Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Digital Storytelling and future videojournalism





Call it neo-videojournalism, Cinematic (doesn't do it justice) or videojournalism-as-cinema.

The revolution is ongoing, but it's below the radar now. The big peaks were YouTube, Twiter, Vine, but innovation is not technology dependent. Next up, Oculas, Touchcast e.g.

If we search long and hard enough, we'll find something... cracks...nuggets of new wisdom.

But we have a fundamental problem. We often don't know where to search, or we don't know where else to look, other than the debris created when a new app hits the market.

Truth is the answer to fundamentals of our questions lay in the past. Historians recognise the circularity of life. Archeologists rely on history, linguists too, media is no different. McLuhan knew this too.

Since the dawn of time, we've told linear stories, and spatial ones ( Caves). We have yet to detour to a new world of imaginary lines, what mathematicians refer to as the -i plane.  e.g  what is the sqaure root of -4 ? Exactly!

We made do one day, but it requires a cognitive leap in understanding that it may not happen in this lifetime. In China, a cinema mimics the conditions on the screen e.g. Snow, blizzards, a skateboarder riding across rough ground as your seat simulates the bumps.

But this is small fry. When we're physically in the film and its narrative adapts to your thinking that's another world entirely. Imagine the algorithms for that? 

The past provides some degree of cognitivism. Understand the person, you get to know their motives.

Videojournalism.co.uk trades on this understanding and I share some brief rational concepts from my Phd thesis examining the future.