The following two quotes in italics are from this site, that was built to raise money for the funding of HOLLOW: An Interactive Documentary: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/elainemcmillion/hollow-an-interactive-documentary
Tagline: “Exploring
the issues and future of rural America through the eyes and ideas of those
living in Southern West Virginia.”
A tweet: “Help Doc Filmmakers:
Today’s film “Hollow” is an idea that could change small towns across the U.S.!”
In the introduction to Media Microecology, Bogost mentions that
some scholars and journalists such as Nicholas Carr believe that the internet
holds a significant amount of responsibility in contributing to “a decline in
the careful, reasoned, imaginative mind.” He argues that while many naively
believe that the world wide web and all of its information at our fingertips
makes us feel like we are instantaneously becoming smarter and more cultured,
“this feeling is a fleeting one, the burst of energy from a sugary snack
instead of a lasting nourishment from a wholesome meal.” (1) While Bogost does
not negate this argument, he offers a less forceful or definitive answer, by
expressing his ideology that “technology neither saves nor condemns us. It
influences us, of course, changing how we perceive, conceive of, and interact
with our world…it structures and informs our understanding and behavior.” (2)
Therefore, the existence of the
internet does not just serve as a tool to help us express ourselves or gain
information about the world; it actually takes on a more active role in our
lives by transforming our whole comprehension of information, and the way in
which we gain, share, and interact with it. We would be different people
because how we think, feel, and act would not be filtered or function through
the world wide web if it did not exist. Media texts and technologies are, after
all, “an extension of ourselves” as McLuhan stated (2). To break down just how
influential and manipulative a medium is, we should specifically study the many
ways it functions in our lives: the choices we make, our opinions of the world
around us, etc. In Bogost’s words, “One way to grasp a medium’s cultural
influence is to examine how much of that field of uses has been explored. This
approach represents a shift in how we encounter media artifacts as creators,
users, and critics.” (3)
Hollow:
An Interactive Documentary is a unique experience where any person who
possesses the internet can go to their website and watch a free documentary on
the people who live McDowell County, West Virginia, one of the poorest part of
the United States. As our class watched this video while Reilly manipulated the
computer screen, clicking on buttons and scrolling through pages like a digital
patchwork quilt of different characters and stories, I noticed that the medium
was always present in our minds because our constant participation was required
in order to view different “scenes.” Putting the documentary online instantly
gives the medium a strong role that you cannot forget about; the computer (and
its internet) becomes the actual body of the film, and you are the controller
of the entire experience. This is how we view the Internet and its functions in
general: it is built to serve our needs, and we expect to be in constant
control of what we see and do on it.
If McLuhan is to be justified in concluding that
“the medium is the message,” then it is expected that we as viewers use the
interactive internet experience to determine and connect the themes of the
material to the way in which it is presented, “for the ‘message’ of any medium
of technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces to
human affairs.” (McLuhan 130) The human affairs of McDowell county are put on
display, and just like its residents who live with
limited resources, the internet medium gives the viewer the ability to choose
what they watch, but not the freedom to choose the choices. As Reilly manipulated the mouse and carried us through this experience, it was not an option to skip ahead to another slide without following the order of the videos, like a board game. We had to travel through the different home screens with various characters, quotes, and diegetic sounds to get to the next page. No skipping. So in a way, we still got exposed to all the choices (resources), yet got to choose how we would be involved with them.
This was one of my favorite quotes
from the film: “How do we get people out of this mindset, that they are owed?”
For example, if young girls get pregnant, the government will pay for
their welfare. This is quite like the internet; we are so spoiled and privileged
to an extent, that we assume Wikipedia will do all of the work for us, in
providing us with correct research and documentation of factual topics. We are
lazy when it comes to technology sometimes, much like the unfortunate
stereotype of the people in this county. Yet the individuals interviewed mold
our NEW perspective of McDowell County, and as I’m sure you noticed, the people
were all very motivated by a spirit of hope and progression for
the future; these individuals desire to reestablish their community, get the attention away from their severe drug problem, and make it more of a tourist spot, therefore creating “a safety
net for the town.”
In relation to new media and the pertinence of exploring its functions, the media molds the way in which we perceive this town. Those who were interviewed (or volunteered) for this documentary are the smaller percentage of the type of people you
would actually see in this town. The people who make up their population at
large—elderly, young single mothers, children—were not interviewed. Thus while
it is wonderful that they are working to make the community better, this is the
ideology of the people in the movie and are not necessarily how the majority
feels or acts. Thus this documentary (and all documentaries) record the truth
that they WANT to establish as the truth, and we do not really see the rest.
The structure of this documentary experience for the viewers is quite like
that. We can take part and have a “voice” in the sense of choosing what we
click on, or the surveys we take throughout the different screens. This
involvement could make us feel like we are in control and are making a
difference by affecting the percentage of a statistic on a demographic. Yet it
is so small in comparison to the big picture. Regardless, we do help to mold what people think and feel by
leaving comments, or telling others about this video, which is very easy to do
since the documentary is public domain, so we can just send someone a link.
They don’t need to track it down or buy it. The function of advertising
essentially becomes easier, and also molds how we perceive the world,
particularly McDowell County, West Virginia. Overall, putting a film online
makes it more accessible, more public; it gives it a more permanent life
expectancy, and makes it easier to share with others.
The medium becomes the message in
that to make a change or to get the full experience (in life, and in the movie)
you have to be actively involved. It could be off-putting and annoying, the
amount of commitment and participation that is involved; you cannot just sit
back and watch this film and doze off or do something else as it plays in the
background; the movie only moves forward when you move it forward. But I do
believe that systematically, this was the plan all along: to put the viewers
(the global community) in charge of their involvement with their exposure to
the stories of a poverty-stricken community. It sends awareness out and makes
it much less of a “digital “sugary snack” and more of an important performance
art piece, in that the personal is political. You feel that since you are taking
the time and energy to engage with the material on an active level, that you
become invested in their stories and in the town, and now must do something to
help their political cause, most likely by using the internet. Thus the medium
IS the message because “it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and
form of human association and action.” (McLuhan 130)
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