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Engagement - The ways in which an audience interacts with an online media product. Engagement can be quantified through view counts, likes, and most importantly, total time spent watching or viewing something
Engagement, as in encouraging the audience to watch the entire video, is maximised through:
- Zoella has a pre-existing target audience that she has cultivated over 16 years
- Sugg’s persona is natural, relatable and highly compelling to her target audience of younger women. She is an aspirational role model
- Uses commercially available equipment to produce her video. High production values are not a prerequisite of the lifestyle vlog, and additionally, this keeps her production cost
- Zoella intentionally cuts out aspects of the video which may harm or limit her earnings, for example copyrighted music. The music used in her vlogs is typically copyright free…
- Engaging with the video, as in watching at least minutes results in money for the producer. Adverts too. Affiliate links, sponsorship and associated adverts all provide a range of revenue streams.
- Discussion of stereotypical aspects such as housekeeping, homeware and looking after children
- Sugg’s costume engages the audience through its aesthetically pleasing and relatable qualities for a younger female audience. However, using digitally convergent technologies, we are encouraged to explore and even purchase items of her clothing, allowing the target audience to truly aspire to be her. This voyeuristic mode of address relies on digitally convergent technology
- Direct address is maintained almost throughout the video, encouraging to audience to continue engaging with the video
- A relationship, to be precise a one-sided, parasocial relationship is formed between the youtuber and the target audience. This helps audience engagement and future
- Audiences can comment on the video, directly interacting with Zoella
- “Long time watcher here! It is so crazy to see you just casually taking the train to London and spending a day out there, something which would have been so difficult for you anxiety-wise not so long ago! Just in case you have anxiety wobbles and need a reminder of how far you’ve come, we’re all so proud of you!” - Zoella’s videos are constructed in such a way to encourage positive and supportive comments. This in turn encourages audience response and engagement.
- Relatable topics for a middle class, homeowner target audience, or an aspirational working class target audience
- Video is passive and ‘cold’, encouraging audiences to engage with it in a variety of different ways, for example, playing the video in the background while doing work
- Use of brand deals and advertising. Utilising digitally convergent media, this video uses hyperlinks to gain paid revenue from other products. Utilising affiliate links allows Sugg to sell fashion and lifestyle products to her target audience, and allow them to aspire to her lifestyle. However, for each click through or verified purchase, Sugg and her team would receive some revenue.
- The discussion of relatable content, for example the highly heteronormative ideology that one’s function is to produce children and raise them in a nuclear family, is highly relatable to other mothers, and those who relate to Sugg herself
- The use of repetitive conventions constructs a deliberate brand identity for her target audience
- Sugg’s number of subscribers (5.1 million!) suggests high audience engagement
- Sugg directly the addresses the audience and provides updates on her life, providing further engagement
- “You guys know that I really love Christmas” - a direct address, a nostalgic mode of address that targets her long term fans that forms a complex and engrossing parasocial relationship. A parasocial relationship is one sided and deeply emotional. This may provide for an unhealthy outlet. We as an audience let ourselves believe that we have this relationship. This allows for an escapist mode of address. Audiences suspend their disbelief
- Audiences must also suspend their disbelief and accept that Sugg is not perfect but has constructed a hyperreal world that is more real than reality
- Audiences may use Sugg for escapist purposes, and may also negotiate this product as a comfy and relaxing experience.
The introduction - What is ‘online media’?
Online media refers to the distribution, production and post production of media using the internet and digitally convergent media. The internet is a series of interconnected computers, servers, and other ways of storing data.
ANOTHER GROUP'S TAKE
Online media refers to media that can be accessed using the digitally convergent medium of the internet. The internet is a series of networked computers which allow for the intense exchange of data across the world. Hosted on a variety of networks, server farms and other hosting solutions, the internet is everywhere.
What is a ‘vlog’? What are the conventions of the ‘vlog’?
A vlog is a video blog. It can take many forms, but
Blog is short for web log
A blog is a series of posts on the same topic, taking a variety of different forms.
- Often fairly long, for example longer than half an hour
- Low production values
- Direct mode of address, talking to the camera
- Shakycam
- A ‘normal’, relatable, realistic setting…
- Unscripted, authenticity
- Lack of professionally hired actors
- A fun, funny or noteworthy persona
- Regional accents
- Limited editing
- ‘A day in the life’, a voyeuristic mode of address
- An attractive thumbnail image
- An authentic, relatable host
- A direct mode of address
- Highly personable, for example through the use of regional accents
- Unscripted and chaotic, provides a sense of authenticity
- Encourages audience participation through hypermodality
What advantages does digitally convergent technology provide its audiences and producers?
- Convenience - we can access digitally technology from anywhere, with no issues with geography
- Anyone can be a producer (Clay Shirky’s end of audience theory). . Using minimal equipment, audiences can produce their own work, and digitally distribute it as well.
- Cost - there are fewer financial barriers to entry. Distribution of media is now essentially free, as long as we are willing to abide by terms of service
- Possibility to reach a MUCH wider audience…
- ….but simultaneously a niche audience. Models of broadcasting have been replaced by narrowcasting, appealing to hyper specific audiences
- Mass information. All human knowledge can now be accessed…
- Audiences can now engage with producers directly with producers using comments, allowing for positive interactions
- Ease of access for producers. There is no barrier of entry
- Audiences are able to access a vast amount of information
- Allows for many niche audiences to be targeted (narrowcasting)
- Producers have few restrictions
- Cost effective - production and distribution all unified under one product
- Hyper specific audience targeting utilising algorithms, Google adwords and other specific practices
- Greater access to a wider variety of audiences
- Audience interaction and participation: audiences can leave reviews, mean comments…
- Replying to comments