Collapse of Context

http://www.nitmesh.com/blog/2008/08/context-collapse-of-media---an-anthropological-study-of-youtube-web-video.html

"Context Collapse of Media - An anthropological study of Youtube Web Video

He describes the increasing individualism and independence but in contrast the growing desire for community and relationship amongst the Youtube community. What he calls the 'networked individualism' and the 'cultural inversion' going on as well as the increasing commercialisation and longing for authenticity (especially after lonelygirl15) from the Youtube community and the growing sense of 'context collapse'. "

http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/?p=183

Now look carefully at a webcam. That’s there. That’s somewhere else. That’s everybody. On the other side of that little glass lens is almost everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you have ever heard of, and even those you have never heard of. In more specific terms, it is everyone who has or will have access to the internet – billions of potential viewers, and your future self among them. Some have called it at once the biggest and the smallest stage – the most public space in the world, entered from the privacy of our own homes. Through it we can reach out to a next door neighbor or across the world … to people we love, people we want to love, or people we don’t even know … to share something deep or something trivial, something serious or something funny, to strive for fame or to simply connect. That seemingly innocuous and insignificant glass dot is the eyes of the world and the future.
What does one say to the world and the future? Faced with such a daunting question, it is not surprising to find many would-be first-time vloggers perplexed by the webcam, often reporting that they spent several hours transfixed in front of the lens, trying to decide what to say.
The problem is not lack of context. It is context collapse: an infinite number of contexts collapsing upon one another into that single moment of recording. The images, actions, and words captured by the lens at any moment can be transported to anywhere on the planet and preserved (the performer must assume) for all time. The little glass lens becomes the gateway to a blackhole sucking all of time and space – virtually all possible contexts – in upon itself.


At some point in his presentation he talks about the concept of ‘Context collapse’. Enthusing about YouTube and vlogging, he develops his theory about the context collapse when people are posting a video they don’t know who is going to watch it, how they’ll watch it and where.
Here is what he has to say about it: “The problem is not lack of context. It is context collapse: an infinite number of contexts collapsing upon one another into that single moment of recording. The images, actions, and words captured by the lens at any moment can be transported to anywhere on the planet and preserved (the performer must assume) for all time. The little glass lens becomes the gateway to a blackhole sucking all of time and space – virtually all possible contexts – in upon itself.”
This is what’s difficult with digital communication these days! We are like someone about to post a video on YouTube, we don’t know who is going to see our content, how they will view it and if it is going to be remixed or misinterpreted. This is the beauty and the difficulty of digital: less control and more genuine actions!


http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/?p=183  - WEsch's definition of context collapse