Final blog/journal entry

In this blog post, I am going to demonstrate my individual learning experience throughout this semester.

Role:

In the collaborative contract that we decided at the very beginning of the course, my role in our group project is stated as a reference group member. My job is to research case studies or any related academic resources that help to complete the report and show up in any meeting to contribute anything I know. Our group is a big group; the only group in this course in this semester that consists of 7 people. At the beginning, I thought more people would make our job easier but unfortunately unexpected things happened. Chaos is all I can say. There is nothing wrong with any group member but it is just too hard for us to actually complete the report together. We did not know how were we going to structure our essay (we finally did come out with a structure, albeit very late). At the beginning, our research topic was about user generated content but after discussed with Rachel, we changed topic to prosumerism. Everyone of us chose a case study that we are interested in and then research how it relates to prosumerism and the media industry. Before changing topic, I have already chosen to work on YouTube because it is a website that collects user generated content. I am glad that I did not face any problem even we changed the topic because YouTube is also a website that is about prosumerism/prosumers. I am also glad that there are lots of resources out there about YouTube. I found a lot of useful resources that help to complete our research report. I believe I have done my part for our group report and tried my best to find useful resources for our group.

I give myself HIGH DISTINCTION for my role in the group.

Progress:

I did not have any special strategy to do the research. As mentioned before, I found a lot of resources. Most of them are books from RMIT library. I was quite suprised that there are actually quite a lot of academic resources about YouTube. I spent most of my time browsing through the books to find the useful ones related our topic- Prosumerism. Besides using books, I also used online data base to do my research. I used ProQuest. It is a very useful tool to do research and it is very easy to use. In the process of doing this research report, I found that my strengths are the ability to scan through materials and look for the useful information in a short time.  I know where I should go to when searching for material and information that I need. In addition, I believe I am also an organised person because I am able to complete the task that I was told or was supposed to do on time or even earlier. As for weaknesses, I know that I am not a person with leadership skill. I was not able to give very useful opinion when our group was facing structuring problems. I did not know what should we do at that time. Glad that someone in the group has the skill and gave us the direction so that we could move on. Eric is our group leader and he has done a really good job.

Here is the link to the blog post that discuss my research progress in the half way of the course:

– https://estherho2010.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/individual-progress-report/

I give myself HIGH DISTINCTION for my progress.

Strategies:

As mentioned before, I did not have any special strategy in doing the research. I just typed in the keywords that I think it is relevant to our topic and my case study. I used RMIT online library to place hold on the books that I wanted and I also went to online data base- ProQuest to search for the journals that would help me to gather some useful data for the report. After I collected all the resources I wanted, I filtered them based on our topic. I looked for the useful information that I believed it would help to complete our report. We had several group discussions in which we realise that we should listen and respect each other’s suggestions and opinions to have a harmonious discussion. Our group is so big so we had to have one person who is leading so everyone else understands their individual role. As group members, we all gave our opinion but Eric was the one who led the discussion. I think this is the best way to carry out the brainstorming session because we have many people in the group. Without a leader, we would be lost. As for personal learning, I mostly used Internet to solve my problems. When I had had questions, I did a search. If a search online did not help, I would have asked my group members and tutor.

We asked for feedback in the class regarding collaboration issues and researching issues because our classmates were doing the same thing like us so they might have similar problems and also solutions to it.

Here is the link to the blog post that is about feedback from the class:

– https://estherho2010.wordpress.com/2011/04/15/presentation-and-feedback/

Reading helps (personal learning strategy)

Here is the link to the blog post talking about the reading- how to do research. I did refer back to this blog post when I was doing my research. It saved me a lot of time!

– https://estherho2010.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/from-topics-to-questions/

I give myself CREDIT for this part (Strategies).

Problems:

Personally, I faced a problem because I was not able to conduct an interview. The people I wished to interview are either overseas or busy with their own projects. What I did was using the interview in the books I found. I found one useful interview to include in my research. As for group, there were quite a lot of problems that our group was facing. Firstly, we did not know how were we going to actually put the research report altogether. We had different timetables so we could not meet up anytime to discuss our project. But luckily, there is Facebook. We created a Facebook group to discuss the problems and issues that each of us was facing. Besides Facebook group, we also used Google Docs. So even we couldn’t meet face to face, we could still use internet to interact with each other to work out our project. Secondly, we did not know what structure or design we should use for our report. Too many people in our group and it was quite confusing who was going to work on which part and how were we going to link every case study together. What we did was everyone had to finish their case study in between 3500-4000 words and those who was not able to contribute in between 3500-4000 words in their parts  had to spend some time working on the introduction or conclusion (not everyone’s parts has so much content). We then put all our research into our website by the deadline we set. We spent a few days to do the editing. We proof read everything together and checked if there was any problem or anything we needed to add in.

Our group was facing a lot of structuring problems but after several discussions and appointment with Rachel, we finally came up with a proper template.

Here is the link to our final structure/templates that we are using for our report after so many group appointments and meetings

– https://estherho2010.wordpress.com/2011/05/27/work-in-progress/

Here is the link to our planned sturcture (we changed because some of the case studies might not able to find the resources to answer them)

– https://estherho2010.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/writing-time/

Here is another structuring

– https://estherho2010.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/feedback-from-rachel/

Suggestions from Rachel for the structure

– https://estherho2010.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/individual-group-appointment-with-rachel/

I give myself CREDIT for this part (Problems).

Connections & Intersections:

At first, I did not know what I was going to learn about media from this course because it is all about researching and writing essay. But now, I think I have seen the value of this course. I am not learning to make a film or produce any media content in this course but I am learning what is going on in the media industry currently. Through the process of researching, I found that the media environment is changing. Media content is produced and consumed in a total different way from the past. I did not know Web 2.0 such as YouTube is changing the media industry before this course. I thought it is just a social networking site. I did not know that YouTube can also be part of the mainstream media and media people are actually taking it very seriously. In the process of writing the research report, I have also learnt that media practitioner does not need to work in major media company or production house. As media practioner, we can just produce good quality media content with cheap production tool and editing software and then distribute them to any websites that carry user generated content such as YouTube. I believe YouTube has offered people especially media people an opportunity to distribute their creation and get noticed by the world. If I couldn’t get a job after I graduate, I might as well produce media content and use YouTube to distribute my work and earn money because I have learnt how people earn money from YouTube and what kind of content that the audiences are interested in. If I am lucky enough to get a job in a media company, I also can use the knowledge I have learnt in this course to improve my works in the media field because I have learnt how can we as media practioners could use prosumer culture, user generated content and even prosumers to improve our works. Besides, I have also learnt more about working in a group through this project. We should respect each other and distribute work equally. Moreover, each of us should also assist one another besides doing our own assigned parts in order to get the project done on time. We all have to make sure the overall product looks good, not just our own case studies. To work better in a group, I have also learnt that communication skill is really important. Equipped with things i learnt from this project, I believe I will work better in the next group project.

I give myself DISTINCTION for this part (Connections & Intersections).

Overall, I  give myself DISTINCTION.

Link to our research report- Prosumerism.

Done with Presentation

Finally, we have done the presentation which i think is the scariest assessment ever (speaking in front of the seminar). I am very shy to speak in front of the crowd. Luckily I got some superb group members. I felt so much relaxed when doing the presentation with them. I felt confident when I was doing it because I believe I would have backup if something happened. Luckily, our presentation went well. There are few presentations that I really like which are- Transmedia storytelling, Reality TV show and the cooperate social responsibility. The way they presented are very interesting and so they were able to attract audiences’ attention. I learnt something from them. Making videos and preparing props for presentation are quite useful in delivering message to the audience.

Actually all the groups have done a really good job. I believe all the research reports will be helping us to understand better about the media industry today. By reading all the research report, I believe we could learn how to become a better media practioner in future (soon to be, we will be graduating this year) by understanding how people nowadays consume, produce and distribute the media content.

Well, the presentation is now done, it’s time to finish up our report. SUPRO, go go go!!

Work in Progress

Our group has finally fixed up the presentation. We will be mainly talking about what is our research topic- Prosumerism about and how this matters to us.
Things we are going to present:
– What case studies we have for our report (briefly talk about that)
– Production tools: what tools prosumers use to produce their works. How technology has made things easier?
– Communities, online media platforms/services provide a space for prosumers to interact with each other and learn from each other. Degree does not matter anymore, skills do!
– Distribution tools, how prosumers distribute theirs works? *Besides YouTube and other online media services, does any of the prosumer’s work get on TV or any other maintsream media?
– How these all matter to us as media practioner? Why we need to know these??
– Conlusion: how can we media practioners use the prosumerism/ prosumers to improve our works and the way we present our media content and how this prosumer culture has influenced people’s career and the world.

Things are getting so much clearer now. And in today’s appointment with Rachel, she seemed happy with our work now. We will write our report based on the templates above which are:
– Introduction
– Production Tools
– Communities
– Distribution Tools
– How these matter to media practioner
– Conclusion

We will spend the weekend to research more in order to answer the templates above because some of us may not have enough resources to cover every part. For example, the resources I found are mostly examples of sucessful youtubers who have earned fame and money. I need to find out how they use YouTube as a space to build their own community and use it to improve and promote their works.

Dry run presentation

Today’s presentation was…NOT GOOD.
– Timing…too many case studies, too little time
– Not organised
– Introduction is not clear enough, audiences do not know what this presentation was about.

Feedback from tutor and classmates:
– Timing ( One of the classmates suggested us to choose 2-3 interesting case studies to talk about and pick 1 or 2 speakers to drive the whole presentation…too many people in the group can be a headache problem)
– STRUCTURE!! We just have to think about the structure again…

Obviously, our group still has to work harder on structuring our research report. We decided to meet on next wednesday and figure everything out on that day. No solution, No rest!

By next wednesday, we should know what we have researched and bring them to the meeting. This way can make everyone understand what everyone has been doing so we could figure out the structure easily.

Writing time

So, our group has been researching for a while and it is time for us to start putting stuff into whatever place that we are going to present our research report. Our group came out with a structure of how we are going to put our research in the report.

Here are the templates we are planning to use:

-Name

-Topic Summary (including changes during its history and major successes)

-Relationships with other media (Should we say the difference between XX and traditional media)

a. key differences

b. the effect of new practices on other media (traditional media)

-Audience ( and also people who create the content)

-Production

a. technology

b. collaboration

c. relationships between crew and producers

-Distribution (online, offline, using convergence)

-Future

However, I think these template will be changed a little bit when we are working on it because we might come out with something more specific or precise templates later on for the content we have found.

Our group decided to meet tomorrow and have a chat about what we all have been working on so far. (By tomorrow, we all have to finish writing 800-1000 words for our case studies, it can be introduction or anything we come out with)

As Rachel suggested, we all need to have at least one interview per case study and I have been looking for someone to be interviewed. However, the person is overseas now and she is not able to be interviewed face to face before june. So I am hoping that she is able to be interviewed through emailing. Still waiting for her reply. Hopefully everything will be fine.

Feedback from Rachel

Today, we have a short meeting with Rachel to discuss how our research report has been going so far.

Well, we all know what we have to do with our part but Rachel said we have to come out with a structure to put all the data and examples we have found. Our group hasn’t decided on a structure yet.

Eric mada a wikipage for our group. But, Rachel suggested us to design a webpage and put our research report in it. She finds this way is the best way to present our research report. So, our group apparently has to meet up and discuss how are we going to design the webpage and what are our headings and subheadings.

The headings that I am thinking are:

Name of case studies (underlined and bold)
Introduction of this platform or software or technology (History of XXX)
Development of XXX
Impact of XXX on Mass Media/ Traditional Media
Example of the successful prosumers of XXX
Future of XXX

I make the headings more general so it can suit every case study.

The subheadings should be designed differently depends on the case study.

Presentation and feedback

In today’s tutorial class, we all had to present what we have been up to for the research project and what problems we are currently facing. There are 4 groups in our class, each group is doing different topic and everyone in the group is looking for different resources. Therefore, we are all having different problems.

Group A
– Corporate and social responsibility in marketing (They are doing something about grassroots movement)
Their problems: Not much information. They hardly find where the information is located, the information might not even exist, example: the tobacco company.

Group B
– Digital multi channeling in Australia F.T.A. TV: how to increase Australian content
Their problems: Difficulty locating the information.

Group C
– The influence of online content on the marketing/ reach of Australian TV on specific audiences (Demographic)
What I heard of is they have troubles finding the resources based on Australia, most resources are based on US or other countries.

Group D
– The growth of prosumer content development and its influence on the “mainstream media”
This is what my group and I are doing.

I am looking at youtube as case study and I have found lots of resources. The only problem I am having is to find more examples of how prosumer earn money from making media content in youtube because most books I have found are about marketing and business.

The feedback I got from the class:
– Freediew (Classmates suggested)
I actually went to see some of his works in youtube and here is his blog. I think this will help a lot in my research.

-A guy who is dancing everywhere in the world, the visa commercial one is the most popular one. “Where the hell is Matt?”

– People are making song covers on youtube. They turn themselves from consumer who like certain music to prosumer who sing the song covers then become professional when some record companies hire them.

These are some good examples that I can look for. Appreciate classmates and tutor’s help!

Besides all the problems we are having when we are researching, there is a another key problem that two big groups are facing- gather the information/ resources together and write the research report. My group is one of the biggest group in class, we are actually having problems how do we use the resources and how do we share the resources we have found to other group members.

Below are some suggested solutions:
– Be systematic
– Meet regularly
– set deadlines
– penalties

Before group members share the resources they have found, they should filter the resources first and direct the group members to the key points so they don’t have to go through the same process again.

Rachel suggested us that we should start structuring the report so we can also start inserting the content we have found into it.

Interview- Guest lecture

There are many things we have to learn to conduct a sucessful interview. So, we were having a guest lecture who has been working in radio industry for a very long time here in RMIT shared his experience with us.

He told us what he has been going through these years and some funny stories when he was interviewing people and other interviewers’ stories too such as Michael Parkinson.

He said that interviewer must raise the energy level of himself/herself and also the interviewee in order to get “something” from the interviewee. It can be some very useful information. Besides, we also need to try asking questions that can get emotional response from the interviewee.

We actually have learnt the interviewing skills in last year for the TV2 (documentary filmmaking). Preparation rules everything. We need to get ourself well prepared before conducting any interview. Like what the guest lecture said, the more knowledge you have, the more information people will give you. The link to the previous post that is about interview.

To conduct a sucessful interview, we need to identify who are we going to interview. This is very important. We need to find someone who is credible and available. I believe this is very important especially when we need correct information for our research report.

Interview for research purposes:

– Get information more effectively

– Target the question

– Build networks. We students can meet professional media practioners through interviewing them. *Good way to meet people and get job.

Individual progress report

So, I was told to write a 1000 words progress report even though I don’t really have much to report at this time.

Anyway, below is what I have been working on so far:

Our group is a big group. We have 7 people in the group. My role in the group is reference group member. My responsibility will be researching case studies or any related academic resources that help to complete the report. Besides, I also need to show up and contribute in meeting for the report’s sake. Put it in a simple way, my job is to do research on our group’s topic that helps me and my group members to complete the report.

At the beginning of this research report, I would like to work on how people get funding to make their own projects/ films. But then I changed my mind and become more interested on digital distribution and broadcast paradigm. After that, I did the reading on convergence culture, I found out that the media industry is changing almost everyday indeed. I like the idea of convergence culture and I would like to know more about how this media practice works. What our group is doing now is about Prosumerism and I think it is part of the convergence culture. We had a lot of ideas before, but our group’s topic finally settled on Prosumerism after several group discussions and feedbacks from the class and Rachel.

Our group is going to find out how the term “prosumer” has become so noticeable and how has the Prosumerism changed the mainstream media and how it affects the media industry. In the process of finding out answers to these questions, everyone in the group chose one case studies about Prosumerism to focus on and we will share what we have found at the end. I chose to research on youtube. I will be looking at how youtube has changed the people produce media content and also how the people so called prosumer earn money from making videos in youtube. There are many popular youtube channels out there but I was wondering why do they spend their time on doing this and how can they earn a living out of this. I would like to find out this through this research.

As told by Rachel, we don’t have to be very original like what PHD people are. Basically, all we need to do in this research report is to find out what is going on in media industry based on our topic. What we have found will help us in our future career because we will know what the media industry is facing and going through currently.

I don’t have any unique strategy on doing my research. All I am doing is to find the useful books in library by keying in the keywords that I think relates to my research.

My resources I have found so far are all from RMIT library. I just simply inserted youtube in RMIT library catalogue and I found lots of books. I then filtered all the books and chose what I think are useful. Below are the books I have borrowed and started to read:

1) Celeb 2.0: How Social Media Foster Our Fascination with Popular Culture by Kelli S. Burns
– There is a chapter where I think it will answer the question how has youtube changed the way the media content is produced by the people called prosumer. (It is chapter 6, From Memes to Mashups: Creating Content From Content, p. 75)
* “Jeffrey Bardzell argues that amateur productions express different kind of humor, one of juxtaposition, parody, and commentary. (p. 75)”

2) The stories of facebook, youtube and myspace by Sarah Lacy
– I scanned through some of the pages but I realised it is not helpful for my research because it mainly talks about the creator of these sites. (Failed)

3) Video Cultures: Media Technology and Everyday Creativity
– I read some of the pages, this book talks mainly about amateur video production. I can take part of the theories or histories of amateur video- making into my research as the introduction paragraph to introduce the youtube as a case study for Prosumerism.

4) How to do everything with youtube by Chad Fahs
– Completely useless for my research because this book teaches reader how to use youtube. (Failed)

5) Youtube: Digital Media and Society Series
– I scanned through some of the chapters and I found that this book could also be used in the introduction part of the research. It explains the relationship between youtube and pop cultures, social network cultural politics and mainstream media. There is a chapter in this book that is very useful to be used to understand why the users so called prosumer spend time in contributing content in youtube. Also, this book explains the difference between the media companies and individuals who use youtube.

6) Youtube: An insider’s guide to climbing the charts by Alan Lastufka and Michaels W. Dean
– This book is a guide to whoever wants to earn money from making videos in youtube. I believe I can use some of the tips in this book to answer the question “how prosumers earn money from making videos in youtube”. There are also some interviews in this book, which can help to understand deeper in youtube and how people use youtube.

7) 15 minutes of Fame: Becoming a Star in the youtube Revolution by Frederick Levy
– Another useful book for showing examples of how prosumers earn their living though using youtube. There is a chapter in this book showing all the people who have successfully turn themselves from consumers to prosumers and finally become professional.

8) User-generated content by Roman Espejo (ed. )
– This is a useful book for the reader to understand what is user-generated content and how this changes the mainstream media. This can be used to lead the reader understand what is Prosumerism.

9) How to make money with youtube by Brad and Debra Schepp
– The title explains everything about this book but the problem is this book mainly teaches people how to use youtube to promote their business or making videos from business’ point of view. This book does not explain youtube in media context. (Failed)

10) Youtube 4 you by Michael Miller
– I found this book useful because it can answer the question of how prosumer earn money from making videos in youtube. It also mentions that youtube is planning to share its revenue to the users who upload original videos to the site which I think this is useful for our research report.

There is another book I have found but I think it is pointless to mention because it has similar content to some of the books above. From the books I have found above, I have chosen 7 to analyse.

The problem that I have had in my research so far is I couldn’t find one key example to put in my research. I think I need to find a famous youtuber who successfully turns himself/herself from consumer to prosumer and continue act as prosumer rather than become professional. If possible, I would like to interview him/her, if not, I hope I can find a book about a famous youtuber (prosumer) from youtube. Maybe the only solution to find out more examples is to use Internet. There is a book I have found above has some of the successful examples but I just think I need more examples for our group members to choose and also to analyse. To complete the report, I also need to include other case studies which other group members will do research on them but I am just afraid I don’t have enough time to read through the case studies and write them in my report. I am still thinking how to solve this problem.

Rachel suggested our group in the private group appointment that we can separate our research into 3 parts (link to previous post). I think what I have found so far can be put in every part of the research. I just need to dig in more to the books and find more useful quotes and information for the research.

I believe my current project relates to another project which is production project 1. It is also about convergence culture and participatory culture. That’s about it for my progress report. I am going to find more resources in the Internet since there isn’t much in the books.

Individual group appointment with Rachel

Everything makes so much sense now. Things are getting clearer. I finally know what I have to do in this research report and the group works.
Basically every group member has to choose one area/subject in the topic we are doing (which is prosumerism) to do a research for the rest. Everyone just has to do research on specific subject. We are sharing the resources. This will save our time and make sure we have enough resources to write a 4000 words report.

Rachel suggested us something in the appointment and I found them are very useful and actually helped me to find my way out.

What can audience and media professional get out of our research? (What are the benefits?)

She asked us to divide our report into 3 parts:

Part A: Describing the “new” environment (the context)
All the terms or theories we have found can be written in this part

Part B: Where does this happen?? (Case studies)
Find some case studies to show to the readers how and where does this “thing” happen.

Part C: How this influence the media industries?
This part is to let the media practioner (to be media practioner) knows what is going to happen in the future (currently) so that we as to be media practioner know how to handle all these when we start working in media field. And also need to show what is the difference between amater and professional/ consumer and producer, implication of technology and software.

Rachel said that the most important thing we need to figure out in this research report is the STRUCTURE. Once we get the structure done, we are good. Structure is very important in research report. Things that Rachel told us today, I found it very useful for us to structure our report.

By next friday, we will need to finish a 1000 words progress report and also come out with a problem that we are facing when doing the research. Time to research..