Lecture 6

Consumption and Production was the topic of this Lecture. This was a really good lecture! I was thoroughly entertained throughout. I think we were supposed to be learning about whether or not we are consumers and/or producers. I think the answer to this is that many people are both now!


The lecturer, Josh???, broke the ways in which we consume media into two categories, Big Screen and Little Screen. Obviously Big Screen consisted of Cinema, TV and PC and the Little Screen was Media Players and Mobiles. This was all basic stuff which I understand quite easily, for once. I think he was just trying to show us the ways in which we view things and get information. He made a point about watching videos, Mobisodes or Episodic Stories, on I-Pod touches and Mobile Phones. He talked about watching them 'On the Fly,' a new term which may become useful to me. The problem with watching Mobisodes is 'that the file size is too big and the screen is too small.'


When the lecturer came to the Production part of the lecture he talked about ways in which Internet users are becoming Producers. This was the most interesting part to me, not just because he showed us some YouTube videos but because it showed me how easy it is to become a Producer myself. Well actually, I suppose I all ready am one! Although I don't make anything as entertaining as Fan-Films and Fan-Edits, I have put a couple of videos on my Bebo site, not for everyone to see though. I have done this for my friends and family to see.


The last part of the lecture was about Mobile Production. I think this last part was about what I would call 'Citizen Journalism.' Where lucky randoms in the world are just coincidentally at the right place at the right time. They get a photo, or a video that resembles something like the image they claim is on the shot and then news outlets will use it in their stories as they have no better images to use. This usually happens because the story is really good but there are no visuals available, apart from these ones. You usually can't really see the images too good and its hard to hear sometimes because they are usually filmed on mobiles or video cameras. A good example of 'Citizen Journalism' are the 9/11 hijackings. Many tourists and regular people took photos and videos of the planes before, after. during etc. the attack. The story was sooo big it didn't matter what the picture looked like. The dodgyness of the images have led conspiracy theorists to believe there were bombs in the tower and that the plane wasn't the plane it was said to be etc. The low quality pictures and videos captured are obviously to blame for these nonsensical theories! They are rubbish! Or are they???...

Here are some videos about some of the conspiracy theories......