MEDIA INDUSTRIES AND GRASSROOTS CULTURAL PRODUCTION IN THE DIGITAL ERA

UNIVERSITÀ CATTOLICA DEL SACRO CUORE - SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

Video-memorials: a case of emotional Grassroots CultureAlessandra Micalizzi – IULM University

alessandra.micalizzi@iulm.it

YouTube and the grassroots Culture

YouTube is characterized by:

• Mainstream content s’ mash up personal contents’ production (v-blogging)

• Potentiated exibitionism (Koskela, 2004)

• Fondom-izing Real Life that means:– sharing all aspect of ordinary and extraordinary events that involve us;– translating them in the multimedia languages;– creating the expectation of participation of others by the expression of their

(virtual) presence.

Mourning in the Digital Age

Pre-modernity

• Rites of passages (Separation, transition, reunification) Van Gennep

• Centrality of the community

• Acceptation of death as a part of the Life

Modernity

• Loss of meaning of the Traditions

• Individualism

• Expropriation of death from Everyday life

Digital Age

• Search of new anthropological practices

• Networked Individualism

• New (virtual) spaces for communitarian experiences

V-memorials: an empirical research

Analysis of a new trend based on the practice of publishing amateur videos in memory of beloved persons that disappeared

Main Aim: • to explore the characteristics of this practices: motivations, languages and

dynamics between authors and viewers

Methodology: • visual analysis• Qualitative content analysis• Network analysis

Sample:• 100 videos• 4500 posts (not depured)

V-memorials: main results

• Video-tribute To remember the Beloved

• Amateur social advertising To prevent (actions by) the Networked publics

• Digital-tracks To show (feelings to) the Beloved

• Emotive-report To sue (something or someone to the)Networked publics

V-memorials: main results

• the messages of support: “I don’t know her but she seems to be really cute. She disappeared too soon. It’s unfair…I’m sorry”

• personal feelings: “I’m shocked but this story. I have two daughters and I can’t believe that this can happen to them too…I can’t stop crying”

• Judges: “I know why you have published this video. And you were right to do that. You feel guilty because you drove the car that night and you want to know to us that it wasn’t your fault. I think it’s not your fault. The fault is on the crazy driver of the car. He had to die..not her nor you…he is a criminal, junkie

• anecdotes:“I can understand how you feel now…because I’m a mother too…and I lost my baby at the 27th week of pregnancy”

General trends and peculiar cases

V-memorials are:- Personalized- Distributed- Based on a shared Rhetoric of languages- Commemorative pod-cast events (need of

networked publics)

Peculiar cases are:- Stars’ v-memorials- Fake v-memorials- On-line preficas