Abstract
Amateur Content Creation as Compositional Practice: Viral Videos and Internet Memes in Online Participatory Culture. Barnaby Goodman , Goldsmiths, University of London
Highlights
Online platforms, most notably YouTube, have been a major site of the 21st-century’s digital participatory culture
It shall demonstrate that viral videos and memes often employ musical composition techniques, namely the reiterative practice of popular music and procedural organisation
In terms of form, both viral video and memes are often built around musical principles of construction, and pulse and reiteration are principles commonly featured in both
Summary
Most notably YouTube, have been a major site of the 21st-century’s digital participatory culture. The second formal distinction present in technical memes is that their use of musical principles of construction creates hypermediacy, whereas early memes’ use of such principles strives for immediacy These are terms used in Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin's discussion of new media that shall be instrumental to the analysis of both forms. I shall examine the musical principles of construction employed in early viral videos and recent memes, namely pulse and reiteration and procedural organisation This analysis shall reveal how the two forms use these principles to achieve immediacy and hypermediacy respectively. Much like Shifman, Bolter and Grusin demonstrate a focus on the visual in their discussion of new media This analysis shall place their model into a new context, in order to explore the contrasting manner in which early viral videos and recent memes use audio and music to render their mediums either transparent or opaque. This comparison shall be furthered by a subsequent discussion of the distinct ways in which the two forms have remediated the same piece of popular culture, the Stars Wars franchise
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