CYBERPSYCHOLOGY: THE IMPACT OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES ON EVERYDAY LIFE

WHAT IS CYBERPSYCHOLOGY?

How much digital technology have we already encountered today?

How has it changed our experience of life and our relationships with one another ?

Is our relationship to technology healthy?

SOCIAL PRESENCE

Is face to face the only authentic form of communication?

Do the reduced social cues of mediated communication always get in the way?

TECHNOLOGICAL DETERMINISM VERSUS SOCIAL SHAPING OF TECHNOLOGY

Does the technology shape us or do we shape the technology?

Does technology come to us fully formed or do we appropriate it to our own ends?

THIS WEEK

1. What is Cyberpsychology? My Research- Intergenerational Communication

on YouTube

2. Multimodal Interactional Analysis on Campus

3. Multimodal Interactional Analysis on YouTube

4. Virtual Ethnography on YouTube

MY RESEARCH

Identifying the motivations and behaviours of different generations of YouTubers

Describing the culture of YouTube Understanding how vloggers construct

meaningful communication through a virtual medium

METHODOLOGY – MULTIMODAL INTERACTIONAL ANALYSIS

1. Goes beyond the ‘text’2. Acknowledges all ‘communicative modes’:

Body language: eye contact, gestures, posture Composition of scenes Use of objects Speech attributes: tone of voice, use of silence Media elements: titles, video editing

3. Highly interpretive

METHODOLOGY – VIRTUAL ETHNOGRAPHY

Virtual Ethnography using different forms of data gathering and analysis

1. Participant observation2. Interviews3. Grounded textual analysis of online dialogue4. Multimodal interactional analysis

Participant observation Creating YouTube account Making videos and contributing comments

MY FIRST RESEARCH QUESTION: HOW DO DIFFERENT GENERATIONS RELATE TO ONE ANOTHER ON YOUTUBE?

GERIATRIC1927 AND YOUTUBE

79 year old from the North of England

‘Lead user’ (von Hippel) Living independently in

the community Some mobility problems

FIRST STUDY: ANALYSING INTERGENERATIONAL COMMUNICATION ON YOUTUBE

Transcribe speech from video

Transcribe speech from video responses

Use text comments

STANDARD VIDEO ANALYSIS (WITH THE VIDEO AS ‘TEXT’)

Everything translated into text

Emphasises speech and language as the meaning makers

Easier to analyse and write about

CODING OF RESPONSES Legend

Comment Category

Example Comment

Technical Feedback

“you can also change the colors on Windows Movie Maker.” Gt, 21, US – response to Video 2

Comments Relating to The YouTube Community

“I’m gonna Email the Owner of YouTube and see if we can get him a “Director’s Account”. KPW, 34 - response to Video 8

Content Related Comments

“Thank you for sharing you experiences! That camp sounds like it was hell.” Sl, 18 - response to Video 6

Personal/Emotive Responses

“great video…your so cool” Fr, 18, country unstated - response to Video 6

RECIPROCAL LEARNINGTechnical skills

“Try putting music into the video through the program you are using, it would sound much better :)” [ZS,, 19, US - response to Video 1]

“you can also change the colors on Windows Movie Maker. When you are typing your text down by where it says animation or what ever to change the display of your text it should be right there. Just click that and you can change the font and then color is right under the font” [Gt, 21, US – response to Video 2]

How to be a YouTuber

“Put names of popular tubers in your tags, you'll get more views. It's kind of cheating I guess though... ” [MC, 28, Canada – response to Video 2]

EVOLVING COMMUNITY THROUGH DISCOURSE

Defining YouTube vlogging as ‘authentic’ practice

“You are the kind of person this bloody thing is

crying out for” [Pd, 34, UK – response to Video 4]

PETER’S RITE OF PASSAGE

Video about affection expressed towards the younger generation

YouTube haters Distrust towards older

YouTubers

THE CO-CREATION OF NARRATIVE

“you are so refreshing and real. thanks for contributing to the you tube community. I would love to hear bits of your wisdom any tips on living life better or to its fullest” [Gg, 34, US - response to Video 1] [wisdom]

“tell us about what life ws like growing up during the war” [Is, 20, UK - response to Video 2] [ the war ]

CO-CREATION OF NARRATIVE

Subjects Suggested for Discussion in First 8 Videos

3%6%

3%

9%

9%

6%

33%

20%

11%

Non-Political

The Modern World

Read Some Poetry

Relationships with Women

Wisdom

Music

The Second World War

Older People's Opinions

Motorbikes

SIGNIFICANCE OF PETER’S YOUTUBE SUCCESS

Intergenerational ConnectionEveryday meetings between the oldest and youngest generations within a local community are now rare (Williams and Nussbaum, 2001)

Segregation of generations Geographical distancing within families Global connections of YouTube rather than local connections

Life HistoryLife review - established as a developmental activity in later

life (Erikson ; Butler 1969) often used in care homes for its therapeutic effect.

Cultural transmission - Coleman (2006) points to one particular purpose for reminiscence and life review which has largely disappeared from industrialised societies but is evident here.

PETER’S FIRST TRY

PETER’S LIFE STORY: “TELLING IT ALL”

EARLY RESPONSES

SECOND STUDY: HOW DO YOUTUBE VLOGGERS ESTABLISH THE SENSE OF A CONVERSATION? (MULTIMODAL INTERACTIONAL ANALYSIS)

Multimodal video to video

MEDIA VERSUS MODESThe medium The medium – that – that which conveys the which conveys the messagemessage

The modeThe mode – a medium – a medium put to communicative put to communicative useuse

soundsound Speech, music, laughter, Speech, music, laughter, background noisebackground noise

VideoVideo LightingLighting Ambient lighting in homes Ambient lighting in homes

Physical Physical presencepresence

Posture, facial and bodily Posture, facial and bodily gestures, eye contact, pointinggestures, eye contact, pointing

Production Production elementselements

On screen effects, framing of On screen effects, framing of shots, cutting between scenes, shots, cutting between scenes, etc.etc.

Physical Physical objectsobjects

Placing objects in field of view, Placing objects in field of view, gesturing with objects, gesturing with objects,

On screen textOn screen text Video titles, tags, captions, Video titles, tags, captions, comments, usernames, comments, usernames, messages messages

PETER - TEXT

“Hello Youtubers, well first of all the title isn’t using the well tried and popular method of getting views to one's videos or by a catchy title. It comes from a letter from a young man in Thailand who is a schoolboy I believe he's aged 15 but that's not relevant - he is the editor or producer of the school newspaper and he has asked Geriatric if he will answer some questions to pose in his newspaper”

PETER - SOUND

PETER – ONLINE VIDEO

VIDEO RESPONSE FROM TIM

VIDEO RESPONSE FROM ROBB

VIDEO RESPONSE FROM IVA

EPISTEMOLOGY

Situated Action (Suchman)Situated action "stresses the knowledgeability of actors and

how they use common-sense practices/procedures to produce, analyze and make sense of one another's actions and their local or situated circumstances" (Doerry, 1995).

Symbolic Interactionism (Goffman, 1959) Interaction is viewed as a "performance," shaped by

environment and audience, constructed to provide others with "impressions" that are consonant with the desired goals of the actor.

YOUTUBERS ACTIVELY CONSTRUCT THE SENSE OF A CONVERSATION BORROWING TECHNIQUES FROM FACE TO FACE COMMUNICATION

- EYE CONTACT- TURN TAKING- SHARED EXPERIENCE OF PHYSICALITY - SHARED EXPERIENCE OF MIND- NEGOTIATING SIMULTANEOUS AUDIENCES

Creating Conversational Space

REFERENCES

Peter on YouTube:http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=geriatric1927

Peter’s website: www.askgeriatric.com

The paper:Harley, D. and Fitzpatrick, G. (2009) Creating a

Conversational Context Through Video Blogging. A Case Study of Geriatric1927. In Computers in Human Behavior, 25(3).

REFERENCESNorris, S. (2004) Analyzing multimodal

interaction : a methodological framework. New York : Routledge.

Kress, G., & Leeuwen, T. V. (2001). Multimodal discourse: The modes and media of contemporary communication. London: Arnold.

Heath et al (2010) Video in qualitative research : analysing social interaction in everyday life. Falmer library - 300.72/HEA