As of today, 17 million people had looked at one face change over time.
Why? What do we learn from watching this viral video? What does he?
80 million people watch an electric guitar solo. Does he still play? Who is he?
116 million people watch a Japanese girl use a pop as shower and call it "an experiment." What is she doing nowadays? Is she married, famous, or even alive?
238 million people watched Jolly bite her brother's finger and honestly laugh about it. How old is he now? Are they aware of having been part of a public consciousness lured by modern news?
What is the point? One could argue that there is at least one when a piece of information is added to the soup: YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion, and now operates as a subsidiary of Google. It could be argued that we do serve the function of content providers for the google electronic platform however we do not perceive ourselves as such. Working for free is not such a good thing in today's Westeren society. Therefore, there must be some persuassion involved. Are we then the mere carrier of the message -a medium--or are we the generator of the messages that feed the information flow? Are we luring or being lured? Both practices are necessary for a healthy society development.
Luring, enticing, promoting, persuading. All these related terms connote the passing of messages from point A to point B. A message carries one or many meanings that activate a system of events designed to fulfill a goal. There cannot be a message without meaning in the same fashion that there cannot be a medium without message. The goal of the following exercise is to provide you with the tools and the space for you to create a viral video message as a learning experience conducive to a better understanding of Mass Media and the flow that keeps the gargantuan contraption we call society today.
Learning by experience is not only essential for the development of your critical thinking skills but you'll accumulate stories to tell. You experience will turn into a primary source for the construction of a solid knowledge-base. According to psychologist and educational theorist Jean Piaget “Every acquisition of accommodation becomes material for assimilation, but assimilation always resists new accommodations.” The material he refers to is not found only through the reading of textual constructs but through the implementation of practical exercises. I would like you then to exercise your abstract thinking prowess both individually and as a group to design and implement an advertising campaign that will aim to become a viral message. Is that possible? Certainly so. Is it difficult? Very much so that is why I think it will be enticing to all of you. Here is a more elaborated brief that what I introduced during class-time.
BRIEF:
Design a campaign to promote an emotion, an idea, a concept, or an action that helps invigorate students's perception of space, time, and their status of Saint Olaf students across campus. The idea, designed as a team, must have no endorsement with any type of commercial product, brand, institution, political party, religious view, or social issue. The campaign you will design and implement as a team must be conceived, analyzed, crafted and implemented inside our campus -it may expand to include the city of Northfield and Carleton College campus if need be--and its ultimate goal is to attract people towards a viral video uploaded to the YouTube social platform. Said video will be produced in-house (in-class really) by each group using basic digital production and post-production tools available in DC100.
There are five groups and their "constituents" are as follows:
- G1 Abby, Alice, Julie, Kaiya, Juan Fernando.
- G2 Erik, Chris, Greta.
- G3 Claire, Tex, Kabao, Katie.
- G4 Steepeh, Wesley, Ben, Alora.
- G5 Adam, Max, Amy, Konomi, MIchelle.
FIRST TASK: Find out the skills of each group member, talk about a concept/draft for your video piece. Decide who is going to be the team's spokesperson. First initial concept/idea and spokesperson definition due by midnight, Thursday October 21st posted as a comment in this blog's entry. More tasks to follow, stay tuned.
This is group #3: Our spokesperson will be Matt. Our idea of what to represent that is unique to St Olaf is the presence of GLOW, and the idea of having GLOW safe talk areas. This is something that is unique yet controversial, and we feel it has the potential to make a great project. WE have not as of yet determined what media interface we will be using, but seem to be leaning towards the concept of video.
Posted by: Ballmeup45 | 10/21/2010 at 08:10 PM
Group One:
We are interested in creating/advertising another form of post secret on campus, since last week's GLOW activity was so popular. We are interested in examining Oles' aspirations/feelings of needing to become over-achievers in order to fit in and feel successful on campus. We haven't finalized exactly how we want to collect/post these contributions, other than we want them to be annonymous.
Our spokesperson is Abby.
Posted by: Julie Fergus | 10/21/2010 at 11:25 PM
Group Two:
Preliminarily we are thinking about promoting Streaking on campus. We will do it tastefully and with as few problems with the administration as possible.
Our spokes person is Chris
Posted by: Massey | 10/21/2010 at 11:37 PM
Hey group,
I just saw a commercial yesterday that made me thought of our concept...
In the commercial there was two girls in front of a mirror and they said "that's so gay".
Here's the link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVicCD8FmMs...check it out.
I think a lot of people use this saying without intending any harm but it's these little sayings that matters.
Posted by: Kabao | 10/22/2010 at 07:36 PM