Digital Narrative: Live-streaming of Street Dance Events

 

What is my research project about? 

This research project has allowed me to discover the outcomes of being able to broadcast “underground” events to a global scale, in real time. I analyzed the effects of street dance events in the past and also the impact it made when turned into an online event where the globe can spectate at the same time.

The change between underground events and having the opportunity to view events online has somewhat both pros and cons. In the past, if you wanted to know about an event and feel the energy, the only way was to go to the event itself. It brought that selective feeling as not a plethora of people would watch, making you feel like one of the chosen ones. In the 21st century, people can watch on their phones wherever they are in the world, which loses its authentic underground touch. The quality of the livestream also depends on the bandwidth connection in the area, which plays a major role on feeling the vibe of the event.

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Two World Class Bboys going head to head in RedBull BC One World Final

“Live streaming can be technically difficult and particularly challenging when it comes to things like bandwidth. Quality of footage is a major issue and if poor, it can reflect badly on professional organizations.” Abraham, I. A. (2015)

Why this topic? 

I decided to investigate on this topic due to my interest on street dance and how the media has changed the game for what was known to be underground and evolved into a global media community. My research question: How effective are live-streams for street dance events? The purpose of this research was to find out whether the energy and vibes are affected when live-streamed, which are major components for the street dance scene.

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Live stream advertisement for a renowned street dance event 

Methodology 

In order to investigate on this matter, I conducted three face to face interviews who are part of the street dance community in Hong Kong. They consist of dancers of breaking and wacking (forms of street dance). These interviews were useful as I was able to ask any follow up questions and also they were knowledgeable in their field of events. I also conducted an ethnography study before I interviewed them, to see how they would react when watching a livestream event. I used live-streams from YouTube from RedBull and other popular street dance events globally.

For the formality of the research project, I sent out consent forms to them, to explain how their information would be used in the research project.

I also looked upon YouTube comments of the to find what other users think about the live-stream, which I stated later in my digital narrative when I started speaking in the video.

Results 

The interviews were effective, but it could have been better with maybe interviews from people who are event organizers or the media production team. This is due to the limitation of the weeks needed to prepare this project. Overall, the interviews provided some information that I found quite intriguing.

Through this research, I was able to find out the effectiveness of live-streaming on street dance events. Even though the live-streams were able to provide a convenient method to stay up to date with these underground events, some vital elements were missing through this media advantage. Some agree that the livestreams were able to show the energy of the event, with people and dancers going wild when someone performs a spectacular move. However, compared to events in person, the audience couldn’t give “props” online. They simply shout to themselves when something cool appears, but it is not like the event in person where you can see others go crazy as well.

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Audience of an event giving props to the dancers

Although the live-streams may have missed out this real time “props” function, the live-streams were still able to portray the vibe and energy of the event through this real time technology. Viewers were still able to keep up to date and feel as if they were part of the event, which created a global media community for the street dance worldwide. But the effectiveness depended on the bandwidth connection, the livestream angles i.e. if the camera crew knew the right angles and timing, and also the function of giving props together as a global community.

 

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What did I learn? 

Throughout this research process, I was able to understand more about the BCM240 material into practical matter. I can see the relation between media, audience and place towards the investigation regarding live-streaming street dance events in today’s generation.

Media practices has changed the way people view street dance events. In the past, the only way to know anything about the event and the highlights is to be there in person. But with live-streams, people do not need to go all the way to another country to see an event, but stay at home and enjoy the event from the comfort of their home. The audience of the livestreams are also affected as now they are a little lazy to go out to watch these events in person, which could create a loss of audience in these events in the long run. The use of public place is used as these live-streams can be viewed at home, work, school or anywhere you can think of that provides an internet connection.

Technical side of the project 

In a technical aspect for this project, I was able to produce a simple video with an application called Clipchamp. Clipchamp is an online video editor that is easy to use for anyone, even with little editing experience. Due to technical difficulties with my laptop, I was not able to use the professional video editing software I normally use. Which is why I had to focus on making a simple video with the online video editor that requires no download.

The video started with an introduction of the research project, briefly talking about how street dance events were like in the past and the present day. It then proceeded to showing a few clips of the ethnography study I conducted, with finally the interviews to uncover the questions regarding livestreaming street dance events. I ended with a conclusion of how live-streams changed the game of the street dance world. I used a myriad of fonts and transitions to make the video stand out more. I did not include music as I felt it would make the video lose it’s professionalism of the video.

Reflection 

Overall, I believe I fulfilled the requirements and successfully portrayed the research idea into my digital narrative. With this video, I believe it can give people the idea on how the media has changed the game for the world. Not solely on street dance events but also other aspects in life.

I had a few setbacks though, such as not organizing my time well for the interviews and video planning. But overall, I believe I can learn from this project and understand more on how media brings a lot of positive impact in the global community we live in today.

References

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