The Jeff Pulver Blog: Guest Blogger: David Kowarsky on "Talking-Head" Videoblogging

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October 13, 2006

Guest Blogger: David Kowarsky on "Talking-Head" Videoblogging

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David Kowarsky serves this week as a Guest Video/Blogger for Jeff Pulver, with this episode of Focus, responding to comments on Focus on Blip.tv.

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Hi everyone. First of all, big thank you to Jeff for letting me step in here with a response to Fred Graver. The question he puts forth is an important one, and I very much appreciate having such a platform from which to address it. I do so in two ways, both in the above videoblog, and the text posting of what you're reading now. This is because, while I will go on to discuss the effectiveness of videoblogging, I don't think it is the best form to discuss everything. Anyways, to the point...After recapping Focus on Blip.tv , (implying that it is a "talkingvhead" piece) he poses his question:

SO... is it just laziness that makes vloggers just stare into the camera? OR...is the point of vlogs and video on the net that the spoken word is more effective than words?

Whether he realizes it or not, this question sets up a false dichotomy. I do not mean to imply that he obfuscated intentionally here, but it obscures what is going on.

The juxtaposition of "Staring into the camera" with "doing things" is a very different juxtaposition than that between "staring into the camera" and typing a non-multimedia blog entry.

"Talking head" vlogging brings a lot more than "spoken words" to the web: It's spoken words from a face you can see, and I think Graver may be underestimating the impact that can have. A Human face is among the most powerful visual stimuli. Studies by scientists such as Paul Ekman have identified certain features of facial expressions signifying certain emotions transcend cultural boundaries. This impact extends to societies that do not have of mass media where such things could be learned/taught. The face alone is HUGE in terms of the impact of a message.

Now it's kind of funny that Jeff Pulver said I'm "No Mr. Rogers," as I think it's clear that Focus and other vlogs, professional and personal alike, use similar devices to be close to their audience. I may not be targeting the same age group as that man who took me off to the land of make-believe on a regular basis, but one can easily see some paralells in style. An informal, chatty relationship with the viewer, through the camera's eye. An invitation to his home. In fact, it occurs to me that Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood might seem quite at home among "talking head" vlogs.

"Talking head" is also a genre of newscasting, which has inspired viewers to bond with anchors and welcome them into their home since there has been televised news. In making my production decisions about Focus, I thought more that by being a "talking head" I was aligning myself with a tried-and-true form of communication, rather than doing something inspired by laziness.

Furthermore, in the specific case of videoblogging, the "staring into a camera" approach has an added attraction because, in the very simplest of terms, it promotes an identification between the creator and the audience. The "producer" and the "receiver" of this "text," as academics might say.

Meet Wolfgang Iser pioneer of "reception aesthetics" and "reader-response" literary theory.

--
The phenomenological theory of art lays full stress on the idea that, in
considering a literary work, one must take into account not only the
actual text but also, and in equal measure, the actions involved in
responding to the text. (Wolfgang Iser 1974, "The Reading Process")
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Now, "Reading" here, is easily expanded to reception of/responding to any text, any created work. A narratologist (one who studies the mechanics of narrative and storytelling) might call the theoretical entity that the text creator (or the text itself) takes into account as performing the actions of reception, "the implied reader."*

Any text should take into account the context of it's intended reception. In the case of a videoblog, the context of reception is almost always someone sitting in front of a computer. If that which is presented is "someone sitting in front of a computer" this promotes an identification of the viewer with the creator. This collapses some of the metaphorical "distance" between the receiver and the implied author. There is a mirror for the context of reception inside the text. This is a kind of mise-en-abyme, an arguably overdefined term in literature generally referring to the idea of the infinite regression, and playing with the boundaries of where the created work ends and where "reality" begins. When a text refers to itself or the context of it's own creation or reception, it is also called "going meta" from the Greek for "beyond."

I've previously thrown around the "distance" metaphor in this article, without much definition partially because it's intuitive extension for the common "conduit metaphor" for communication, that gives us expressions like "get my point across," "put this into words," "get through to you." More specifically though, distance is a description of the difference between two entities. The differences can be on various levels.

Another renowned theorist, Wayne C Booth, expanded on the idea of "the Implied author," a counterpart to Iser's "Implied reader." The implied author is is a representation of the sum total of the author's choices and values in writing the work. And according to Booth, "the disappearance of intellectual, moral, and aesthetic distances between implied author and reader is an ideal situation for enjoyment of the work." (The Rhetoric of Fiction)

So, that which Fred Graver attributes to laziness can, intentionally or otherwise, contribute to an ease of communication through the videoblogging medium, and greater enjoyment of the work produced.

On a slightly more superficial note, am I that underproduced? I looked at the Jeff Jarvis segment that hit ABC, and I also think it was a tad overproduced, but not because there was eye candy, but because I don't need to see that many copies of Jeff's or anyone's head in order to make the important point. Focus is closer to that than it is to some personal vlogs that achieve sizeable recognition despite a complete lack of intercutting or coverage footage whatsoever, more in the style of Drinking with Bob .

In my last piece, I had 3 scene changes in my under 5 minutes, which were already largely dominated by footage that I brought in and offered commentary on. Fred offered only one critique of the content of what I was presenting, focusing his attention on the form. Not all talking heads are created equal, and there's plenty of room to criticise them outside of form. Was I saying things that were uninteresting? Was I not a charismatic presenter? Did you care about what I was saying? I'm going to guess that I succeeded in making a distinctive impression, since he bothered to write about me. I felt I was presenting interesting content in a familiar and accessible form, and that the similarity between my surroundings and the viewer was helpful.

See the Mac Tower in the background of the McVlog? Dan McVicar isn't being lazy, he could cover it up or shoot elsewhere, but I'm sure he's well aware that it's a visual cue that gives his audience something to relate to.

As a conclusion, let's turn our attention to the Heavy angels of Heavy.com. A lot of "talking head" going on here, and just as an example, http://www.myheavy.com/main.php?p=11667 kimberleigh's introduction video. Sure she's cute, but in this video, aren't the most attractive things she does the ones that make her seem accessible and like you? Explicitly, her trendy World of Warcraft reference, and implicitly, her spending time sitting in front of her computer staring at the screen?

So, In short, talking heads are more than what they seem, particularly in the context of vlogging, where they possess added power based on the context of reception.

*There is substantial overgeneralization here. It is not as easy to say "Narratologists call this entity" as it might be to say "Physicists call this particle...". A) there are different schools of thought, and B) I'm sacrificing completeness for the sake of accessibility. If anyone believes I have simplified something to the point of being completely wrong or misleading, that sounds like a great subject for a comment.

Tags: David Kowarsky, Fred Graver, blip.tv, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff on October 13, 2006 06:56 AM | Permalink

Additional resources: #140conf events | Watch the Jeff Pulver Show | Jeff's Qik Videos

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The talking head does a LOT for credibility. I can attest to this first-hand. Here's the thing. Online, there are a TON of student loan companies. Most of them are faceless monoliths and on a good day you might see something vaguely human about them. Most of the "people" on their web sites are stock photo art, and the likelihood that someone depicted actually works there is very, very low.

The talking head - either in voice (audio podcast) or face (video podcast) lends instant credibility to a company because you see a real human being, and if they're properly connected, you can even talk to them outside the publication. You can see, in many cases, that they're not some fabrication of a PR department somewhere, but a human being trying to do their best with what they've got, just like the rest of us.

To those who think the talking head is just laziness, I'll pose this question. How many student loan companies (and keep in mind, student loans are a $100 BILLION/year market, so the money's there) can you directly interact with via instant messenger? How many podcast? How many videoblog, even if it's just my talking head?

Christopher S. Penn, The Financial Aid Podcast
A Publication of the Student Loan Network
On-demand financial aid internet radio, no iPod required
http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com
http://www.StudentLoanNetwork.com

Posted by: Christopher S. Penn, PodCamp Co-Founder at October 13, 2006 07:13 AM

October 13, 2006

Guest Blogger: David Kowarsky on "Talking-Head" Videoblogging

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