Mike Jones Digital Basin
cinematic media rinse cycle

Short attention span? Online media in long-form.

There is a widely held belief that different mediums (TV, film, mobile, on-line, book, magazine, blog etc) have inherent, in-built, parameters dictating acceptable length; the duration and density that a viewer/reader of that medium will accept from that medium. We very often hear this in regard to on-line streaming video; that the YouTube aesthetic demands everything be under 5 minutes or viewers will switch off and move on to something else. I've heard pundits of mobile media technologies talk about the 30second threshold, that people wont watch anything on their mobile phone for more than 30seconds. And all this spills over into (or perhaps indeed spills over from) Print where there is the widely held belief from editors and writers that writing on-line cannot engage the same depth, length or breadth that could be 'sustained' in print publications – newspapers and magazines.

To this I say Bullshit...!

I say a work will be watched or read for as long as it is engaging, useful or interesting.

I say it's in a large part a self-fulfilling prophecy where by the assumption is that on-line media needs to be shallow and short and therefore it is Made shallow and short.

I say just because a homemade YouTube video of a pet dog taking a shit in a pair of shoes cant be sustained for more than 30seconds does not mean that the medium itself has such restrictive paradigms.

I say these concerns are artificial constraints derived from short-sightedness on the highly transitory 'now' rather than forward-thinking visions of what's to come. Constrains borne of temporary technical limitations (bandwidth, connection speed, screen size) which are everyday being washed away to obsolescence. 5 years from now will any on-line video be delivered at pixelated 320x240..? Of course not.

I say that writing on-line demands that content dictate form far in excess of any other medium ever known and so long-form writing is more at home on-line than anywhere. An open-ended, infinite publishing platform cannot help but drive towards new definitions of long-form detailed writing. Not least of all because on-line allows for viewer interest specialization en-masse that the economies of scale in print publishing can never accommodate.

I say that anyone singing the mantra of what on-line media Can and Cannot accommodate when it comes to length, duration or complexity is living in a very narrow and backward thinking world.

As a small element of proof in such a verbose diatribe I present an article by Dan Brockett entitled

As I Hear It: Choosing the Right Microphone An Overview of Popular Short Shotgun, Supercardioid, Hypercardiod and Cardioid Microphones

The article examines sound, locations recording, microphone technology and reviews a vast array of different microphones makes, models and types. The article is long, deep and wide and is a fantastic resource as well as fine example of on-line journalistic reviewing tha moves beyond the Fluff mentality and expectation.

Posted at 12:00AM Jan 27, 2008 by Mike Jones in audio  |  Comments[1]