Media Issue (B)

6 Seconds to Tell a Story

 source: youtube.com

Six seconds seems short but  Vine made it an eternity. with more than 40 million Viners uploading vlogs featuring anything under the sun, be it crashing waves or acting silly or showing off skills, to loops of teeth-brushing by Harry Styles, six seconds of Vine extends to infinity - and it was only created last year (Rushe 2013). 

I think Vine gives us a new perspective to look at the word - the ideas, the creativity, the vibes, the energy - and most of all - framing them within time limits.  A renaissance for stop-motion animators, an actor-and-comedian collaboration (as featuring guests in each other's vines), and astonishment-making of complex pieces from the simplest materials, Vine is like a TV network creation. It captures language and visual informality as a factor of social proximity. In solidarity and intimacy with the Viners, especially when one can see Viners and their reaction in the 6-second vlog (visual), such new social ties effectively puts one in the temporal despite geographical non-co-presence. Also particularly characterized by deep trends of social, cultural, political, economic, communicational, and technological advancements, when Obama even 'Vines', such sociopolitical configuration triggers new power distribution via a new media ecosystem (Kress 1997, p. 55).        source: verticalresponse.com

source: youtube.com

Technological innovation drives social media ass a new communication form - hence an emerging social control. Vine incorporates integration of various modes both in production/ making and in consumption/ viewing, and brings out the semiotic potentials of each mode - sound, visual, and speech - orchestrated with the Viner's intention - with minimum multi-modal competence or mode operation knowledge required (Kress 1997). 

Vlog in 6 seconds, sweet and short, encompaes speech for presenting, and sound (i.e. background noise/ music) , as the film content, the bodily motion are significant mode of representation and communication. Amongst the plethora of user-generated content on mobile/ web, many creative media works by contributed by independent content creators, pushing their work to global audiences and actively extending their reach. Vine constructs online media identity (Guy & Klein, 2014).   

Guardian's deputy editor, Katherine, concurs, digital has overnight wrecked hierarchies of the all-seeing all-knowing journalists from on high for readers' take-in, passively, creating a leveled, instantaneous, spontaneous globe (Wilcox 2014). Ironically, Vine and other new media ecosystem allows readers to know more about certain subjects than the journalists -readers might even be better placed to uncover a story.

source: theguardian.com

References

Guy, A. and Klein, E. 2014, 'Constructed Identity and Social Machines: A Case Study in Creative Media Production', International World Wide Web Conference 2014, 7-11 April, Seoul, Korea. 

Kress, G. 1997, 'Visual and verbal modes of representation in electronically mediated communication: the potential of new forms of text', in Page to screen: taking litreacy into the electornic era, Allen & Unwin, St. Leonards, N.S.W., Ch. 3, pp. 53 - 79. 

Rushe, D. 2013, 'Vine: in the future everyone can be famous for six seconds', The Guardian, 3 November, viewed on 6 June 2014, <http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/03/vine-six-seconds-video-app-mobile-phone>.

Wilcox, J. 2014, Responsible Reporting: Field Guide for Blogger, Journalists, and Other Online News Gatherers, Bunny Bows Press, San Diego.