NEW MEDIA: AN EXAMPLE OF ITS POTENTIALITY AND DRAWBACKS

Internet and its constant development allows people to be both audience and producers of content.

The idea of ‘Producing’ appealed to Melbournian Owen Vanderberg, the creator of Capsule, TweetFilm and the current Death by Consumption, a podcast based on what people are passionate about and consume with voracity. Vanderberg is attracted by the accessibility of new media that rather than limiting his ideas allows them take form in different products.

“The idea that there’s so much the creator can do, and then it’s up to the audience to finish the work”(Vanderberg, 2014)

Capsule, a small dose of fiction was a literary space on Internet where everyone could submit their creations of 250 words. Readers could put comments on any short fictions and receive answer from the writer.

TweetFilm was a project that wanted to link the experience of watching a movie and interacting on Twitter. The result was the creation of a community who, from their home at the same time watched the same movie and interacted each other with comments through Twitter. Successively, it found a venue in the city where people could watch together the film on a screen. Tweets were projected alongside the movie. “It was a fun way to combine the old and the new”, said Owen. In fact, “if you made a joke you could actually hear laughter, something that comedy on Twitter usually lacks” (Vanderberg, 2014). The collaboration of new and old doesn’t emerge only from the product in itself, but also in the way to get audience; if new media allow new contents, it is still the ancient word of mouth that has a big role in informing and attracting people on new realizations.

However, the risk to close down is always a constant, due to the vulnerability of the vehicle and the audience. Capsule launched in 2011 it hasn’t had a long life, TweetFilm closed in 2013 after two year of activity. As Vanderberg claims, “As soon as tech gets in the way of what you’re trying to do, you risk your audience switching off” (Vanderberg, 2014).

Reference:

·      Vanderberg, 2014 from a recent interview by Angela Meyer, lecture 7, week 7: People in Multi and New Media, presented 2 September 2014.

Note: all the information about the ‘life’ of Capsule and TweetFilm are based on the respective websites.