D-I-Y television

On the theme of user-generated content again, it is noticeable that there are now opportunities for the general public in the UK to upload videos which may then appear on television. For example, Sky News have begun to air selected videos made and uploaded by viewers onto Skycast. Satellite and cable viewers are able to get Bedroom TV, a channel that shows lip-synch-to-fave-songs videos made at home (Channel 376 on Sky if you haven''t seen it - there are some hilarious videos uploaded, of course). At the moment only short films are shown, but it is nice to imagine that one day we will be able to watch longer home-made texts on television, such as documentaries made by a particular group about a specific issue of which they have experience and insight. Even better would be a channel devoted to showing films made by children...come on, BBC, what are you waiting for?!

Content creation

I spent some of the recent break watching my three nieces using Club Penguin. They love it, but they would like the ability to create things in it as well - one niece was desperate for her penguin avatar to have a wig that included a tiara, something not available in the Club Penguin catalogue as yet, unfortunately, and she would have liked to have been able to create it herself. Maybe this aspect of the site will be developed in time. Certainly, online creation by young people is growing. A recent Pew Internet and American Life report on 'Teens and social media' indicates that 64% of online teenagers aged 12 - 17 engages in at least one type of content creation. There are other interesting aspects of the data, including the report that the teenagers who use social networking sites are 'super-communicators' who also use a range of other communication tools more frequently than non-SNS users. This shouldn't be surprising as the key issue is motivation for use and if the urge to chat to friends and family is strong, then it will strong across media. And different modes of communication are good for different things. Maybe an email to Disney about the possibility of content creation in Club Penguin would be a good thing...