Live-streaming mobile video: Production as civic engagement
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This document summarizes a study on live-streamed mobile video content from the website Qik.com between 2009-2010. The study analyzed over 1,000 videos to identify types of content and interviewed regular producers. 11% of videos were found to have civic value by covering public events, issues, or education. Producers were primarily male and civic videos averaged longer lengths. Producer interviews revealed motivations like immediacy, accessibility, and accidentally educating viewers. Producers repeatedly streamed civic content even with low viewers and intended to inform audiences across social networks.
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Live-streaming mobile video: Production as civic engagement
- 1. Live-streaming mobile video PRODUCTION AS CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
- 2. “Outlaws exchange shots with the police and die” Curitiba, Brazil << Example of a “civic” video by a journalist following the Brazilian police >>
- 3. “Outlaws exchange shots with the police and die” Curitiba, Brazil << Example of a “civic” video by a journalist following the Brazilian police >>
- 4. WHAT: Content analysis of 1,000 videos on Qik.com + qualitative interviews with regular producers of civic content WHEN: Study was conducted October 2009-March 2010 WHY: Little data existed about what was being produced in this new medium; mobile video is slated to account for 60% of mobile data traffic by 2015 (CISCO)
- 5. What types of videos are actually being broadcast online through mobile phones? How can we identify demographic trends in general production? How much content in this new medium has civic value, and what factors encourage producers to capture and live-stream this type of footage? Can we form an understanding about the profile of civic producers and the contexts in which they produce media? Key questions
- 6. Qik’s interface at time of study
- 7. << Value tags I assigned to relevant videos on Qik, and their popularity by size >>
- 8. Value tags for mobile videos with civic value
- 9. Civic producers << Seven people from three countries, all English speakers; semi-structured interviews conducted via email & Skype; assessed their motivations for using mobile video, production practises, contexts and patterns of use, issues and challenges; tried to identify trends and implications >>
- 10. Civic producers << Seven people from three countries, all English speakers; semi-structured interviews conducted via email & Skype; assessed their motivations for using mobile video, production practises, contexts and patterns of use, issues and challenges; tried to identify trends and implications >>
- 12. 11% << percentage of videos with civic value, according to my parameters >>
- 13. 11% << percentage of videos with civic value, according to my parameters >> << Primarily male producers (71% men & 9% women for all videos; 74% men & 7% women for civic videos >>
- 14. 11% << percentage of videos with civic value, according to my parameters >> << Average length of videos: << Primarily male producers 00:02:13 for personal/other videos; (71% men & 9% women for all 00:07:23 for civic videos. Implication: videos; 74% men & 7% women producers film longer when consciously for civic videos >> reporting or educating audiences >>
- 16. << does not talk or << speaks to others << faces camera << only provides address camera >> but not the camera >> as visible MC >> voiceover >>
- 17. Insights from producer interviews
- 18. << MOTIVATIONS FOR USE: Liveness/immediacy of streaming; accessibility (phone always in pocket) real or imagined audience of known and unknown viewers; potential to “accidentally educate” viewers about civic topics; the honest “rawness/realness” streaming video affords >> << PRODUCTION TRENDS: Repeatedly produce civic videos to a public audience even when hits were low; no noticeable trends for premeditated vs. spontaneous broadcasting; almost all producers intended to educate or inform their audience; several went back to edit or delete videos, once posted; most cross-distributed videos across their social networks online >>
- 19. << MOTIVATIONS FOR USE: Liveness/immediacy of streaming; accessibility (phone always in pocket) real or imagined audience of known and unknown viewers; potential to “accidentally educate” viewers about civic topics; the honest “rawness/realness” streaming video affords >> “One of the things I thought was kind of cool – if I can get people to even go to the Qik site – is, here I did something with some people that consider themselves pretty much activists on certain issues at the community college, and then I’m doing something else with the Green Party, and then I’m doing something else with another group. And by sending them to Qik, they can see all the different things that I’m doing. So it’s sort of an opportunity to cross-pollinate my different activism.” - Sanda << PRODUCTION TRENDS: Repeatedly produce civic videos to a public audience even when hits were low; no noticeable trends for premeditated vs. spontaneous broadcasting; almost all producers intended to educate or inform their audience; several went back to edit or delete videos, once posted; most cross-distributed videos across their social networks online >>
- 20. << MOTIVATIONS FOR USE: Liveness/immediacy of streaming; accessibility (phone always in pocket) real or imagined audience of known and unknown viewers; potential to “accidentally educate” viewers about civic topics; the honest “rawness/realness” streaming video affords >> << PRODUCTION TRENDS: Repeatedly produce civic videos to a public audience even when hits were low; no noticeable trends for premeditated vs. spontaneous broadcasting; almost all producers intended to educate or inform their audience; several went back to edit or delete videos, once posted; most cross-distributed videos across their social networks online >>
- 21. << MOTIVATIONS FOR USE: Liveness/immediacy of streaming; accessibility (phone always in pocket) real or imagined audience of known and unknown viewers; potential to “accidentally educate” viewers about civic topics; the honest “rawness/realness” streaming video affords >> “I do not have a specific audience in mind....I try to reach out to as broad an audience as possible. So that with my blog, for example, where I cross-post various things, I write about politics, I write about technology, I write about my family, I write about just about anything I can think of, partly to bridge different communities – to get people who think about one thing to try to think about something else. This afternoon, I did a little bit of live streaming of the snowstorm. So people will come in and look at my videos because they’re interested in looking at the snowstorm, and hopefully then they’ll look over and look at the Board of Education meeting, or look at a speech that a candidate recently gave.” - Aldon << PRODUCTION TRENDS: Repeatedly produce civic videos to a public audience even when hits were low; no noticeable trends for premeditated vs. spontaneous broadcasting; almost all producers intended to educate or inform their audience; several went back to edit or delete videos, once posted; most cross-distributed videos across their social networks online >>
- 22. << MOTIVATIONS FOR USE: Liveness/immediacy of streaming; accessibility (phone always in pocket) real or imagined audience of known and unknown viewers; potential to “accidentally educate” viewers about civic topics; the honest “rawness/realness” streaming video affords >> << PRODUCTION TRENDS: Repeatedly produce civic videos to a public audience even when hits were low; no noticeable trends for premeditated vs. spontaneous broadcasting; almost all producers intended to educate or inform their audience; several went back to edit or delete videos, once posted; most cross-distributed videos across their social networks online >>
- 23. << MOTIVATIONS FOR USE: Liveness/immediacy of streaming; accessibility (phone always in pocket) real or imagined audience of known and unknown viewers; potential to “accidentally educate” viewers about civic topics; the honest “rawness/realness” streaming video affords >> “Using my own life and community is a way of being very real. When you have very formal journalistic type content it's very different feel then when you see REAL people and informal type settings. Part of having things this way for me is so that people see that we are all on the same level and not better or different in essence.” - Gurumustuk << PRODUCTION TRENDS: Repeatedly produce civic videos to a public audience even when hits were low; no noticeable trends for premeditated vs. spontaneous broadcasting; almost all producers intended to educate or inform their audience; several went back to edit or delete videos, once posted; most cross-distributed videos across their social networks online >>
- 24. << MOTIVATIONS FOR USE: Liveness/immediacy of streaming; accessibility (phone always in pocket) real or imagined audience of known and unknown viewers; potential to “accidentally educate” viewers about civic topics; the honest “rawness/realness” streaming video affords >> << PRODUCTION TRENDS: Repeatedly produce civic videos to a public audience even when hits were low; no noticeable trends for premeditated vs. spontaneous broadcasting; almost all producers intended to educate or inform their audience; several went back to edit or delete videos, once posted; most cross-distributed videos across their social networks online >>
- 25. Implications
- 26. Implications DESIGN protection of privacy for vulnerable video subjects during live streaming is still an issue; designing applications that encourage production in public spaces might support the frequent, spontaneous broadcasting patterns of civic producers; distribution should not be limited to closed social networks or “friends” only; offer means for collaborative production, editing and organizing features.
- 27. Implications
- 28. Implications FUTURE RESEARCH viewer reception & live interaction; actual impact of civic videos; demographics: age-specific research, economic status, country- and context-specific use; where are the women? further studies on use of mobile video within interest-based communities.
- 29. Implications
- 30. Audubon Dougherty Comparative Media Studies @ MIT amd4.net audubon@alum.mit.edu
Editor's Notes
- Intro to me: I&#x2019;m Audubon, from the CMS department at MIT in Boston\n\nIntro to research topic: Live-streaming mobile video: which is, content streamed to the internet exclusively from mobile phones. It&#x2019;s a relatively new medium, extremely accessible, and it has the potential to expand live broadcasting from being a corporate or state activity to a virtually uncensored public practice for anyone with a camera phone and data plan.\n\n
- \nINTRODUCE VIDEO\n
- WHEN: Study was conducted from fall of 2009 to spring of 2010 as part of my master&#x2019;s thesis, and just for context, that was a few months after iPhones first became capable of video capture, making the practice nearly ubiquitous, at least on smartphones.\n\nWHY: (Still relevant because) mobile video is slated to account for 66% of mobile data traffic by 2015 (CISCO); At the time, little data existed about what was being broadcast in this new medium (except of course research by Oskar and a few others).\n
- So I wanted to get a sense of what types of video content was being produced and broadcasted in general. I also wanted to know how much of the content being produced wasn&#x2019;t primarily for personal purposes (i.e., footage of family/friends/pets), but contributed in some way to the public realm, teaching or informing the broader community about a topic or event -- therefore having what I termed &#x201C;civic value&#x201D;.\n\n
- Research project overview\nTo learn more about what was being produced, &#xA0;I did an extensive content analysis of 1,000 user videos on Qik.com, a popular service to stream and archive videos from mobile devices. (Explain slide screenshot from beginning of study)\nThese were all videos that had just been streamed live, and this was over a 5-month period, using the first 100 videos as a pilot phase where I iterated my coding method and excluding videos less than 15 seconds, which were usually connectivity tests or people experimenting with the medium -- and excluding the longest video, which was a rare case of a man in Japan setting up the phone to film himself sleeping for six hours.\nI also participated in production myself, using the same service to stream videos throughout my study.\n
- I assigned codes -- or &#x201C;value tags&#x201D; -- to both civic and non-civic (personal) videos, when applicable. This tag cloud gives you an idea of which tags in my study were the most popular. Tags included: journalistic, political, activistic, educational, religious, entertainment, confessional, touristic, and promotional.\n
- The civic videos in my study were largely journalistic in nature, but also shared other value tags. Religious was the only category that didn&#x2019;t overlap with other civic tags. These videos were primarily of church services or church activity.\nI also measured other factors, including video length, country, language, context (public or private space), gender of producer, number of videos per user, and hosting style, or manner in which it was filmed.\n
- To gain more insight on how and why civic videos are being produced, I spoke with seven regular producers of civic videos &#x2013; all English speakers, representing three countries and producing videos that spanned all the different value tags I had for civic videos.\nThese were semi-structured interviews, and we talked via email and Skype. From these interviews I assessed their motivations for using mobile video, their production practices, their contexts and patterns of use, any issues & challenges they faced, and I tried to identify some trends and implications.\n
- To gain more insight on how and why civic videos are being produced, I spoke with seven regular producers of civic videos &#x2013; all English speakers, representing three countries and producing videos that spanned all the different value tags I had for civic videos.\nThese were semi-structured interviews, and we talked via email and Skype. From these interviews I assessed their motivations for using mobile video, their production practices, their contexts and patterns of use, any issues & challenges they faced, and I tried to identify some trends and implications.\n
- To gain more insight on how and why civic videos are being produced, I spoke with seven regular producers of civic videos &#x2013; all English speakers, representing three countries and producing videos that spanned all the different value tags I had for civic videos.\nThese were semi-structured interviews, and we talked via email and Skype. From these interviews I assessed their motivations for using mobile video, their production practices, their contexts and patterns of use, any issues & challenges they faced, and I tried to identify some trends and implications.\n
- To gain more insight on how and why civic videos are being produced, I spoke with seven regular producers of civic videos &#x2013; all English speakers, representing three countries and producing videos that spanned all the different value tags I had for civic videos.\nThese were semi-structured interviews, and we talked via email and Skype. From these interviews I assessed their motivations for using mobile video, their production practices, their contexts and patterns of use, any issues & challenges they faced, and I tried to identify some trends and implications.\n
- To gain more insight on how and why civic videos are being produced, I spoke with seven regular producers of civic videos &#x2013; all English speakers, representing three countries and producing videos that spanned all the different value tags I had for civic videos.\nThese were semi-structured interviews, and we talked via email and Skype. From these interviews I assessed their motivations for using mobile video, their production practices, their contexts and patterns of use, any issues & challenges they faced, and I tried to identify some trends and implications.\n
- To gain more insight on how and why civic videos are being produced, I spoke with seven regular producers of civic videos &#x2013; all English speakers, representing three countries and producing videos that spanned all the different value tags I had for civic videos.\nThese were semi-structured interviews, and we talked via email and Skype. From these interviews I assessed their motivations for using mobile video, their production practices, their contexts and patterns of use, any issues & challenges they faced, and I tried to identify some trends and implications.\n
- To gain more insight on how and why civic videos are being produced, I spoke with seven regular producers of civic videos &#x2013; all English speakers, representing three countries and producing videos that spanned all the different value tags I had for civic videos.\nThese were semi-structured interviews, and we talked via email and Skype. From these interviews I assessed their motivations for using mobile video, their production practices, their contexts and patterns of use, any issues & challenges they faced, and I tried to identify some trends and implications.\n
- Results from content analysis \n11% (112) of videos had civic value, according to my criteria, with the remaining 88% being personal videos. (This is consistent with Koskinen&#x2019;s similar research on multimedia messages, which found that users capture everyday activity on their camera phones more than anything else.) \nPredominantly men -- 71% male producers for all videos (discernable from the user&#x2019;s profile or voice/appearance on camera), 9% female, and 20% indeterminate; those figures were also consistent for civic videos (74 to 7 to 19)\nAt 07:23, civic videos were an average of 5 minutes longer than personal videos (02:13)\n
- Results from content analysis \n11% (112) of videos had civic value, according to my criteria, with the remaining 88% being personal videos. (This is consistent with Koskinen&#x2019;s similar research on multimedia messages, which found that users capture everyday activity on their camera phones more than anything else.) \nPredominantly men -- 71% male producers for all videos (discernable from the user&#x2019;s profile or voice/appearance on camera), 9% female, and 20% indeterminate; those figures were also consistent for civic videos (74 to 7 to 19)\nAt 07:23, civic videos were an average of 5 minutes longer than personal videos (02:13)\n
- Results from content analysis \n11% (112) of videos had civic value, according to my criteria, with the remaining 88% being personal videos. (This is consistent with Koskinen&#x2019;s similar research on multimedia messages, which found that users capture everyday activity on their camera phones more than anything else.) \nPredominantly men -- 71% male producers for all videos (discernable from the user&#x2019;s profile or voice/appearance on camera), 9% female, and 20% indeterminate; those figures were also consistent for civic videos (74 to 7 to 19)\nAt 07:23, civic videos were an average of 5 minutes longer than personal videos (02:13)\n
- Results from content analysis \n11% (112) of videos had civic value, according to my criteria, with the remaining 88% being personal videos. (This is consistent with Koskinen&#x2019;s similar research on multimedia messages, which found that users capture everyday activity on their camera phones more than anything else.) \nPredominantly men -- 71% male producers for all videos (discernable from the user&#x2019;s profile or voice/appearance on camera), 9% female, and 20% indeterminate; those figures were also consistent for civic videos (74 to 7 to 19)\nAt 07:23, civic videos were an average of 5 minutes longer than personal videos (02:13)\n
- Results from content analysis \n11% (112) of videos had civic value, according to my criteria, with the remaining 88% being personal videos. (This is consistent with Koskinen&#x2019;s similar research on multimedia messages, which found that users capture everyday activity on their camera phones more than anything else.) \nPredominantly men -- 71% male producers for all videos (discernable from the user&#x2019;s profile or voice/appearance on camera), 9% female, and 20% indeterminate; those figures were also consistent for civic videos (74 to 7 to 19)\nAt 07:23, civic videos were an average of 5 minutes longer than personal videos (02:13)\n
- Results from content analysis \n11% (112) of videos had civic value, according to my criteria, with the remaining 88% being personal videos. (This is consistent with Koskinen&#x2019;s similar research on multimedia messages, which found that users capture everyday activity on their camera phones more than anything else.) \nPredominantly men -- 71% male producers for all videos (discernable from the user&#x2019;s profile or voice/appearance on camera), 9% female, and 20% indeterminate; those figures were also consistent for civic videos (74 to 7 to 19)\nAt 07:23, civic videos were an average of 5 minutes longer than personal videos (02:13)\n
- A little over half (54%) of all 1,000 videos were shot in discernibly public places, whereas 87% of civic videos were shot in public. (This kind of makes sense, as people usually film personal things when they&#x2019;re in private spaces.)\n
- For the hosting style (that is, how it was directed; or the manner in which they filmed and acknowledged or didn&#x2019;t acknowledge the viewer): \n\n39% of all 1,000 videos were shot by what I term invisibles, producers who do not talk or address the camera; 36% were participant observers, speaking to others in the video but not to the camera directly; 15% were reality hosts, facing the camera as a visible MC; and 10% were documentary hosts, providing voiceover to narrate activity in the video, but not filming themselves facing the camera.\n\n
- Results from interviews\nBACKGROUND OF PRODUCERS\nAlmost all producers I spoke to were already civically engaged & were relatively tech savvy, with experience traditional video production\nAlmost all self-identified as teachers/educators, journalists or activists within their own communities and spheres of interest\nMobile video was simply an additional tool of engagement for their offline activity\nWere all introduced to mobile video by friends or colleagues and actively taught others how to use it, primarily for civic purposes\n\nPRODUCTION PRACTICES\nNo clear trend in premeditated vs. spontaneous filming\nSome shot personal footage as well as civic footage, but most intentionally just shot footage that would educate or inform others.\nProducers expressed a desire for higher quality streams; editing/post-production tools; advanced organization of footage; and the opportunity for remote, collaborative production\n\n
- MOTIVATIONS FOR USING M-VIDEO\nLiveness/immediacy of streaming, & accessibility of the medium and the mobility it supports were both major incentives for use, especially as a means to replace traditional videography, typically using larger equipment and a lot of advance planning and then time-consuming post-production.\nAnother major motivation for broadcasting was the potential for an audience of known and unknown viewers to see their footage and become &#x201C;accidentally educated&#x201D; (even when hits were low); this was possible because of Qik&#x2019;s interface at the time, which, like YouTube, displayed all public videos as they were broadcast live to anyone who visited the website. (Since then, it&#x2019;s changed, and several of these repeat producers have stopped broadcasting on Qik.)\n\n
- MOTIVATIONS FOR USING M-VIDEO\nLiveness/immediacy of streaming, & accessibility of the medium and the mobility it supports were both major incentives for use, especially as a means to replace traditional videography, typically using larger equipment and a lot of advance planning and then time-consuming post-production.\nAnother major motivation for broadcasting was the potential for an audience of known and unknown viewers to see their footage and become &#x201C;accidentally educated&#x201D; (even when hits were low); this was possible because of Qik&#x2019;s interface at the time, which, like YouTube, displayed all public videos as they were broadcast live to anyone who visited the website. (Since then, it&#x2019;s changed, and several of these repeat producers have stopped broadcasting on Qik.)\n\n
- MOTIVATIONS FOR USING M-VIDEO\nLiveness/immediacy of streaming, & accessibility of the medium and the mobility it supports were both major incentives for use, especially as a means to replace traditional videography, typically using larger equipment and a lot of advance planning and then time-consuming post-production.\nAnother major motivation for broadcasting was the potential for an audience of known and unknown viewers to see their footage and become &#x201C;accidentally educated&#x201D; (even when hits were low); this was possible because of Qik&#x2019;s interface at the time, which, like YouTube, displayed all public videos as they were broadcast live to anyone who visited the website. (Since then, it&#x2019;s changed, and several of these repeat producers have stopped broadcasting on Qik.)\n\n
- MOTIVATIONS FOR USING M-VIDEO\nLiveness/immediacy of streaming, & accessibility of the medium and the mobility it supports were both major incentives for use, especially as a means to replace traditional videography, typically using larger equipment and a lot of advance planning and then time-consuming post-production.\nAnother major motivation for broadcasting was the potential for an audience of known and unknown viewers to see their footage and become &#x201C;accidentally educated&#x201D; (even when hits were low); this was possible because of Qik&#x2019;s interface at the time, which, like YouTube, displayed all public videos as they were broadcast live to anyone who visited the website. (Since then, it&#x2019;s changed, and several of these repeat producers have stopped broadcasting on Qik.)\n\n
- MOTIVATIONS FOR USING M-VIDEO\nLiveness/immediacy of streaming, & accessibility of the medium and the mobility it supports were both major incentives for use, especially as a means to replace traditional videography, typically using larger equipment and a lot of advance planning and then time-consuming post-production.\nAnother major motivation for broadcasting was the potential for an audience of known and unknown viewers to see their footage and become &#x201C;accidentally educated&#x201D; (even when hits were low); this was possible because of Qik&#x2019;s interface at the time, which, like YouTube, displayed all public videos as they were broadcast live to anyone who visited the website. (Since then, it&#x2019;s changed, and several of these repeat producers have stopped broadcasting on Qik.)\n\n
- MOTIVATIONS FOR USING M-VIDEO\nLiveness/immediacy of streaming, & accessibility of the medium and the mobility it supports were both major incentives for use, especially as a means to replace traditional videography, typically using larger equipment and a lot of advance planning and then time-consuming post-production.\nAnother major motivation for broadcasting was the potential for an audience of known and unknown viewers to see their footage and become &#x201C;accidentally educated&#x201D; (even when hits were low); this was possible because of Qik&#x2019;s interface at the time, which, like YouTube, displayed all public videos as they were broadcast live to anyone who visited the website. (Since then, it&#x2019;s changed, and several of these repeat producers have stopped broadcasting on Qik.)\n\n
- CONCLUSION: Producers who are affiliated with a (physical) interest-based network were more likely to film activity within that network than those outside of it. So its greatest impact to the public sphere &#x2013; at least in the short term &#x2013; will be made within civically engaged, interest-based communities.\n\nDESIGN RECOMMENDATIONS: But designers need to consider the privacy issues for vulnerable subjects, and perhaps create applications that encourage production in public places, since nearly 90% of videos with civic or community value are shot in public. Collaborative production and post-production tools are also needed. (Qik now offers a &#x201C;trimming&#x201D; feature, but that&#x2019;s it in terms of editing.) And most importantly, the platform itself should not limit playback and distribution to only &#x201C;friends&#x201D; or closed social networks, since a major motivating factor is the ability to broadcast to an anonymous public.\nFUTURE RESEARCH\nFuture research could explore a few aspects I didn&#x2019;t look at, including the value of viewer participation through comments and live chats, and the actual impact of videos after broadcasting and distribution (as legal evidence; whether they get picked up by major media outlets; as a tool for organizing issue-based actions; as bottom-up surveillance of authorities). \nMost importantly, there needs to be a closer exploration of demographics -- especially, where are the women? Are they discouraged from participating? Culturally specific case studies would be useful in exploring the HCI concerns around gender roles. Also perhaps a contextual inquiry of production by older users would be valuable.\n
- CONCLUSION: Producers who are affiliated with a (physical) interest-based network were more likely to film activity within that network than those outside of it. So its greatest impact to the public sphere &#x2013; at least in the short term &#x2013; will be made within civically engaged, interest-based communities.\n\nDESIGN RECOMMENDATIONS: But designers need to consider the privacy issues for vulnerable subjects, and perhaps create applications that encourage production in public places, since nearly 90% of videos with civic or community value are shot in public. Collaborative production and post-production tools are also needed. (Qik now offers a &#x201C;trimming&#x201D; feature, but that&#x2019;s it in terms of editing.) And most importantly, the platform itself should not limit playback and distribution to only &#x201C;friends&#x201D; or closed social networks, since a major motivating factor is the ability to broadcast to an anonymous public.\nFUTURE RESEARCH\nFuture research could explore a few aspects I didn&#x2019;t look at, including the value of viewer participation through comments and live chats, and the actual impact of videos after broadcasting and distribution (as legal evidence; whether they get picked up by major media outlets; as a tool for organizing issue-based actions; as bottom-up surveillance of authorities). \nMost importantly, there needs to be a closer exploration of demographics -- especially, where are the women? Are they discouraged from participating? Culturally specific case studies would be useful in exploring the HCI concerns around gender roles. Also perhaps a contextual inquiry of production by older users would be valuable.\n
- CONCLUSION: Producers who are affiliated with a (physical) interest-based network were more likely to film activity within that network than those outside of it. So its greatest impact to the public sphere &#x2013; at least in the short term &#x2013; will be made within civically engaged, interest-based communities.\n\nDESIGN RECOMMENDATIONS: But designers need to consider the privacy issues for vulnerable subjects, and perhaps create applications that encourage production in public places, since nearly 90% of videos with civic or community value are shot in public. Collaborative production and post-production tools are also needed. (Qik now offers a &#x201C;trimming&#x201D; feature, but that&#x2019;s it in terms of editing.) And most importantly, the platform itself should not limit playback and distribution to only &#x201C;friends&#x201D; or closed social networks, since a major motivating factor is the ability to broadcast to an anonymous public.\nFUTURE RESEARCH\nFuture research could explore a few aspects I didn&#x2019;t look at, including the value of viewer participation through comments and live chats, and the actual impact of videos after broadcasting and distribution (as legal evidence; whether they get picked up by major media outlets; as a tool for organizing issue-based actions; as bottom-up surveillance of authorities). \nMost importantly, there needs to be a closer exploration of demographics -- especially, where are the women? Are they discouraged from participating? Culturally specific case studies would be useful in exploring the HCI concerns around gender roles. Also perhaps a contextual inquiry of production by older users would be valuable.\n
- CONCLUSION: Producers who are affiliated with a (physical) interest-based network were more likely to film activity within that network than those outside of it. So its greatest impact to the public sphere &#x2013; at least in the short term &#x2013; will be made within civically engaged, interest-based communities.\n\nDESIGN RECOMMENDATIONS: But designers need to consider the privacy issues for vulnerable subjects, and perhaps create applications that encourage production in public places, since nearly 90% of videos with civic or community value are shot in public. Collaborative production and post-production tools are also needed. (Qik now offers a &#x201C;trimming&#x201D; feature, but that&#x2019;s it in terms of editing.) And most importantly, the platform itself should not limit playback and distribution to only &#x201C;friends&#x201D; or closed social networks, since a major motivating factor is the ability to broadcast to an anonymous public.\nFUTURE RESEARCH\nFuture research could explore a few aspects I didn&#x2019;t look at, including the value of viewer participation through comments and live chats, and the actual impact of videos after broadcasting and distribution (as legal evidence; whether they get picked up by major media outlets; as a tool for organizing issue-based actions; as bottom-up surveillance of authorities). \nMost importantly, there needs to be a closer exploration of demographics -- especially, where are the women? Are they discouraged from participating? Culturally specific case studies would be useful in exploring the HCI concerns around gender roles. Also perhaps a contextual inquiry of production by older users would be valuable.\n
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