 This week our project work got underway, beginning with preproduction. Our given topic is Internet Algorithms and Gatekeeping. While I hadn’t expected to work on this topic, this is something I had always found interesting, as it has a complex series of implications for our society. Throughout the week, I have explored various aspects of this topic, and I think this expanded perspective will help in preparation for this video. One article I found was particularly interesting, as it pertained to the idea of “fictional influencers” and their increasing prevalence on TikTok (Vox, 2021). This had me considering how companies can easily exploit these platforms for marketing purposes. In particular, a platform like TikTok makes it easy to manipulate others due to its fast-moving nature.

I have also examined YouTube and how their algorithm, based in machine learning, is affecting the livelihoods of video creators on a massive scale. In recent years, the advertising system on YouTube has undergone changes to accommodate the wants of companies who use it as a marketing platform. In doing so, it has become harder to make money as a creator, with many looking to other income sources in recent years, such as individual video sponsors and Patreon. While Google isn’t very transparent about the inner workings of the platform, many smaller creators have taken it upon themselves to reverse engineer the monetisation system. One report (Sealow, 2019) found that YouTube has actively supressed content related to the LGBT+ community. While such groups are referenced in political commentary or hate speech, this actively hurts many earnest content creators on the site. This shows a clear oversight on YouTube’s behalf, and how automated processes like this can have unintended consequences for users of social media platforms.

In terms of the production process itself, I found some sources for equipment and production assistance that should prove useful in the weeks to come. This week, I placed a special focus on audio recording methods, as I am unfamiliar with that area of production. After researching lavalier microphones (D4Darious, 2018), I ordered a Boya BY-M1 for its audio quality and value. It also includes a 6-metre-long cable and a foam windscreen, which makes it versatile for most recording situations. I have also begun the process of sourcing stock videos and images that could make the postproduction process easier. I felt happy with the progress I made this week, and hope that I can pursue the concepts of internet algorithms and gatekeeping in further detail throughout this semester.

 

Sources:

Vox (2021) What's the deal with fictional influencers? [online] Available from <https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22734620/fictional-influencers-fourfront-fake-tiktokers> [accessed 24 Oct 2021].

 Sealow (2019) Demonetization list project [online] Available from <https://docs.google.com/document/d/18B-X77K72PUCNIV3tGonzeNKNkegFLWuLxQ_evhF3AY/edit> [accessed 24 Oct 2021].

D4Darious (2018) 5 Budget Lavalier Mics - Comparison [online] Available from <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSLHcUTA5qA> [accessed 24 Oct 2021].