The document discusses conducting research on streaming mobile video content that has civic value. It proposes analyzing content from sites like Ustream and Qik to categorize video types and measure viewer discussion. Interviews would explore producers' goals and contexts. While the field is emerging, the research could provide insights into how streaming mobile video impacts civic participation and the blurring line between public and private spheres. However, challenges include the rapidly changing technology and capturing cultural context from international content.

1. No more m-governance thesis! e-governance is too huge & an unfamiliar domain found great UK case study but it’s too difficult to manage from overseas need methodology that’s feasible mobile video ethno study = more fun! + in line with my interests/aca background

2. streaming mobile video, civic production, & the redefinition of the public realm

3. civic stream (Latin civicus, from civis citizen) : of or relating to a citizen, a city, citizenship, or community affairs. : a mass of people or things moving continually in the same direction: a continuous flow of data (audio or video) t ypically having a constant or predictable rate. (v) : of or concerning the people as a whole. (n) : ordinary people in general; the community. public

4. research questions What type of content is being created through streaming mobile video, and how much of this content has civic value? (big question)

5. How does the real-time filming and broadcasting of content affect the public realm (and discourse/viewer engagement within that realm), physically and virtually? Does the impact or purpose of mobile video content, once online, differ from its producer's intent? What are the contexts around which these videos are being produced? Do producers of civic content self-identify as activists, journalists, politically engaged or technically proficient? With mobile video documentation of private and public spheres increasing, how is the intersection of the public and private becoming increasingly blurred in the virtual public realm, and through the physical mobility enabled by mobile phones? What ‘technosocial’ practises are emerging? As mobile video becomes easier to produce and distribute (no costly equipment or editing skills necessary), how does this expand produsage to users on the low-access side of the participation gap? What does the future of streaming mobile video look like? For civic ends? (bottom-up surveillance by citizens of one another and the state, or merely the publicizing of personal content?) (sub-questions)

6. methodological approach > qik.com > ustream.tv > kyte.tv > flickr.com

9. quantitative > e-interviews with up to 10 users who’ve posted ‘civic’ videos > questions about their goals, choice of the mobile platform, choice of streaming, expected impact of their video, and other factors about their motivations, intentions, and self-identification > content analysis + interpretive textual analysis + ethnomethodological approach qualitative > lurking on streaming {mobile} video sites > categorizing mobile videos by type (shot in public/private space; journalistic, entertainment, personal, political; amount of viewer discussion, etc.) > tracking which videos have ‘civic’ value > ~10/day (~1,800 total over six months)

10. why this? why now? Ilpo Koskinen, Mobile Multimedia 2.0? “ M ultimedia content is produced by individuals, but sent to the Web instead of just individual recipients. There is a potential for community action. However, though no data exists about the use of such things , it is probably a safe bet to say that we have just seen the first experiments in this realm.” “ I n one area, civil journalism, the line between top-down communication and grassroots communication is being tried out. People routinely send content they find interesting and newsworthy to newspapers, media, and Internet media companies....However, figures about the extent of civil journalism are not yet here , making its importance difficult to evaluate.”

11. Weisz et al., W atching Together: Integrating Text Chat with Video “ [ D]espite the growing popularity of online video, and especially video-centered interactions, to our knowledge there is no research that examines how people experience video broadcasts with real-time chat. ” M.G. Siegler, ‘ Looking Forward To Streaming Live Video From Your iPhone 3G S? Not So Fast.’ TechCrunch, 6/10/09 “ W hy any of this matters is because live streaming video from your phone is proving to be an invaluable tool for certain circumstances. Despite its popularity, most people still don ’t carry around Flip cameras at all times, and even if they did, those don ’ t stream live to the web. But having such a tool that is always on you, on your phone, with such capabilities is huge. ” Okabe & Ito, E veryday Contexts of Camera Phone Use: Steps Toward Technosocial Ethnographic Frameworks “ [ O]ur analytic frame is oriented primarily towards understanding native contexts of meanings and frames for action . Our argument is that technical structure is inseparable from structures of culture and society . Based on our commitments to a technosocial frame of ethnographic analysis, we have arrived at categories of practice that are keyed to native frames for action. These are personal archiving, intimate visual co-presence, and peer-to-peer news and sharing. ”

12. theoretical frameworks Mobile multimedia research & communication studies Ilpo Koskinen, Mimi Ito, Rich Ling, Nancy Van House, James Katz, Daisuke Okabe, Patricia Lange Social network analysis (incl. public/private spheres, space/place, mobility studies) danah boyd , Peter Dahlgren, Stephen Graham, W.L. Bennett, Manuel Castells, Mimi Sheller, John Urry, John Postilll, Bruno Latour Cultural production/consumption; produsage; audiences & publics Axel Bruns, Sonia Livingstone, Josh Green, Henry Jenkins! Civic engagement/participation Manual Castells, Mark Warschauer, Howard Rheingold, Robert Putnam

13. key texts ++ Mobile Communication in Everyday Life: Ethnographic Views, Observations and Reflections (eds. Joachim R. H öf l ich and Maren Hartmann) Mobile communication and society: A global perspective. (Castells, Fernandez-Ardevol, Qiu, et al.) “ Mobile Communication and the Transformation of Democratic Process” by Kenneth Gergen, in Handbook of Mobile Studies (ed. James Katz) Mobile Communications: Renegotiation of the Social Sphere (eds. Ling & Pedersen) Internet Inquiry: Conversations About Method (eds. Annette Markham and Nancy Baym) Mobile Media in Action (Ilpo Koskinen) Youtube: Online Video and Participatory Culture (Burgess, Green, Jenkins, Hartley) A Sense of Place: The Global and the Local In Mobile Communication (ed.Krist óf N yiri) Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life (Mimi Ito) Audiences and publics: when cultural engagement matters for the public sphere (Sonia Livingstone)

14. chapters Abstract I. Introduction > Main research question + related sub-questions > Why is this topic important? (Lack of research in this area; it’s an emergent media practise) II. Mobility, representation, participation > Brief history of multimedia production on portable devices + developments in mobile (phone) video > Portable objects as mediators of public infrastructures, events, actions by everyday people > Traditional mobile multimedia (and now live streaming video) as blurring the boundaries of public and private III. The two-way mirror: A case study of streaming mobile video online > Methodological approach (watching and categorizing content (ustream.tv, qik.tv, kyte.tv); interviewing producers of key ‘c ivic value ’ videos > Theoretical positions: ethno-informed content analysis + interpretive textual analysis (vs. Ito/Okabe’s ‘technosocial frame of ethnographic analysis’) > Quantitative findings: analysis of aggregated streaming site content surveyed > Qualitative findings: analysis of producer goals, self-representation (as activist? journalist? politically engaged?), context for producing video, use of mobile as mode of capture, access to computer/camcorder/editing > Participation by online viewers IV. Implications for future trends and research V. Conclusion

15. concerns Examining types of streaming content + public realm civic value + viewer discussion/participation: too much at once? ustream.tv just getting started with mobile; qik.com has choppy streams; current iPhones can’t live stream. The streaming mobile video field is changing every week; might be very different in April than it is in October. Cultural context (esp. in technosocial analysis) difficult to analyze, since much of the content is international. Approach it from Green’s perspective of “cosmopolitan cultural citizenship” in the virtual public realm? It’s hard to measure “public discourse” generated by these videos merely from the amount of live chats or comments.