Online television is growing at a seemingly exponential rate, and the channel formats are quickly becoming the fastest and most creative areas for new media.
Becoming an expert or at least having a good knowledge base of this new direction for the media may be one of the best investments you could make for your future communication skills.
Among the many emerging web TV channel, a few are attacking uncharted waters by providing alternative news, counter information and issues which the traditional media outlets often ignore.
Giving Everyone A Voice
Web 2.0 video services like
YouTube
have given everyday people a voice, but sometimes lack focus. A new
service offers an uncensored forum for debating the issues that often
get left behind by the mass media.
Certainly mass media channels are opening up to their viewers,
with
text messaging, phone-ins and studio discussions, but all are carefully
stage managed.
Say something outside of your favorite broadcaster’s
list of acceptable topics, and you will be cut off mid-sentence,
ridiculed or never even make it onto the show.
The fact is that the old media –
TV, radio, and
newspapers – were designed for one-way mass communication.
And while it
is possible to bolt on interactivity and feedback channels, they will
always be heavily mediated, carefully selected and in some cases
censored to suit the political and corporate agenda of those running
the show.
So where can you go if you want to publicly debate the
important
issues facing us in the world today? Certainly, nobody is going to stop
you shouting from a soapbox on the street, but they might just decide
that you’re crazy.
To reach a wider audience what you need is a way to
broadcast yourself and your message. Sharing your thoughts with online
video is one such way.
But how do you cut through the
millions of videos
being uploaded to YouTube each week, and enter into a meaningful
discussion with people about what really matters?
One solution is a new web video destination built around
fostering uncensored, no-holds-barred debate.
Here are the details:
Friction.tv – Overview
”Friction.tv is an online platform for
user generated
news and opinion. We exist to give you the opportunity to air your
views and respond to the opinions of others. You can debate issues of
local interest to you or discuss points of global importance.Either way, Friction.tv will provide an
interesting and
stimulating alternative to the sanitised, agenda driven mediocrity of
the conventional mass media.
As the Friction.tv website makes clear
this news
and debate service isn’t so much aiming to take YouTube on as it is to
provide an antidote to the bland, censored messages that make it to
mainstream media broadcast.
Here is a service dedicated to bringing news and debate to the
web at a
grassroots level, unhindered by corporate or government agendas.
Web 2.0
is opening up the possibilities for people like you and I to make our
voices heard, and release the information that might never have seen
the light of day only a few short years ago.
Friction.tv
is a platform for
discussion, that makes it easy for users to enter into themed, but
entirely open and uncensored debates via video responses and text-based
comments.
In the following short promo-video you can get a good idea of
the range of debates featured:
Channels of Debate
It is is perfectly possible to
find a debate that
you might want to contribute to by scanning through the most recent or
most popular videos submitted to Friction.tv.
But if you know from the
beginning where your particular interests lie, you can choose from a
range of channels, which videos are grouped into for ease of navigation.
So if you’re interested in debating politics, technology, the
environment, health issues and a range of other topics, here is an open
forum to do so.
With this range of channels available, it becomes quite
easy to quickly home in on debates of most interest. If you’re short on
time, though, videos can be bookmarked for later viewing, which is a
nice idea.
The restrictions made for those
looking to
participate rather than just watch or comment are that your video must
be between thirty seconds and three minutes in length.
Brevity is the
key, and the goal of the service is to open up the one thing that mass
media can’t compete at – sparking quick-fire chain reactions of
conversation and debate.
Diversity of Content
The greatest strength and
greatest weakness
of Friction.tv is its unmediated, unmoderated approach to content
publishing. With Friction.tv if you want to say it, nobody will stop
you, and controversy is actively courted.
This makes for an interesting destination where you are bound
to
find yourself either angered, challenged or feeling vindicated if you
spend more than a few minutes on-site.
Here are people voicing strong
opinions, or sharing the news that you won’t be hearing about on
tonight’s news.
As such, rather than hearing the
same five stories
over and over again for a day or so, as you might from the television
news, Friction.tv debates and reports are incredibly diverse in their
scope and range.
Advocate groups use the service alongside devils
advocates making deliberately controversial statements to gain a strong
reaction.
The only problem with unmoderated content is that it does
create a
low signal-to-noise ratio, and it is possible to find yourself scanning
through several pages of unengaging content before you hit on a video
of real value.
This is a small price to pay, however, for a platform
that allows a truly uncensored, open destination for debate and
information sharing.
Video Debate – Taking Part
You can begin a debate by
uploading your video directly from your account, just as you would on
YouTube.
Here you are asked to think of a provocative title, to get the debate
started, and to choose from one of the channels available to categorize
your work.
Videos can be uploaded in asf, .mpg, .mov and .wmv
formats, which is slightly limited compared to the range offered by
other services. You can, however, also upload your video via mobile
phone.
The other option available is to
respond to an
existing debate either by video or text, both of which are made easy
with large buttons to the side of the main video player.
Finally, you can easily share the debate as a link, an image
or an
embedded video on your blog or website. This way you can take your own,
or someone else’s debate to your own site visitors and extend the
conversation further.
Conclusions
Internet
television
is transforming the avenues of access available to everyday people,
both in terms of making publishing video easy, and enabling the sharing
of opinions and information.
Not so very long ago, if you wanted to
take part in a broadcast debate you would be subject to the programming
and agenda of mass media corporations.
Now, with services like Friction.tv
it is possible to have your news and views seen by a possible audience
of thousands.
Furthermore, while mass media broadcasting is very much a
one-way communication model, the evolving web video landscape is all
about interactivity and conversation.
Uncensored Debate
Friction.tv
gives its users the
opportunity to take part in totally uncensored, unmoderated debates
using web video, so that it is possible to address the issues that the
mainstream mass media repeatedly sweep under the rug.
Issues such as the corrupt
pharmaceutical industry, the unjust
taxation system and the atrocities
committed by the US war machine.
It is now easier than ever to
broadcast yourself to
the world, and at least for the time being nobody has the right to tell
you what you can or can’t say online.
What Friction.tv adds to the web
video equation is an easy-to-navigate set of topic-themed channels and
unrestricted access to what the people really think.
In this crucial respect the mass media has a long way to go to
even come close.
Additional Resources
If you would like to learn more about Friction.tv, you might
want to check out the following links:
Michael Pick is a contributing author discussing broadband video tools and software. His work can be found on MasterNewMedia. Post has Some Rights Reserved.
