1. CYBERPSYCHOLOGY: THE IMPACT OF
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES ON EVERYDAY
LIFE

2. WHAT IS CYBERPSYCHOLOGY?
 How much digital technology have we already
encountered today?
 How has it changed our experience of life and our
relationships with one another ?
 Is our relationship to technology healthy?

3. SOCIAL PRESENCE
 Is face to face the only authentic form of
communication?
 Do the reduced social cues of mediated
communication always get in the way?

4. TECHNOLOGICAL DETERMINISM
VERSUS SOCIAL SHAPING OF
TECHNOLOGY
 Does the technology shape us or do we shape the
technology?
 Does technology come to us fully formed or do we
appropriate it to our own ends?

5. THIS WEEK
1. What is Cyberpsychology?
 My Research- Intergenerational Communication on
YouTube
2. Multimodal Interactional Analysis on Campus
3. Multimodal Interactional Analysis on YouTube
4. Virtual Ethnography on YouTube

6. MY RESEARCH
 Identifying the motivations and behaviours of
different generations of YouTubers
 Describing the culture of YouTube
 Understanding how vloggers construct
meaningful communication through a virtual
medium

7. METHODOLOGY – MULTIMODAL
INTERACTIONAL ANALYSIS
1. Goes beyond the ‘text’
2. Acknowledges all ‘communicative modes’:
 Body language: eye contact, gestures, posture
 Composition of scenes
 Use of objects
 Speech attributes: tone of voice, use of silence
 Media elements: titles, video editing
3. Highly interpretive

8. METHODOLOGY – VIRTUAL
ETHNOGRAPHY
Virtual Ethnography using different forms of data
gathering and analysis
a Participant observation
r Interviews
r Grounded textual analysis of online dialogue
Multimodal interactional analysis
Participant observation
 Creating YouTube account
 Making videos and contributing comments

9. MY FIRST RESEARCH QUESTION:
HOW DO DIFFERENT GENERATIONS RELATE TO
ONE ANOTHER ON YOUTUBE?

10. GERIATRIC1927 AND YOUTUBE
 79 year old from the North
of England
 ‘Lead user’ (von Hippel)
 Living independently in the
community
 Some mobility problems

11. FIRST STUDY: ANALYSING
INTERGENERATIONAL COMMUNICATION
ON YOUTUBE
Transcribe
speech from
video
Transcribe speech
from video
responses
Use text comments

12. STANDARD VIDEO ANALYSIS (WITH
THE VIDEO AS ‘TEXT’)
 Everything translated into text
 Emphasises speech and language as the
meaning makers
 Easier to analyse and write about

13. CODING OF RESPONSES
Lege Comment Example Comment
nd Category
Technical “you can also change the
Feedback colors on Windows Movie
Maker.” Gt, 21, US –
response to Video 2
Comments “I’m gonna Email the
Relating to The Owner of YouTube and see
YouTube if we can get him a
Community “Director’s Account”.
KPW, 34 - response to
Video 8
Content “Thank you for sharing you
Related experiences! That camp
Comments sounds like it was hell.” Sl,
18 - response to Video 6
Personal/Emoti “great video…your so
ve Responses cool” Fr, 18, country
unstated - response to Video
6

14. RECIPROCAL LEARNING
Technical skills
“Try putting music into the video through the program you are
using, it would sound much better :)” [ZS,, 19, US - response to
Video 1]
“you can also change the colors on Windows Movie Maker. When
you are typing your text down by where it says animation or
what ever to change the display of your text it should be right
there. Just click that and you can change the font and then
color is right under the font” [Gt, 21, US – response to Video 2]
How to be a YouTuber
“Put names of popular tubers in your tags, you'll get more views.
It's kind of cheating I guess though... ” [MC, 28, Canada –
response to Video 2]

15. EVOLVING COMMUNITY THROUGH
DISCOURSE
Defining YouTube vlogging as ‘authentic’
practice
“You are the kind of person this bloody thing is
crying out for” [Pd, 34, UK – response to Video 4]

16. PETER’S RITE OF PASSAGE
 Video about affection
expressed towards the
younger generation
 YouTube haters
 Distrust towards older
YouTubers

17. THE CO-CREATION OF NARRATIVE
“you are so refreshing and real. thanks for
contributing to the you tube community. I
would love to hear bits of your wisdom any
tips on living life better or to its fullest”
[Gg, 34, US - response to Video 1]
[wisdom]
“tell us about what life ws like growing up
during the war” [Is, 20, UK - response to
Video 2] [ the war ]

18. CO-CREATION OF NARRATIVE
Subjects Suggested for Discussion in First 8 Videos
3%
11% 6%
3%
9%
Non-Political
The Modern World
20% Read Some Poetry
Relationships with Women
9%
Wisdom
Music
The Second World War
Older People's Opinions
6%
Motorbikes
33%

19. SIGNIFICANCE OF PETER’S YOUTUBE
SUCCESS
Intergenerational Connection
Everyday meetings between the oldest and youngest generations
within a local community are now rare (Williams and Nussbaum, 2001)
 Segregation of generations
 Geographical distancing within families
 Global connections of YouTube rather than local connections
Life History
Life review - established as a developmental activity in later life
(Erikson ; Butler 1969) often used in care homes for its
therapeutic effect.
Cultural transmission - Coleman (2006) points to one particular
purpose for reminiscence and life review which has largely
disappeared from industrialised societies but is evident here.

20. PETER’S FIRST TRY

21. PETER’S LIFE STORY: “TELLING IT
ALL”

22. EARLY RESPONSES

23. SECOND STUDY: HOW DO YOUTUBE VLOGGERS
ESTABLISH THE SENSE OF A CONVERSATION?
(MULTIMODAL INTERACTIONAL ANALYSIS)
Multimodal
video to
video

24. MEDIA VERSUS MODES
The medium – that which The mode – a medium put
conveys the message to communicative use
sound Speech, music, laughter,
background noise
Video Lighting Ambient lighting in homes
Physical Posture, facial and bodily gestures,
presence eye contact, pointing
Production On screen effects, framing of shots,
elements cutting between scenes, etc.
Physical Placing objects in field of view,
objects gesturing with objects,
On screen text Video titles, tags, captions,
comments, usernames, messages

25. PETER - TEXT
“Hello Youtubers, well first of all the title isn’t using
the well tried and popular method of getting views to
one's videos or by a catchy title. It comes from a letter
from a young man in Thailand who is a schoolboy I
believe he's aged 15 but that's not relevant - he is the
editor or producer of the school newspaper and he has
asked Geriatric if he will answer some questions to
pose in his newspaper”

26. PETER - SOUND

27. PETER – ONLINE VIDEO

28. VIDEO RESPONSE FROM TIM

29. VIDEO RESPONSE FROM ROBB

30. VIDEO RESPONSE FROM IVA

31. EPISTEMOLOGY
 Situated Action (Suchman)
Situated action "stresses the knowledgeability of actors and how
they use common-sense practices/procedures to produce, analyze
and make sense of one another's actions and their local or
situated circumstances" (Doerry, 1995).
 Symbolic Interactionism (Goffman, 1959)
Interaction is viewed as a "performance," shaped by environment
and audience, constructed to provide others with "impressions"
that are consonant with the desired goals of the actor.

32. YOUTUBERS ACTIVELY
Creating Conversational Space
CONSTRUCT THE SENSE
OF A CONVERSATION
BORROWING TECHNIQUES
FROM FACE TO FACE
COMMUNICATION
- EYE CONTACT
- TURN TAKING
- SHARED EXPERIENCE OF
PHYSICALITY
- SHARED EXPERIENCE OF
MIND
- NEGOTIATING
SIMULTANEOUS AUDIENCES

33. REFERENCES
Peter on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=geriatric1927
Peter’s website:
www.askgeriatric.com
The paper:
Harley, D. and Fitzpatrick, G. (2009) Creating a
Conversational Context Through Video
Blogging. A Case Study of Geriatric1927. In
Computers in Human Behavior, 25(3).

34. REFERENCES
Norris, S. (2004) Analyzing multimodal
interaction : a methodological framework. New
York : Routledge.
Kress, G., & Leeuwen, T. V. (2001). Multimodal
discourse: The modes and media of
contemporary communication. London: Arnold.
Heath et al (2010) Video in qualitative research :
analysing social interaction in everyday life.
Falmer library - 300.72/HEA